1879-] 
8oi 
Simple Bodies ? 
the great chemist Berthollet, in regard to the influence of 
man on chemical reaction, seems to promise most important 
discoveries in chemical statics and the possibility of applying 
mathematical reasoning and formulae to chemical activities. 
The marvellous series of experiments presented recently by 
Crookes, in which have been exhibited the wholly unexpected 
phenomena which he has described under the designation of 
what was first referred to by Faraday as a fourth form of 
matter, which this illustrious experimentalist called radiant 
matter, seemed to open up a field of research and specula- 
tion until now wholly undreamed of. In truth, the aCtive 
scientific workers have now been brought by their refined 
and novel researches to touch the near extremities of innu- 
merable lines of thought and investigation, stretching out 
into unknown regions, whose exploration is to occupy the 
activity and reward the labours of a coming generation.” 
In discussing the question whether or not the study 
of the speCtrum has thrown, or is likely to throw, 
any light on the ultimate constitution of matter, Dr. 
Balfour Stewart* recently referred to the faCt that Prout 
first pointed out that the atomic weights of the so- 
called elements are very nearly all multiples of the half of 
that of hydrogen, so that the various elements may possibly 
be looked upon as formed by a grouping together of certain 
atoms of half the mass of the hydrogen atom. A most re- 
markable series of experiments was conducted by M. Stas 
to test this doCtrine. He came to the conclusion that the 
atomic weights of the various elements were not precisely 
multiples of the half of that of hydrogen, there being 
greater differences than could possibly be accounted for by 
errors of experiment. But Dr. Stewart, calling attention 
to the great difficulty of obtaining substances absolutely free 
from all impurity, does not admit that Stas’s researches 
settled the point in the negative, and points to the speCtrum 
as a likely means of throwing some light on the question. 
Now Mr. Lockyer’s researches tend to show that at suffi- 
ciently high temperatures the so-called chemical elements, 
or at all events some of them, are compound bodies. These 
researches were not undertaken with the view of decom- 
posing the elements. Mr. Lockyer was preparing a map of 
the solar speCtrum on a large scale, and the work included 
a comparison of the Fraunhofer lines with those visible in 
the speCtrum of the vapour of each of the metallic elements 
* Nature. “On some Points in the History of Spedtrum Analysis: an 
Address to the Natural Philosophy Classes at Owens College, Manchester, 
November, 1879.” 
