For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. 514 A LETTER FROM NEWPORT. φαίη κ' ἀθανάτους καὶ ἀγήρως ἔμμεναι ἀιεὶ ὃς τότ' ἐπαντιάσει' ὅτ' άονες ἄθροοι εἶεν. THE crimson leafage fires the lawn, The piled hydrangeas blazing glow; How blue the vault of breezy dawn Illumes the Atlantic's crested snow! 'Twixt sea and sands how fair to ride Through whispering airs a starlit way, And watch those flashing towers divide Heaven's darkness from the darkling bay! Ah, friend, how vain their pedant's part, Their hurrying toils how idly spent, How have they wronged the gentler heart Which thrills the awakening continent, Who have not learnt on this bright shore What sweetness issues from the strong, Where flowerless forest, cataract-roar, Have found a blossom and a song! Ah, what imperial force of fate Links our one race in high emprize! At last have child and mother grown, - Through English eyes more calmly soft Our old-world heart more gravely feels, The full accord of soul and soul. But ah, the life, the smile untaught, So once the Egyptian, gravely bold, That song the Delian maidens sung; For with his voice the tears had sprung, "They die not, these! they wax not old, They are ever-living, ever-young!" Spread then, great land! thine arms afar, Ally the tropics and the pole; There glows no gem than these more bright From ice to fire, from sea to sea; Blossoms no fairer flower to light Through all thine endless empery. And thou come hither, friend! thou too Fed with their glorious youth renew Thy dimmed prerogative of joy. With what regrets, what fancies fraught, If round one fairest face shall meet Of one sweet queen, and linger there; Nor this new earth, this airy heaven, NEWPORT, R. I., Sept., 1879. Fortnightly Review. A LUMP OF CARBON. TELL me, lump of carbon, burning While thy flames rise twisting, turning, Tell me of the time when, waving Óf the storm-cloud's lightning hurled, Round thy roots its billows curled. Near that mighty trunk of yours, Perchance some monstrous saurian, sliding, With something of agility, Though all ungainly on the land; While near your roots, in blood-stained fray, Tell me, ancient palm-corpse, was there Was there good? and was there evil? Tell me, lump of carbon, burning Lurid in the glowing grate, W. B. T. From The Edinburgh Review. skill, of the spectroscopist. Nor should this occasion surprise. Since creation is WHEN Kirchhoff demonstrated, twenty-modelled on a scale utterly incommensurone years ago, the existence of sodium in able with human faculties, the progress the atmosphere of the sun, he made an of science necessarily proposes more advance of which we are even yet hardly questions than it answers, and opens up, in a position to estimate the full impor- one after the other, vistas of the unknown, tance. The discovery supplied one more each forming, as it were, a separate pathproof of the harmony of nature and the way towards the one infinity. fundamental unity of science. The “corThus each new discovery, by revealing ruptible" materials of our mother earth previously unsuspected ignorance, sugwere shown by conclusive evidence to gests fresh efforts, and promotes fresh form part of the "incorruptible" sub- advances. Already the more hopeful stance of the radiant orbs of heaven. among men of science look forward with Astronomy, which had hitherto taken confidence to the recognition of a law, cognizance of matter only in its most higher and wider than that of Newton, general form, was now compelled to de- embracing all the operations upon matter scend into the laboratory in order to study of the so-called "physical forces," and its various kinds and qualities, together reducing under a common denomination with their mutual actions and relations. the actions of gravity and cohesion, the The science of celestial mechanics be- phenomena of light, heat, and electricity. came, all at once, the science of celestial | We venture indeed to assert that no one chemistry. From the new point of departure thus unexpectedly provided, untried fields of research were gradually perceived to stretch farther and farther away into the illimitable distance. The invention of the telescope does not, indeed, form a more noteworthy epoch in the history of astronomy than does the application of the prism to the physical investigation of the heavenly bodies. Yet, marvellous as are the results already achieved by spectrum analysis, they are as nothing compared with the crowd of unsolved problems which continually stimulate the curiosity, and baffle the xxviii.: 1879. 4 On the Spectra of some of the Fixed Stars. 5. Further Investigations on the Spectra of some of the Stars and Nebula, with an Attempt to deter- 6. The Universe of Stars. By RICHARD A. PROC- who earnestly and intelligently looks nature in the face can escape the conviction that such a principle regulates the apparent anomalies, and harmonizes the apparent contradictions, visible in the world around us. The generalization of knowledge, however, becomes increasingly difficult with its extension; by the accumulation of particulars induction is rendered more sure, but is also rendered more arduous; and science is impeded in its progress in proportion as it is amplified in its details. We may then have to wait long for the realization of the hopes held out to us, and must for the present content ourselves with noting effects where we would willingly penetrate into causes. Nevertheless, the close relationship more and more clearly perceived to unite the physical sciences forms in itself a species of generalization, and will doubtless contribute in the future to maintain and increase the high intellectual importance of natural investigations. The discovery of spectrum analysis has most markedly emphasized this relationship. The sciences of astronomy and chemistry can no longer be said to exist independently one of the other. The astronomer demands from the chemist an interpretation of what he observes; the chemist turns to the astronomer for con. * firmation of what he divines. The work- - every form of ponderable matter; and ing of this new alliance is strikingly the remarkable theory of "vortex-atoms," exemplified in Mr. Norman Lockyer's elaborated from profound mathematical recent investigations into the nature of the considerations by Sir William Thomson chemical elements. The sixty-five to and the late Professor Clerk Maxwell, has seventy different substances at present lent plausibility (it would be going too far known to enter into the composition of to say probability) to what seemed at first the earth have long been regarded by sight an extravagant conjecture. chemists as only provisionally elementary in their character. The term "element was simply meant to convey that hitherto they had not been decomposed; but it was clearly foreseen that with improved laboratory appliances many such bodies would be reduced to a simpler condition a prevision already verified in the case of the allied substances, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. But theory has, in this direction, far outstripped experiment. Between the atomic weights of the various elements, numerical relations, as remarkable as those connecting the different members of the solar system, have been perceived to exist. Empirical laws, of similar character to "Bode's law" of planetary distances, regulate the combining proportions of certain groups of substances analogous in their qualities, indicating, it is argued, varying degrees of complexity in their composition.