Let me be more precise: The yellow colour of the spectrum extends over a sensible space, blending on one side with the orange and on the other with the green. The term 'yellow band' is therefore somewhat indefinite. This vagueness may be entirely removed. By dipping the carbon-point used for the positive electrode into a solution of common salt, and replacing it in the lamp, the bright yellow band produced by the sodium vapour stands out from the spectrum. When the sodium flame is caused to act upon the beam it is that particular yellow band that is obliterated, an intensely black streak occupying its place. An additional step of reasoning leads to the conclusion that if, instead of the flame of sodium alone, we were to introduce into the path of the beam a flame in which lithium, strontium, magnesium, calcium, &c, are in a state of volatilisation, each metallic vapour would cut out a system of bands, corresponding exactly in position with the bright bands of the same metallic vapour. The light of our electric lamp shining through such a composite flame would give us a spectrum cut up by dark lines, exactly as the solar spectrum is cut up by the lines of Fraunhofer. Thus by the combination of the strictest reasoning with the most conclusive experiment, we reach the solution of one of the grandest of scientific problems--the constitution of the sun. The sun consists of a nucleus surrounded by a flaming atmosphere. The light of the nucleus would give us a continuous spectrum, like that of our common carbon-points; but having to pass through the photosphere, as our beam had to pass through the flame, those rays of the nucleus which the photosphere can itself emit are absorbed, and shaded spaces, corresponding to the particular rays absorbed, occur in the spectrum. Abolish the solar nucleus, and we should have a spectrum showing a bright line in the place of every dark line of Fraunhofer. These lines are therefore not absolutely dark, but dark by an amount corresponding to the difference between the light of the nucleus intercepted by the photosphere, and the light which issues from the latter.