The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1913-11-08

NS that will-o' the-wisp OF the
%lS& physicist, the gas coronlum'
III 58E at last in the grip OF the
~, "a chemist, as was stated In
IN cable dispatch from London
Xxx \ the other day? Have Sir
William Ramsay and his
fellows actually found earthly SUD-
stances from which this elusive ana
extraordinary light element can De
produced? If SO aviation, or more &C
curately the range Of the dirlglble oai-
loon. will be enormously increased.
But this is only one aspect OF a very
wide field of possible services and sig
nificance.
The discovery of coronium is an
other example of the astonishing reVe-
lations which have come with the &C.
velopment of the spectroscope ana us
union with photography. By means
of this wonderful instrument physl-
cists have been able to detect anu
render visible the unseen OF millions
of miles away. AS Professor Menden-
hall expressed 1t few years ago:
BY this device man is put into COM
munication with every considerable
body in the universe, including even
the invisible. The goings on OF SIRIUS
and Algol, of Orion and the Ple1ades
are reported to him across enormous
stretches of millions Of millions OF
miles of space, empty save OF the
ethereal medium itself, by this most
wonderful wireless telegraphy Ana
It Is by the Migratory motion OF the
invisibly small that all of this Is re-
vealed; the infinitely little has enabled
US to conquer the inconceivably big.
But the spectroscope would be In
complete were it not for the exceed
ingly ingenious apparatus called the
bolometer. invented by the late Prof.
8. P. Langley. The sensitiveness OF
the bolometer Is so exquisite that 1t
responds to temperature changes OF a
millionth of a degree. The bolometer
is an eye that sees in the dark. 10
quote Professor Langley:
Since it is one and the same solar
energy whose manifestations are
called Tight or heat according to the
medium which interprets them. what
is light to the eye Is heat to the
bolometer and what Is seen as dark
line by the eye is felt az solid line
by the sentient instrument
Here is an example Of how this ap-
paratus revealed to Professor Langley
what had been considered far beyond
the pale OF the recordable He was
using the bolometer up on Mount
Whitney and was working away at the
known spectrum. patiently measuring
the heat of the various lines. He
stumbled upon a great discovery. HE
went down the spectrum, noting the
evidence Of invisible heat die out on
the scale of the instrument until he
came to the apparent end of the invis-
ible. beyond which the most prolonged
researches of investigators up to that
time had shown nothing.
There he watched the indications
grow fainter and fainter until they,
too, ceased at the point where the
French Investigators believed they
had found the very end Of the end.
BY some happy thought he pushed the
indications of this delicate instrument
into the region still beyond. In the
still air of this lofty region the sun
beams passed unimpeded by the mists
OF the lower earth, and the curve of
heat which had fallen to nothing be-
gan to rise again. There was some
thing there! For he found, suddenly,
Unexpectedly, new spectrum of great
extent, wholly unknown to science and
whose presence was revealed by the
bolometer."
Thus the way was prepared for the
detection Of coronium.
During the solar eclipse Of May %,
1900, Professor Abbott, with the aid
of Professor Mendenhall, was able to
measure the heat Of the corona. and
that was probably the first time that
1t was really shown to exist. Here,
again. the spectroscope, photography
and the bolometer rendered great
service.
The sun as ordinarily seen is bound
ed by the so-called photosphere and is
really but small part of the true sun.
Outside the photosphere is an envel-
ope composed mainly of hydrogen, and
outside of this there is another envel-
ope which has been called the corona.
The beautiful photograph taken in
May Of 1900. which accompanies this
article. illustrates this part of the sun.
It II estimated that the height OF the
corona in the suns atmosphere 10 a
matter Of half million miles: and 1t
10 believed that toward the photo
sphere the heat 10 20 intense that the
chemical elements are dissociated
INTO dner forms Of matter. In the