Motions ascertainable in this way near the limb are, of course, horizontal as regards the sun's surface; the analogies they present might, accordingly, be styled meteorological rather than volcanic. But vertical displacements on a scale no less stupendous can also be shown to exist. Observations of the spectra of spots centrally situated (where motions in the line of sight are vertical) disclose the progress of violent uprushes and downrushes of ignited gases, for the most part in the penumbral or outlying districts. They appear to be occasioned by fitful and irregular disturbances, and have none of the systematic quality which would be required for the elucidation of sun-spot theories. Indeed, they almost certainly take place at a great height above the actual openings in the photosphere.
As to vertical motions above the limb, on the other hand, we have direct visual evidence of a truly amazing kind. The projected glowing matter has, by the aid of the spectroscope, been watched in its ascent. On September 7, 1871, Young examined at noon a vast hydrogen cloud 100,000 miles long, as it showed to the eye, and 54,000 high. It floated tranquilly above the chromosphere at an elevation of some 15,000 miles, and was connected with it by three or four upright columns, presenting the not uncommon aspect compared by Lockyer to that of a grove of banyans. Called away for a few minutes at 12.30, on returning at 12.55 the observer found—
"That in the meantime the whole thing had been literally blown to shreds by some inconceivable uprush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had left, the air, if I may use the expression, was filled with flying débris—a mass of detached, vertical, fusiform filaments, each from 10′ to 30′ long by 2′ or 3′ wide,[643] brighter and closer together where the pillars had formerly stood, and rapidly ascending. They rose, with a velocity estimated at 166 miles a second, to fully 200,000 miles above the sun's surface, then gradually faded away like a dissolving cloud, and at 1.15 only a few filmy wisps, with some brighter streamers low down near the photosphere, remained to mark the place."[644]
A velocity of projection of at least 500 miles per second was, by Proctor's[645] calculation, required to account for this extraordinary display, to which the earth immediately responded by a magnetic disturbance, and a fine aurora. It has proved by no means an isolated occurrence. Young saw its main features repeated, October 7, 1881,[646] on a still vaster scale; for the exploded prominence attained, this time, an altitude of 350,000 miles—the highest yet chronicled. Lockyer, moreover, has seen a prominence 40,000 miles high shattered in ten minutes; while uprushes have been witnessed by Respighi, of which the initial velocities were judged by him to be 400 or 500 miles a second. When it is remembered that a body starting from the sun's surface at the rate of 383 miles a second would, if it encountered no resistance, escape for ever from his control, it is obvious that we have, in the enormous forces of eruption or repulsion manifested in the outbursts just described, the means of accounting for the vast diffusion of matter in the solar neighbourhood. Nor is it possible to explain them away, as Cornu,[647] Faye,[648] and others have sought to do, by substituting for the rush of matter in motion, progressive illumination through electric discharges, chemical processes,[649] or even through the mere reheating of gases cooled by expansion.[650] All the appearances are against such evasions of the difficulty presented by velocities stigmatised as "fabulous" and "improbable," but which, there is the strongest reason to believe, really exist.
On the 12th of December, 1878, Sir Norman Lockyer formally expounded before the Royal Society his hypothesis of the compound nature of the "chemical elements."[651] An hypothesis, it is true, over and over again propounded from the simply terrestrial point of view. What was novel was the supra-terrestrial evidence adduced in its support; and even this had been, in a general and speculative way, anticipated by Professor F. W. Clarke of Washington.[652] Lockyer had been led to his conclusion along several converging lines of research. In a letter to M. Dumas, dated December 3, 1873, he had sketched out the successive stages of "celestial dissociation" which he conceived to be represented in the sun and stars. The absence from the solar spectrum of metalloidal absorption he explained by the separation, in the fierce solar furnace, of such substances as oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and chlorine, into simpler constituents possessing unknown spectra; while metals were at that time still admitted to be capable of existing there in a state of integrity. Three years later he shifted his position onward. He announced, as the result of a comparative study of the Fraunhofer and electric-arc spectra of calcium, that the "molecular grouping" of that metal, which at low temperatures gives a spectrum with its chief line in the blue, is nearly broken up in the sun into another or others with lines in the violet.[653] This came to be regarded by him as "a truly typical case."[654]
During four years (1875-78 inclusive) this diligent observer was engaged in mapping a section of the more refrangible part of the solar spectrum (wave-lengths 3,800-4,000) on a scale of magnitude such that, if completed down to the infra-red, its length would have been about half a furlong. The attendant laborious investigation, by the aid of photography, of metallic spectra, seemed to indicate the existence of what he called "basic lines." These held their ground persistently in the spectra of two or more metals after all possible "impurities" had been eliminated, and were therefore held to attest the presence of a common substratum of matter in a simpler state of aggregation than any with which we are ordinarily acquainted.
