Another important result of Professor Lockyer's very recent studies has come about through observation of the sun in eclipse. A very interesting point at issue all along has been the question as to what layers of the sun's atmosphere are efficient in producing the so-called reverse lines of the spectrum. It is now shown that the effect is not produced, as formerly supposed, by the layers of the atmosphere lying just above the region which Professor Lockyer long ago named the chromosphere, but by the gases of higher regions. Reasoning from analogy, it may be supposed that a corresponding layer of the atmosphere of other stars is the one which gives us the reverse spectrum of those stars. The exact composition of this layer of the sidereal atmosphere must, of course, vary with the temperature of the different stars, but in no case can we expect to receive from the spectroscope a full record of all the substances that may be present in other layers of the atmosphere or in the body of the star itself. Thus, for example, the ordinary Freuenhofer spectrum of the sun shows us no trace of the element helium, though through other observations at the time of eclipse Professor Lockyer had discovered that element there, as we have seen, some thirty years before anything was known of it on the earth. In a recent eclipse photographs were taken of the spectra of the lower part of the sun's atmosphere by itself, and it was found that the spectrum of this restricted area taken by itself gave the lines which specialize the spectra of so different a star as Procyon. "I recognize in the result," says Professor Lockyer, "a veritable Rosetta Stone which will enable us to read the celestial hieroglyphics presented to us in stellar spectra, and help us to study the spectra and to get at results much more distinctly and certainly than ever before." But the most striking confirmation which the meteoritic hypothesis has received has come to hand through study of the spectrum of the new star which appeared in the constellation Perseus in February, 1901, and which was so widely heralded everywhere in the public press. This star was discovered on the morning of February 22d by star-gazers in Scotland, and in America almost simultaneously. It had certainly not been visible a few hours before, and it had blazed up suddenly to a greater brilliancy than that of a first-magnitude star. At first it was bluish-white in color, indicating an extremely high temperature, but it rapidly subsided in brilliancy and assumed a red color as it cooled, passing thus, in the course of a few days, through stages for which ordinary stars require periods of many millions of years.