PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
i. 
Eecent Discoveries m Solar Physics. 
By William Lant Carpenter, B.A., B.Sc. 
Read at the General Meeting, January the 7th, 1869. 
ABSTRACT. 
The speaker stated that this more detailed communication was made 
in compliance with the wish of the Society, as expressed at the December 
(1868) Meeting. After expressing an opinion that solar physics was now 
the most progressive department in science, through the agency of the 
spectroscope, he briefly explained the construction and mode of action of 
that instrument of research, and dwelt at some length on the three great 
classes of spectra revealed by it ; 1 . — continuous spectra, where the source of 
light was invariably an incandescent solid; 2. — spectra of detached bright lines, 
where the source of light was an incandescent gas or vapour (each gas pro- 
ducing a line or set of lines characteristic of itself, and by which its presence 
could be recognised) ; and 3. — spectra like class 1, in which the continuity 
was broken by dark lines or bands crossing the spectrum. 
The spectra of the sun and of most of the stars were stated to belong to 
this last class, and the dark lines were shown to be caused by the absorbing 
influence, exercised by certain gases and vapours in the atmospheres 
surrounding these bodies, upon the light given off from the glowing masses 
themselves. Kirchoff's demonstration of the presence of the vapours of 
metals in the solar atmosphere was explained. 
By applying the spectroscope to the light of the nebula and comets, 
Mr. Huggins had, in 1864, discovered that most of the nebula, and all the 
comets hitherto examined, were gaseous in their nature, their spectra con- 
sisting of bright lines (Class II.), some of which were identical with those in 
