for a while. That article of Von Beyer's has got me
guessing, all right."

Carnes picked up the indicated volume and settled himself to read. The
Doctor bent over his apparatus. Time and again he made minute
adjustments and gave vent to muttered exclamations of annoyance at the
results he obtained. Half an hour later he rose from his chair with a
sigh and turned to his visitor.

"What do you think of Von Beyer's alleged discovery?" he asked the
operative.

* * * * *

"It's too deep for me, Doctor," replied the operative. "All that I can
make out of it is that he claims to have discovered a new element named
'lunium,' but hasn't been able to isolate it yet. Is there anything
remarkable about that? It seems to me that I have read of other new
elements being discovered from time to time."

"There is nothing remarkable about the discovery of a new element by the
spectroscopic method," replied Dr. Bird. "We know from Mendeleff's
table that there are a number of elements which we have not discovered
as yet, and several of the ones we know were first detected by the
spectroscope. The thing which puzzles me is that so brilliant a man as
Von Beyer claims to have discovered it in the spectra of the moon. His
name, lunium, is taken from Luna, the moon."

"Why not the moon? Haven't several elements been first discovered in the
spectra of stars?"

"Certainly. The classic example is Lockyer's discovery of an orange line
in the spectra of the sun in 1868. No known terrestrial element gave
such a line and he named the new element which he deduced helium, from
Helos, the sun. The element helium was first isolated by Ramsey some
twenty-seven years later. Other elements have been found in the spectra
of stars, but the point I am making is that the sun and the stars are
incandescent bodies and could be logically expected to show the
characteristic lines of their constituent elements in their spectra. But
the moon is a cold body without an atmosphere and is visible only by
reflected light. The element, lunium, may exist in the moon, but the
manifestations which Von Beyer has observed must be, not from the moon,
but from the source of the reflected light which he spectro-analyzed."

* * * * *

"You are over my depth, Doctor."

"I'm over my own. I have tried to follow Von Beyer's reasoning and I
have tried to check his findings. Twice this evening I thought that I
caug