The most interesting feature of the spectrum of this new star was the fact that it showed both light and dark lines for the same substances, the two lying somewhat apart. This means, being interpreted, that some portions of a given substance are giving out light, thus producing the bright lines of the spectrum, and that other portions of the same substance are stopping certain rays of transmitted light, thus producing the dark lines. The space between the bright and dark lines, being measured, indicated that there was a differential motion between the two portions of substance thus recorded of something like seven hundred miles a second. This means, according to theory--and it seems hardly possible to explain it otherwise--that two sidereal masses, one at least of which was moving at an enormous rate of speed, had collided, such collision, of course, being the cause of the incandescence that made the mass suddenly visible from the earth as a new star. New stars are by no means every-day affairs, there having been but thirty-two of them recorded in the world's history, and of these only two have exceeded the present one in brilliancy. As a mere spectacle, therefore, this new star was of great interest; but a far greater importance attaches to it through the fact that it conforms so admirably to the course that meteoritic hypothesis would predict for it. "That is what confounds my opponents," said Professor Lockyer, in talking to me about the new star. "Most of those who oppose my theory have not taken the trouble to make observations for themselves, but have contented themselves with falling back apparently on the postulate that because a theory is new it must be wrong. Then, outside the scientific world, comparatively few people appreciate the extreme parsimony of nature. They expect, therefore, that when such a phenomenon as the appearance of a new star occurs, the new-comer will establish new rules for itself and bring chaos into the scientific world. But in point of fact nature never does things in two ways if she can possibly do them in one, and the most striking thing about the new stars is that all the phenomena they present conform so admirably to the laws built up through observation of the old familiar stars. As to our particular theories, we here at South Kensington"--it will be understood that this use of the editorial "we" is merely a modest subterfuge on the part of Professor Lockyer--"have no regard for them at all simply as ours. Like all scientists worthy the name, we seek only the truth, and should new facts come along that seem to antagonize our theory we should welcome them as eagerly as we welcome all new facts of whatever bearing. But the truth is that no such new facts have appeared in all these years, but that, on the contrary, the meteoritic hypothesis has received ever-increasing support from most unexpected sources, from none more brilliantly or more convincingly than