298 
POPULAR SCIENCE REYIEW. 
slightest degree comparable with that splendid volume. As regards the 
method of description pursued by the author, we admit freely that he pur- 
sues his plan of teaching without the aid of mathematics ; but still his pages 
are not light reading, however accurate they may be. Here is a fair specimen 
of his work; it is from his chapter on the sun : — 
“ The sun exhibits every characteristic evidence of a body enveloped in 
an atmosphere of flame, the lower part of his atmosphere being compara- 
tively dark, coinciding with that portion of the flame of an ordinary candle, 
or other body under combustion, intervening between the brightest portion 
of the flame, or region of white light, called the photosphere \ and above 
that a region in which coloured flame or light is sometimes manifested, 
especially along the edges of the solar disc, and which last region is called 
the chromosphere, But for a singular peculiarity of the solar disk, however, 
to which great interest and attention have been of late years attracted, we 
should probably never have been able to discover that the solid matter of 
the sun was not co-extensive with its apparent dimensions or luminous 
appearance, or to have known, as we now definitely do, that the real body or 
solid mass of the sun is a dark sphere of matter confined within a fiery 
prison-house — a robe of fiercest flame. The peculiarity we refer to is what 
are popularly called the spots in the sun, an obvious misnomer, as we shall 
soon perceive, but a characteristic enough description of the appearance 
presented.” 
The foregoing passage conveys a rather favourable idea of the author’s 
style, and we have selected it in consequence, yet it possesses less or more 
of the qualities to which we have alluded. Of course the book is not ad- 
vanced in the knowledge which it conveys. For instance, the multitude of 
facts conveyed by the spectroscope are left untold by the author, who, how- 
ever, has something to say upon the subj ect of spectroscopic matters. It is 
this part of his volume — the only part which has anything new in it — that 
we have to object to. We do so because it contains ideas which are at all 
events entirely new. But we object to it all the more because we believe 
the author’s opinions to be utterly unsound, and to have nothing whatever 
in support of them. We think, therefore, that they should not have been 
introduced here, but in the “Monthly Notices.” The author holds the sin- 
gular belief that “ the different colours of the spectrum are only different 
degrees of intensity in the manifestation and action of light — the blue being 
the weaker, the red stronger, and the yellow the strongest, short of white 
light.” He endeavours to support this idea in these pages, but his argu- 
ments are of the weakest possible' nature, and altogether the subject is 
misplaced. The illustrations are many of them excellent, and are exceed- 
ingly numerous, but some of them are rather fancifully coloured and shaded. 
Finally, the religious tone of the book is too constantly present, and is, to 
our minds, a good deal too one-sided, and we think we may add, too bigoted 
also. 