Later inquiries have shown, however, that between the spectral lines of different substances there are probably no absolute coincidences. "Basic" lines are really formed of doublets or triplets merged together by insufficient dispersion. Of Thalèn's original list of seventy rays common to several spectra,[655] very few resisted Thollon's and Young's powerful spectroscopes; and the process of resolution was completed by Rowland. Thus the argument from community of lines to community of substance has virtually collapsed. It was replaced by one founded on certain periodical changes on the spectra of sun-spots. They emerged from a series of observations begun at South Kensington under Sir Norman Lockyer's direction in 1879, and continued for fifteen years.[656]
The principle of the method employed is this. The whole range of Fraunhofer lines is visible when the light from a spot is examined with the spectroscope; but relatively few are widened. Now these widened lines alone constitute (presumably) the true spot-spectrum; they, and they alone, tell what kinds of vapour are thrust down into the strange dusky pit of the nucleus, the unaffected lines taking their accustomed origin from the over-lying strata of the normal solar atmosphere. Here then we have the criterion that was wanted—the means of distinguishing, spectroscopically and chemically, between the cavity and the absorbing layers piled up above it. By its persistent employment some marked peculiarities have been brought out, such as the unfamiliar character of numerous lines in spot-spectra, especially at epochs of disturbance; and the strange individuality in the behaviour of every one of these darkened and distended rays. Each seems to act on its own account; it comports itself as if it were the sole representative of the substance emitting it; its appearance is unconditioned by that of any of its terrestrial companions in the same spectrum.
The most curious fact, however, elicited by these inquiries was that of the attendance of chemical vicissitudes upon the advance of the sun-spot period. As the maximum approached, unknown replaced known components of the spot-spectra in a most pronounced and unmistakable way.[657] It seemed as if the vapours emitting lines of iron, titanium, nickel, etc., had ceased to exist as such, and their room been taken by others, total strangers in terrestrial laboratories. These were held by Lockyer to be simply the finer constituents of their predecessors, dissociation having been effected by the higher temperature ensuing upon increased solar activity. But Father Cortie's supplementary investigations at Stonyhurst[658] modified, while they in the main substantiated, the South Kensington results. They showed that the substitution of unknown for known lines characterizes disturbed spots, at all stages of the solar cycle, so that no systematic course of chemical change can be said to affect the sun as a whole. They showed further[659]—from evidence independent of that obtained by Young in 1892[660]—the remarkable conspicuousness in spot-spectra of vanadium lines excessively faint in the Fraunhofer spectrum. Lockyer's "unknown lines" may probably thus be accounted for. They represent absorption, not by new, but by scarce elements, especially, Father Cortie thinks, those with atomic weights of about 50. The circumstance of their development in solar commotions, largely to the exclusion of iron, is none the less curious; but it cannot be explained by any process of dissociation.
The theory has, however, to be considered under still another aspect. It frequently happens that the contortions or displacements due to motion are seen to affect a single line belonging to a particular substance, while the other lines of that same substance remain imperturbable. Now, how is this most singular fact, which seems at first sight to imply that a body may be at rest and in motion at one and the same instant, to be accounted for? It is accounted for, on the present hypothesis, easily enough, by supposing that the rays thus discrepant in their testimony, do not belong to one kind of matter, but to several, combined at ordinary temperatures to form a body in appearance "elementary." Of these different vapours, one or more may of course be rushing rapidly towards or from the observer, while the others remain still; and since the line of sight across the average prominence-region penetrates, at the sun's edge, a depth of about 300,000 miles,[661] all the incandescent materials separately occurring along which line are projected into a single "flame" or "cloud," it will be perceived that there is ample room for diversities of behaviour.