† These ingenious speculations have even been made the basis of successful prediction. A gap in the series indicated by his "periodic law" enabled Professor Mendelejeff, in 1869, to announce the existence and describe the qualities of a new metal, discovered six years later, by M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran in a blende from the mines of Pierrefitte, and named by him gallium.‡ Moreover, the striking fact that nearly all atomic weights are simple multiples of the weight of the hydrogen-atom gave rise to Prout's celebrated hypothesis of a primordial substance no other than hydrogen. But even this is not enough. Still bolder speculators derive from luminiferous ether the refuge and the reproach of science *The exact number cannot at present be determined. Since 1877, claims have been put forward to the dis- t Chemical News, vol. xxxviii., p. 66. We learn then, without surprise, from a paper communicated to the Royal Society, December 12, 1878, the title of which we have prefixed to this article, that Mr. Lockyer has been led by his spectroscopic studies to doubt the elementary character of some, if not all, of those bodies which have hitherto successfully maintained that reputation. We are not prepared to deny his conclusions; but we venture to dissent from some at least of the arguments by which he seeks to support them. His observations are of the highest interest and importance; but they seem to us hardly to warrant the interpretation which he puts upon them. namely, We need not here dwell upon the first principles of spectrum analysis; they were ably expounded in the pages of this journal * shortly after their discovery, and are dwelt upon with still fuller detail in the valuable work by Professor Roscoe which stands at the head of this article. It may, however, be well to remind our readers that while further enquiry has amply confirmed the fundamental theorem upon which the science rests that vapors absorb rays of the same refrangibilities that they radiate-a multitude of secondary facts have been recognized, which, although they at present tend somewhat to embarrass our conclusions, will no doubt eventually contribute to define them. Thus, while it may be looked upon as established that an incandescent solid or liquid body gives a continuous spectrum in other words, emits light of every shade of color- the converse no longer holds good. A continu ous spectrum is not necessarily due to a solid or liquid, but may be derived from a vapor at considerable pressure. Many physicists, indeed, believe that the vast mass of the sun consists of glowing and Edinburgh Review, vol. cxvi., art. "Solar Chem istry." enormously compressed gases, the fine | it is certain that each infinitesimal varia- The spectroscopic evidence adduced by Mr. Lockyer in proof of the compound character of the "elements" may be conveniently divided into three classes - terrestrial, solar, and stellar. His position would, indeed, be much more clearly intelligible if founded on some settled theory of luminous radiation by matter in its various conditions. But on this point modern science has nothing to offer beyond some vague and unsatisfactory conjectures. We find ourselves, at the very threshold of enquiry, confronted by the (at present) inscrutable relations subsisting between that enigmatical substance whose vibrations are light, and the gross matter originating those vibrations by its movements. This much, however, we may safely say. A vibrating molecule is, speaking generally, not a simple body, but a system, probably of extremely complex constitution. Now any disturbance affecting that system will be faithfully reflected in the rays of light, which are the visible translation of its intimate thrillings. Such disturbances may be almost infinitely various in kind and degree, the actual severance of the atoms, or parts constituting a molecule, being only one extreme case amongst a multitude of possible modifications. But, while His main argument under this head is founded on analogy. He observes that the spectra of bodies supposed to be simple undergo, in like circumstances, changes precisely similar to those of bodies known to be compound. In the latter case the explanation is obvious and undeniable. The spectrum characteristic of the compound gives place, as the temperature rises and dissociation proceeds, to the spectrum characteristic of its principal constituent. The easy and natural course seems to be to transfer this explanation to the other case. And it is this which Mr. Lockyer has taken. Now we are far from denying that chemical separations play a certain part in producing the appearances revealed by the prism; what we contend is that the cause in question, far from being universally active, is most likely only exceptionally so. In the first place, marked changes occur in cases where there can be no question of dissociation. By the mere condensation or rarefaction of an incandescent vapor, the bright lines of which its spectrum is composed can be increased or diminished at pleasure. If we suppose, according to the received theory, the light-producing vibrations of minute particles of matter to be maintained by the mutual impacts of those particles, then the fewer the impacts, the more feeble the vibrations. And, just as the harmonics of a musical note can no longer be detected by the ear when the note is sounded faintly, so the secondary oscillations of a vibrating particle cease, as their amplitude is diminished, to produce a visible effect in the spectrum, long before the fundamental vibration is extinguished. Moreover, the spectroscope affords as yet absolutely no criterion for distinguishing between the division of dissimilar and the separation of similar atoms two essentially differ For an account of Mr. Johnstone Stoney's ingenious harmonic theory of line spectra, see Schellen's Spectrum Analysis, Appendix A (English translation). |