438 C. PIAZZI SMYTH ON MICROMETRICAL MEASURES OF 



of this world, nothing of its solid material would be left, except atoms and 

 molecules vibrating in the intense light and heat, we may be pretty sure that 

 while Hydrogen would be dancing like the fire-fiend above the scene of 

 destruction, the more stolid CO would dominate beneath. 



Its Numerical Explanation. 



But would such a reproduction of Nebular haze bring back the chaos, the 

 confusion, of the Greeks ; or would it be an entrance into a superior realm 

 of law and order, in number, weight, and measure ? 



Let the 44 lines in this Green peninsula of CO, now first rescued from the 

 very bad definition, uniform haze, and contracted views of the old observers, — 

 answer for themselves. 



There are evidently amongst them, on the grand 26' inch scale, lines thick, 

 and lines thin ; lines single, and double, and triple ; some expanding their 

 distances apart in the direction of the violet, and others towards the red; 

 there are places of unseemly crowding together of many lines, and other 

 spaces which are comparatively bare, — in short, a careless viewer would 

 pronounce at once for confusion. But having fortunately sent one of the ori- 

 ginal, and raw, but large sized instrumental records to my friend Professor 

 Alexander S. Herschel, — he was enabled by his experienced study of such 

 phenomena to return in three days a demonstration, that each of those 44 

 lines was a necessary step in a remarkable system of physical numeration, 

 proceeding in two rows of simple arithmetical progression, one over, but slightly 

 advanced upon, the other ; not accidently or discordantly, — but so as to set 

 forth the unit, the quinary, the decimal, and even the quinquagesimal 

 standard of what may be now termed the CO system of linear construction. 



The success of this numerical demonstration, this extraction of scientifically 

 ordered simplicity out of at first sight extreme complexity, may be quickly 

 judged of by reference to the large Plate No. LXXVIII. prepared especially to 

 show it; but more completely still, by reading Prof. A. S. Herschel's letters 

 in Appendices Nos. I. and II. Their account is happily so complete, and so 

 independent, as to leave nothing further for me to remark upon here, except 

 observationally ; for theory in this case has given pretty certain indications 

 that 8 lines out of the 44 which I have set down as single, are really doubles; 

 but far closer than anything which I have yet been able to resolve. These 

 cases must therefore be left to future observers, a test for their instruments 

 to come ; and a still further proof we may expect, when it does come, of the 

 exact geometrical foundations of the very smallest components of the ultimate 

 materials of Nature. 



