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SHORT ARTICLES.-A Live Yankee in China, 544. Recognition of the South by England, 567. Discovery of a Relic in Quinn Abbey, Ireland, 567.

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From The Edinburgh Review. ter. This is of so delicate a nature, that, 1. Researches on the Solar Spectrum, and the when applied to the examination of the subSpectra of the Chemical Elements. By stances composing our globe, it yields most G. Kirchhoff, Professor of Physics in the new, interesting, and unlooked-for informaUniversity of Heidelberg. Translated tion. At the same time it is of so vast an by Henry E. Roscoe, B.A., Professor of Chemistry in Owens College, Manches- application as to enable us to ascertain with ter. Cambridge and London: 1862. certainty the presence in the solar atmos2. Chemical Analysis by Spectrum Observa-phere at a distance of ninety-five million tions. By Professors Bunsen and Kirch- miles-of metals, such as iron and magnehoff. Memoirs I. & II. Poggendorff's sium, well known on this earth, and likewise Annalen (Philosophical Magazine, 4th to give us good hopes of obtaining similar Series, vol. xx. p. 89, vol. xxii. p. 1). knowledge concerning the composition of the London, Dublin and Edinburgh. fixed stars. Here, indeed, is a triumph of Ir is unnecessary to insist, at the present science! The weak mortal, confined within day, upon the incalculable value of discover- a narrow zone on the surface of our insignifiies in natural science, however abstruse they cant planet, stretches out his intellectual may be, or however far-distant may appear powers through unlimited space, and estitheir practical application. If we put aside mates the chemical composition of matter for the moment that highest of all intellec- contained in the sun and fixed stars with as tual gratifications afforded by the prosecu- much ease and certainty as he would do if tion of truth in every form, the perception he could handle it, and prove its reactions in of which is one of the chief distinctions of the test-tube. human from mere brute life, and if we look to the results of scientific discovery in benefiting mankind, we find so many striking examples of the existence of truths apparently altogether foreign to our every-day wants, which suddenly become points of great interest to the material prosperity and the moral advancement of the race, that we are less apt to utter the vulgar cry of "cui bono" respecting any scientific discovery; and if we are not advanced enough to love science for the sake of her truth alone, we at least respect her for the sake of the power she bestows. Not once, but oftentimes in the annals of science, it has turned out that discoveries of the most recondite truths have ere long found their application in the physical structure of the world, and even in the common interests of men; for in the range of scientific investigation, it can never be said how near the deepest principle lies to the simplest facts.

A great discovery in natural knowledge, for which no equivalent in direct benefit to mankind has as yet been found, but which nevertheless excites our liveliest interest and admiration, has lately been made in the rapidly advancing science of Chemistry. This discovery, which is one of the grandest and most important of all the recent additions to science, consists in the establishment of a new system of chemical analysis-of a new power to investigate the constitution of mat

How can this result, at first sight as marvellous and impossible as the discovery of the elixir vitæ or the philosophers' stone, be arrived at? How did two German philosophers, quietly working in their laboratory in Heidelberg, obtain this inconceivable insight into the processes of creation? Are the conclusions which they have arrived at logical consequences of bonâ fide observations and experiments-the only true basis of reasoning in physical science or do they not savor somewhat of that mysticism for which our German friends are famous? Such questions as these will occur to all who hear of this discovery; and it will be our present aim, in reviewing the publications which are placed at the head of this article, to answer these and similar questions, and to show that, far from being mystical, these results are as clear as noon-day, being the plain and necessary deductions from exact and laborious experiment. And here we may express our satisfaction at the change which has occurred within the last few years in the direction given to the powerful intelligence and the indefatigable industry of Germany. The labors of the Germans in physical science have far surpassed in their results those speculative researches which had rendered "German philosophy' "the synonym of all that was unintelligible and perplexing: and it is impossible to overrate the services which men like Liebig and Bunsen (the chemist)

and Kirchhoff have rendered to mankind. | that these colors were no peculiar effect of In chemistry, Germany may now be said to the prism, because a second prism did not take the lead of England, of France, and of Italy already she has paid an ample contribution to the common stores of human knowledge. It is a remarkable circumstance that although for several years the once productive fields of German literature have been comparatively barren, or have at least presented us with no work of the highest order, the supply of German works on natural science is immense, and the quality of these works excellent.

produce a fresh alteration of the light. He showed that the white light is thus split up into its various constituent parts; and by bringing all these colored rays together in the eye, and again obtaining the white image of the hole in the shutter, he proved that the kind of light which produces on the eye the sensation we term whiteness, is in reality made up of an infinite number of differently colored rays.

The colored band thus obtained by Newton did not, however, reveal to him all the The only channel through which we on the characteristic beauties of solar light, because earth can obtain information of any kind in his spectrum the tints were created by the whatever concerning the sun and stars, con- partial superposition of an infinite number sists in the vivifying radiance which these of differently colored images of the round luminaries pour forth into surrounding space. hole through which the light came. It was The light and heat which we receive from not until the year 1802 that Dr. Wollaston, the sun not only supply the several varieties by preventing the different colored lights of force which we find in action upon the from overlapping, and thus interfering with surface of the earth, thus rendering the whole each other, discovered that great peculiarity human family truly children of the sun; but in solar light which has led to such startling a knowledge of their nature enables us to as- discoveries in the composition of the sun itcertain the chemical composition of those far- self. Dr. Wollaston noticed, when he aldistant bodies upon which the existence of lowed the sunlight to fall through a narrow our race so intimately depends. The exam-slit upon the prism, that a number of dark ination of the nature of sunlight and star- lines cutting up the colored portions of the light has led to the foundation of a science of stellar chemistry; and it is likewise upon the examination of the light given off by terrestrial matter, when through heat it becomes luminous, that the new method of spectrum analysis is founded-a method so delicate as to enable the analyst to detect with ease and certainty so minute a quantity as the one one hundred and eighty millionth part of a grain of substance.

spectrum, made their appearance. These dark lines, or spaces, of which Wollaston counted only seven, indicate the absence of certain distinct kinds of rays in the sunlight; they are, as it were, shadows on the bright background.

