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Spectrum-analysis yields results wholly irreconcilable with the assumption that the conventionally-named simple substances are really simple. Each yields a spectrum having lines varying in number from two to eighty or more, every one of which implies the intercepting of ethereal undulations of a certain order by something oscillating in unison or in harmony with them.
In those days the name of Kirchoff was coupled always with that of an associate, the chemist Bunsen, when there was mention of spectrum-analysis; and in my time at Heidelberg, Bunsen was at hand and I became as familiar with his figure as with Kirchoff.
Written as this was before spectrum-analysis had made its disclosures, no notice could of course be taken of the way in which these conflict with the first of the foregoing suppositions; but after pointing out other objections to it the argument continued thus:
Though, by spectrum-analysis, platinum has recently been detected in the solar atmosphere, it seems clear that the metals of low molecular weights greatly predominate; and supposing the foregoing arguments to be valid, it may be inferred, as not improbable, that the compoundings and recompoundings by which the heavy-moleculed elements are produced, not hitherto possible in large measure, will hereafter take place; and that, as a result, the Sun's density will finally become very great in comparison with what it is now.
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