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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
results which are already described in this journal * — when we 
detect the same lines as those which we have discovered in our 
artificial flame. We pursue this very interesting discovery, and 
we find that several metals which give colour to flame, and 
produce certain lines, when subjected to spectrum analysis, are 
to be detected in the rays of the sun. Therefore our inference 
is, that some substances, similar to the terrestrial bodies, with 
which we are familiar, are actually undergoing a change in the 
sun, analogous to those changes which we call combustion ; and, 
more than this, we argue that the high probability is, that all 
solar energies are developed under those conditions of chemical 
change — that, in fact, the sun is burning, and while solar matter 
is changing its form, Force is rendered active, and as ray-power 
passes off into space as light, heat, &c. to do its work upon dis- 
tant worlds, and these forms of F orce are expended in doing the 
work of development on those worlds. This idea — theory — 
hypothesis — call it what we may — involves of necessity the 
waste of energy in the sun, and we must concede the possibility 
of the blazing sun’s gigantic mass becoming eventually a globe 
of dead ashes, unless we can comprehend some method by which 
energy can be again restored to the inert matter. Certain it is 
that the sun has been shining thousands of years, and its in- 
fluence on this earth we know to have been the production of 
organised masses, absorbing the radiant energies, in volumes 
capable of measurement. On this earth for every equivalent 
of heat developed, a fixed equivalent of matter has changed its 
form ; and so likewise is it with regard to the other forces. On the 
sun, in like manner, every cubic mile of sunshine represents the 
change of form of an equivalent of solar matter, and that equi- 
valent of matter is no longer capable of supplying Force, unless 
by some conditions beyond our grasp at present it takes up 
again that which it has lost. That something of this kind 
must take place is certain. The sun is not burning out. 
After the lapse of thousands of years we have the most incon- 
trovertible evidence that the light of to-day is no less brilliant 
now, than it was when man walked amidst the groves of Eden. 
We may venture further back into the arcana of time, and say 
that the sun of the past summer has shone with splendour 
equal to the radiant power which myriads of ages ere yet man 
appeared on this planet stimulated the growth of those luxu- 
riant forests which perished to form those vast beds from which 
we derive our coal. Not a ray the less is poured out in any 
hour of sunshine : not a grain weight of matter is lost from 
the mass of the sun. If either the sunshine was weakened, or 
the weight of the vast globe diminished, the planets would 
* “ Popular Science Review,” vol. 1, pp. 210-214. 