It is, however, to the celebrated German optician Fraunhofer, that we owe the first accurate examination of these singular lines. By a great improvement in the optical arThe world owes to the great Newton its rangements employed, Fraunhofer, rediscovfirst knowledge of the nature of sunlight. In ering these lines, was able to detect a far 1675 Newton presented to the Royal Society larger number of them in the solar spectrum his ever-memorable treatise on Optics; and than had been observed by Wollaston. He amongst the numerous important discoveries counted no less than five hundred and ninety there disclosed and recorded, was one de- of these dark lines, stretching throughout monstrating the constitution of white light. the length of the spectrum from red to vioHe describes what he observed when he let, and in the year 1815 drew a very beaupassed a beam of sunlight, from a hole in tiful map of them, some of the most importhe shutter of a darkened room, through a tant of which he designated by the letters of triangular piece of glass called a prism. He the alphabet. Fraunhofer carefully measnoticed that, instead of a spot of white light ured the relative distances between these corresponding to the hole in the shutter, a lines, and found that they did not vary in bright band of variously colored lights, show-sunlight examined at different times. He ing all the tints of the rainbow, was thrown also saw these same dark fixed lines in reon the wall of his room. Newton concluded flected as well as in direct solar-light; for

on looking at the spectrum of moonlight and and thus to map them, exactly as the astron-
of Venus-light, the same lines appeared quite omer determines the position of the stars in
unaltered in position. But he found that the the heavens, and the surveyor triangulates
light of the fixed stars was not of the same and marks out the main features of a coun-
kind as direct or reflected sunlight, as the try; so that future wanderers in this new
spectra of the starlight contained dark lines field may find fixed and well-recognized
entirely different from those which are inva- points from which to commence their own
riably seen in the solar spectrum. From excursions. Professor Kirchhoff is far from
these observations Fraunhofer, so early as thinking that his measurements, delicate and
1815, drew the important conclusion that numerous though they be, have exhausted
these lines, let them be what they may, must the subject. The further we penetrate into
in some way or other have their origin in the the secrets of nature, the more we find there
sun. The explanation of the production of remains to be learnt. He saw whole series
these lines was reserved for a subsequent of nebulous bands and dark lines which the
time; but Fraunhofer opened the inquiry, power of his instrument did not enable him
and all his conclusions have been borne out to resolve; and he thinks that a larger num-
by recent and more elaborate investigations. ber of prisms must be employed to effect this
Since the time of Fraunhofer our knowl- end. He adds: "The resolution of these
edge of the constitution of the solar spec- nebulous bands appears to me to possess an
trum has largely increased. Professor interest similar to that of the resolution of
Stokes, in his beautiful researches on Fluor- the celestial nebula; and the investigation
escence, has shown that similar dark lines of the spectrum to be of no less importance
exist in that part of the spectrum extending than the examination of the heavens them-
beyond the violet, which require special ar- selves." True, indeed, does this appear,
rangements to become visible to our eyes; when we learn that it is by the examination
and Sir David Brewster and Dr. Gladstone of these lines that we can alone obtain the
have mapped with great care about two thou- clue to the chemical composition of sun and
sand lines in the portion of the spectrum stars!
from red to violet.

But it is to Kirchhoff, the Professor of
Physics in the University of Heidelberg, that
we are indebted for by far the best and most
accurate observations of these phenomena.
In place of using one prism, as Fraunhofer
did, Kirchhoff employed four prisms of most
perfect workmanship, and thus enjoyed the
advantage of a far greater dispersion, or
spreading out, of the different rays than the
Munich optician had obtained. The lines
were observed through a telescope having a
magnifying power of forty, and when the
whole apparatus was adjusted with all the
accuracy and delicacy which the perfection
of optical instruments now renders possible,
Kirchhoff saw the solar spectrum with a
degree of minute distinctness such as had
never before been attained; and of the
beauty and magnificence of the sight thus
presented those only who have been eye-
witnesses can form any idea.

Kirchhoff's
's purpose was not merely to ob-
serve the fine vertical dark lines which in
untold numbers crossed the colored spec-
trum, stretching from right to left. He
wished to measure their relative distances,

The exact measurement of the distances between the lines was made by moving the cross wires of the telescope from line to line by means of a micrometer screw with a finely divided head, and reading off the number of divisions through which the screw had to be turned. The breadth and degree of darkness were also noticed, and thus the lines were mapped. In order to give a representation in the drawing of the great variety of the shade and thickness of the lines, they were arranged according to their degree of blackness, and drawn of six different thicknesses. First, the darkest lines were drawn with thick black Indian ink; the ink was then diluted to a certain extent, and the lines of the next shade drawn, and so on to the lightest series. As soon as a portion of the spectrum had been drawn in this manner, it was compared with the actual spectrum, and the mistakes in the breadth and darkness of the lines, as well as in their position, corrected by fresh estimations, and the drawing made anew. A second compar ison and another drawing were then made, and this process repeated until all the groups of lines appeared to be truthfully repre