The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-02-06
THE SUN.
Pref. IsOekyer's New Solar Discoveries
New York Herald.

New York Herald.
One of our cable dispatches is of pecu
liar interest to the scientific world, but
also of great interest to that large part
of the general public which watches with
sdmiration and wonder the vast additions
made in our time to the exact knowl-
edge of the physical universe. Mr.. ].
Lockyer, whose remarkable discoveries
in the spectroscopic examination of the
sun have made him justly famous,
claims to have made one more step IN
advance in the solution OF the mysteries
of solar phenomenal. An outline of his
statement-Iust enough to whet the APP
petite OF the scientific world for the f1ller
statement itself when it shall be put
forth-hss been given to our London
correspondent, and the new views it
contains appear to be presented sss con
victions reached from 8 study Of the
observations made in the eclipse of the
sun last year. 1t deals with the 0Onsti-
tuition of the solar chromospheTe, sug-
gests theory of the corona, an srgu-
ment in support of Secchi's views of the
sun spots AID a theory of the solar
phenomena in their totality." Appar-
entity these ara all the result of further
details in spectroscOpic study. Mr..
LOckyer and the French astronomer,
Jansen, made nearly at the same time,
in the year 1858, the discovery that the
luminous protubersnces beyond the
corona, seen when the sun is in eclipsei
could be examined in the spectToscOpe,
and that so examined they showed the
lines of the spectrum Of hydrogen. At
once the study of the chemical constitu-
ton o. the sun and other planets was
seen to be possible, and has been since
pursued with great zeal by means Of the
same instrument. Many lines seen in
this examination were not susceptible OF
satisfactory classification, were in fact
chemical mysteries.
Prof. LockYer's first statement refers
to some of these, which he IS now in
clined to accept as indications of the
imperfectiOn of our present chemical
knOwledge-evidencest that some fourteen
substances now classified as elements are
not elementary, but are compounds. 1t
should be remembered that the spectre.
scope has pointed the way for chemical
discovery, and has indicated the exist
ence of metals not previously known to
US. That this process may be now re-
peated on a grander scale is reasonable.
An old prOverb, that we must 90 away
from home to get news of our neighbors,
is strikingly exemplifed in our getting
from the sun hints for prosecution Of
our study of earthly substances. But
Mr.. Lockyer's suggestion of a sort Of
gaseous circulation on the surface of the
sun bids fair to be the most remarkable
result of mis- studies. This is practically
a theory that the sun is an enormous
permanent reservoir of gases in chemical
combustion, but whose combustion is SO
ordered that exhaustion is impossible.
Our atmospheric circulation may illus
trate the process as it seems to be stated
If an inhabitant OF the sun was told
that the seas on earth were continually
vapOrized by the sun he might say, II
cannot be, for they are not exhaus.5d. y
But if learned Of the return. in the
form of rain, of all that vaporized
water, one fact would explain the other
Somewhat analogous are the two points
in the history of the sun stated in the
Observation-Disclosures by combustion Of
its elements at the level of the photo
sphere, their projection to higher level
and their return in new associations, OF
in the old ones repeated, from this higher
evel--that, in short, all the unexplained
appearances on the surface of the sun
are due to a constant projection OF case
GUS elements in one state, and a constant
fiery rain made by their return il
another state.