PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 



1836. No. 26, 



June 2, 1836. 

 DAVIES GILBERT, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



A paper was read, entitled " Note relative to the supposed origin 

 of the deficient rays in the Solar Spectrum; being an account of an 

 experiment made at Edinburgh during the Annular Eclipse of May 15, 

 1836." By James D. Forbes, Esq., Professor of Natural Philosophy 

 in the University of Edinburgh. 



The observation that some of the rays of light, artificially produced, 

 are absorbed by transmission through nitrous acid gas, had suggested 

 to Sir David Brewster the idea that the dark spaces in the solar pris- 

 matic spectrum may, in like manner, be occasioned by the absorption 

 of the deficient rays during their passage through the sun's atmosphere . 

 It occurred to the author that the annular eclipse of the sun of the 

 present year would afford him an opportunity of ascertaining whether 

 any difference in the appearance of the spectrum could be detected 

 when the light came from different parts of the solar disc, and had 

 consequently traversed portions of the sun's atmosphere of very dif- 

 ferent thickness; and that accurate observations of this kind would 

 put the hypothesis in question to a satisfactory test. The result of the 

 experiment was that no such differences could be perceived ; thus 

 proving, as the author conceives, that the sun's atmosphere is in no 

 way concerned with the production of the singular phenomenon of 

 the existence of dark lines in the solar spectrum. 



A paper was also read, entitled " On the connexion of the anterior 

 columns of the Spinal Cord with the Cerebellum ; illustrated by pre- 

 parations of these parts in the Human subject, the Horse, and the 

 Sheep." By Samuel Solly, Esq., Lecturer on Anatomy and Physi- 

 ology at St. Thomas's Hospital, M.R.I., Fellow of the Royal Medical 

 and Chirurgical Society, and Member of the Hunterian Society, 

 Communicated by P. M. Roget, M.D., Sec. R.S. 



The exact line of demarcation between the tracts of nervous matter, 

 subservient to motion and to sensation, which compose the spinal cord, 

 has not yet been clearly determined. The proofs which exist of a 

 power residing in the cerebellum which regulates and controls the 



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