Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/673

Rh of those that we have to deal with can, such is far from being the case with other gases equally transparent with regard to light. Dr. Tyndall found that as a rule the more complex the composition of a gas the greater is its defect of diathermancy. To confine ourselves to the two gases which occur in the atmosphere mixed with its main constituents—I allude of course to carbonic acid and to water in the gaseous state of vapor—he found that both, especially the latter, which likewise is present in by far the larger quantity, are very distinctly defective in diathermancy, and he concluded that the main part of the absorption of solar heat in passing through the atmosphere, absorption as distinguished from scattering, is due to the watery vapor which it contains. From this result he drew important inferences as to atmospheric temperature and climatological conditions. Dr. TyndalPs researches on the relation of gases to radiant heat came naturally before me during my long tenure of office as one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society; and for my own part I may say that it seemed to me all along that the results were established on so firm a basis, and the conclusions regarding the invisible radiations were so perfectly analogous to what we know to be true regarding the visible ones, where the investigation is comparatively easy, that the work bore on it the stamp of truth. The conclusions were not, however, accepted without opposition. In the late Professor Magnus, Dr. Tyndall met a foeman worthy of his steel; a foeman, however, only in the sense of an intellectual athlete; for socially I doubt not they were the firmest friends, and their friendship was even cemented by the fact that they were both alike seeking after truth in a similar subject. But truth only gains by opposition: its defenders are led to engage in fresh researches, which end in strengthening its foundations. I think that the validity of Dr. Tyndall's results is now generally admitted. If some hesitation is still felt, it arises mainly, I think, from misconception; from imagining that assertions which were meant to apply only to heat-rays of such refrangibilities as to be absorbed by water were meant to be affirmed of the invisible radiations generally which lie beyond the extreme red. The time reminds me that I must only very briefly refer to another investigation in which Dr. Tyndall has more recently been engaged, and of which the interest is biological, while the means of investigation are physical; I allude, of course, to the question of abiogenesis. Here, again, Dr. Tyndall was working on contested ground, and the objections of opponents stimulated him to fresh inquiries, which resulted in the continual strengthening of his negative conclusions. In the course of his work he was led, for instance, to the discovery of the great difference which exists between the germs of microscopic creatures and the creatures themselves, in relation to their power of resisting the destructive influence of a high temperature. This discovery not only detected a source of error in some experiments which had seemed to favor the hypothesis of