Abstract
WE have now, I trust, obtained a general idea of inorganic evolution so far as stratigraphic geology is concerned. You may remember that I pointed out that the evidence for organic evolution not only depended upon the various vegetable and animal forms which had been found in the various strata of the earth's crust from the pre–Laurentian up to the Recent times, but that the science of embryology had also been brought into play, and that a succession of forms in the individual was there to attest the general line of descent. To-night we have to deal with the spectroscope and the motions of the smallest units of inorganic matter which we can get at, and to compare the results obtained in this way with some of those that the biologist has arrived at by means of the microscopic examination of the smallest unit forms that he can observe. From the spectrum point of view, this inquiry is included in the word “series.” In the study of series of lines in different spectra, we are on the same ground plan as the biologist is when he is studying what he calls cytology, or the laws of cells.
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It has always been customary with me in reproducing spectra in the form of illustrations to show the red end of the spectrum on the right hand side and the violet end on the left. As most of the workers on "series" have adopted the opposite way, I propose in this lecture to depart from my usual custom and place the red in series spectra on the left, so that all the series illustrations may be comparable inter se.1
Comptes rendus (1869), 69, 694.
Phil. Mag., 1871 [4], 41, 291.
Brit. Assoc. Report, 1880; Proc. R.S. (1881), 31, 337.
Phil. Trans., 1883, p. 213, and previously.
Wied. Ann. (1885), 25, 80.
Comptes rendus (1885), 100, 1181.
Ibid. (1886), 103, 375; (1887), 104, 972.
" Ueber die Spectren der Elemente " (Abhandlungen d. K. Akad. Berlin, 1880, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893.
Svenska Vetenskat. Akad. Handlingar, Stockholm (1890), 23, No. 11; Wied. Annalen (1893), 50, 629; (1894), 52, 119.
Kon. Sv. Vet. Ak. Hand., vol. 23, ii. p. 135.
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On Spectrum Series1. Nature 60, 368–370 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/060368a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/060368a0