he case of the South Kensington observatory.
It should be added that this remark does not apply to the chief building
of the Royal College of Science itself.

The theories for which Professor Lockyer has so long been famous are
well known to every one who takes much interest in the progress of
scientific ideas. They are notably the theory that there is a direct
causal association between the prevalence of sun-spots and terrestrial
weather; the theory of the meteoritic origin of all members of the
sidereal family; and the dissociation theory of the elements, according
to which our so-called elements are really compounds, capable of being
dissociated into simpler forms when subjected to extreme temperatures,
such as pertain in many stars. As I have said, these theories are by no
means new. Professor Lockyer has made them familiar by expounding them
for a full quarter of a century or more. But if not new, these theories
are much too important to have been accepted at once without a protest
from the scientific world. In point of fact, each of them has been met
with most ardent opposition, and it would, perhaps, not be too much to
say that not one of them is, as yet, fully established. It is of the
highest interest to note, however, that the multitudinous observations
bearing upon each of these topics during the past decade have tended, in
Professor Lockyer's opinion, strongly to corroborate each one of these
opinions.

Two or three years ago Sir Norman Lockyer, in association with his son,
communicated to the Royal Society a paper in which the data recently
obtained as to the relation between sun-spots and the weather
in India--the field of observations having been confined to that
territory--are fully elaborated. A remarkable feature of the recent
work in that connection has been the proof, or seeming proof, that the
temperature of the sun fluctuates from year to year. At times when the
sun-spots are numerous and vigorous in their action, the spectrum of
the elements in these spots becomes changed. During the times of minimum
sun-spot activity the spectrum shows, for example, the presence of large
quantities of iron in these spots--of course in a state of vapor. But in
times of activity this iron disappears, and the lines which previously
vouched for it are replaced by other lines spoken of as the enhanced
lines of iron--that is to say, the lines which are believed to represent
the unknown substance or substances into whi