This is easily answered. These blazing gases must, as we proceed from the surface of the sun downwards, become so condensed by the pressure of their own superincumbent strata, as to produce a continuous spectrum of great brilliancy. With such a background the bright stripes would be confounded and lost to sight. Besides this, the outer film of cooler vapor through which our vision must necessarily penetrate before reaching the luminous solar surface, will produce the dark lines exactly where the bright stripes should be, and thus effectually obliterate them; or, in other words, the intervening non-luminous vapors are opaque to the particular rays of light which the bright vapors of the same substance emits. Therefore, according to this theory, if we could sweep away these outside darkening vapors, and screen off the inner layers of denser blazing matter which produces the continuous background, we should have a spectrum displaying a multitude of bright stripes exactly where the black lines of the ordinary solar spectrum appear. Secchi announced that these bright lines were to be seen under favorable circumstances, when, by skillful management, the rays from the edge of the sun were so caught by the slit of the spectroscope as to exhibit only the spectrum of the superficial layer of the sun’s bright surface. This was disputed at the time by Mr. Lockyer, who, I suspect, omitted to consider the atmospheric difficulties under which English astronomers work, and the fact that the atmosphere of Italy is exceptionally favorable for delicate astronomical observation. If he had fairly considered this I think he would agree with me in concluding that an observation of this kind, avowedly made with great difficulty and questionable distinctness by so skillful a spectroscopic observer as Father Secchi, could not possibly be seen by any human eyes through a London atmosphere. Subsequently Professor Young startled the astronomical world by the announcement that, at the moment when the thinnest perceptible thread of the sun’s edge was alone displayed during the eclipse which he observed, the whole of the dark lines of the solar spectrum flashed out as bright stripes in a most unmistakable manner. This observation is now fully confirmed. The first telegrams from Mr. Pogson, the Government astronomer of Madras, and from Colonel Tennant, both announce this most positively, Colonel Tennant’s words being, “the reversion of the lines fully confirmed.” A similar result was obtained by some, but not by all, of the Ceylon observers.