The  Chemical  Elements. 
<  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      April,  1879. 
observed  that  dark  solar  lines  occur  in  positions  connected  with  those  of  all  the 
bright  iron  lines  !  Exactly  as  the  sodium  lines  were  identical  with  Fraunhofer's  lines, 
so  for  each  of  the  iron  lines,  of  which  Kirchhoff  and  Angstrom  have  mapped  no  less 
than  460,  a  dark  solar  line  was  seen  to  correspond.  Not  only  had  each  line  its  dark 
representative  in  the  solar  spectrum,  but  the  breadth  and  degree  of  shade  of  the  two  sets  of 
lines  uoere  seen  to  agree  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  the  brightest  iron  lines  corresponding 
to  the  darkest  solar  lines." 
This  statement  was  made  to  prove  the  absolutely  identical  nature  of  the  iron 
vapor  in  the  sun's  atmosphere  and  in  the  electric  spark.  As  the  statement  is  not 
true,  the  vapors  can  hardly  be  identical. 
Such,  then,  is  the  reasoning  on  which  I  base  the  two  counts  in  the  indictment 
against  the  simple  nature  of  the  elementary  bodies. 
First,  the  common  lines  visible  in  the  spectra  of  different  elements  at  high  iden- 
tical Temperatures  point  to  a  common  origin.  Secondly,  the  different  lines  visible  in 
the  spectra  of  the  same  substance  at  high  and  low  temperatures  indicate  that  at  high 
temperatures  dissociation  goes  on  as  continuously  as  it  is  generally  recognized  to  do 
at  all  lower  temperatures. 
In  my  paper  I  attempt  to  show  that  if  we  grant  that  the  highest  temperatures  pro- 
duce common  bases — in  other  words,  if  the  elements  are  really  compounds — all  the 
phenomena  so  difficult  to  account  for  on  the  received  hopothesis  find  a  simple  and 
sufficient  explanation  And,  with  regard  to  the  second  count,  I  discuss  the  cases  of 
calcium,  iron,  lithium  and  hydrogen  I  might  have  brought,  and  shall  subsequently 
bring,  other  cases  forward.  In  all  these  I  show  that  the  lines  most  strongly  devel- 
oped at  the  highest  temperatures  are  precisely  those  which  are  seen  almost  alone 
in  the  spectra  of  the  hottest  stars,  and  which  are  most  obviously  present  in  the  spec- 
trum of  our  own  sun.  Now,  if  it  be  true  that  the  temperature  of  the  arc  breaks  up 
the  elements,  then  the  higher  temperature  of  the  sun  should  do  this  in  a  still  more 
effective  manner.    Here,  then,  we  have  a  test. 
I  have  put  this  question  to  the  sun,  and  I  have  sent  in  a  second  paper  to  the  Royal 
Society  embodying  a  preliminary  discussion  of  Professor  Young's  work  at  Sherman, 
Tacchini's  observations,  and  my  own.  In  this  paper  I  state  my  grounds  for  the 
believe  that  all  the  solar  phenomena  we  have  been  watching  with  our  spectroscopes 
for  the  last  ten  years  can  not  be  explained  on  the  existing  hypothesis,  and  that  they 
are  simply  and  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  supposing  that  primordial  atoms  are 
associated  in  the  corona  and  dissociated  in  the  reversing  layer. 
In  this  way  the  vertical  currents  in  the  solar  atmosphere,  both  ascending  and 
descending,  the  intense  absorption  in  sun-spots,  their  association  with  the  faculae,  and 
the  apparently  continuous  spectrum  of  the  corona,  and  its  structure,  find  an  easy  solution. 
We  are  yet  as  far  as  ever  from  a  demonstration  of  the  cause  of  the  variation  in  the 
temperature  of  the  sun;  but  the  excess  of  so-called  calcium  with  minimum  sun-spots, 
and  excess  of  so-called  hydrogen  with  maximum  sun-spots,  follow  naturally  from  the 
hypothesis,  and  afford  indications  that  the  temperature  of  the  hottest  region  in  the 
sun  closely  approximates  to  that  of  the  reversing  layer  in  stars  of  the  type  of  Sirius 
and  a  Lyrae. — Popular  Science  Monthly,  March,  1879. 
