30 
Recent Chemical Researches. 
[January, 
we should not feel at all surprised if the attempt were made 
to suppress flesh-eating by the power of the law. If we 
might presume to advise, we should suggest to vegetarians 
the propriety of being a little less selfish, and not seeking to 
force their good things upon a reludtant public. Let them 
remember that virtue itself is not exempt from the laws of 
supply and demand. If the vegetarian system possesses 
half the merits claimed by its advocates, those who carry it 
out in practice will soon evince such an unmistakable supe- 
riority to their neighbours that imputations, abusive epithets, 
and all the stock in trade of modern professional philan- 
thropy will be utterly needless. 
III. RECENT CHEMICAL RESEARCHES. 
By M. M. Pattison Muir, F.C.S. 
N the following paper we propose to give an account of 
some of the most important recent researches bearing 
upon points of theoretical interest in Chemical Science. 
I. Dissociation of Elements. 
From the time of Prout to the present day the theory that 
the so-called elementary bodies are really compound sub- 
stances has found supporters. Mr. J. Norman Lockyer has 
lately put forward an hypothesis, concerning the dissociation 
of elementary atoms by the intense heat of the sun and 
certain stars, which well merits the attention of chemists. 
Inasmuch as all solids give continuous spedtra, while all 
vapours produced by the high-tension spark give line- 
spedtra, — inasmuch, further, as compounds give continuous 
spedtra, but are resolved by the high-tension spark into their 
constituent elements, — the conclusion may be drawn that 
an element in a solid state is more complex than the same 
element in a state of vapour. 
The following five stages in spedtrum complexity are dis- 
tinguished : — 
First stage of complexity . . Line-spedtrum. 
Second ,, „ .. Channelled space-spedtrum. 
Third „ ,, .. Continuous absorption at the blue end. 
Fourth ,, ,, .. Continuous absorption at the red end. 
Fifth ,, ,, .. Unique continuous absorption. 
These different spedtra are believed to be due to different 
molecular aggregations. The spedtra of the non-metallic 
elements do not exhibit the same order of change, with 
