Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/469

§ 299] that light of a particular colour found at a particular part of the spectrum has a definite wave-length. At the extreme violet end of the spectrum, for example, the wave-length is about fifteen millionths of an inch, at the red end it is about twice as great; from which it follows (§ 283), from the known velocity, of light, that when we look at the red end of a spectrum about 400 billion waves of light enter the eye per second, and twice that number when we look at the other end. Newton's experiment thus shews that a prism sorts out light of a composite nature according to the wavelength of the different kinds of light present. The same thing can be done by substituting for the prism a so-called diffraction-grating, and this is for many purposes superseding the prism. In general it is necessary, to ensure purity in the spectrum and to make it large enough, to admit light through a narrow slit, and to use certain lenses in combination with one or more prisms or a grating; and the arrangement is such that the spectrum is not thrown on to a screen, but either viewed directly by the eye or photographed. The whole apparatus is known as a spectroscope.

The solar spectrum appeared to Newton as a continuous band of colours; but in 1802 William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1828) observed certain dark lines running across the spectrum, which he took to be the boundaries of the natural colours. A few years later (1814–15) the great Munich optician Joseph Fraunhofer (1787–1826) examined the sun's spectrum much more carefully, and discovered about 600 such dark lines, the positions of 324 of which he mapped (see fig. 97). These dark lines are accordingly known as Fraunhofer lines: for purposes of identification Fraunhofer attached certain letters of the alphabet to a few of the most conspicuous; the rest are now generally known by the wavelength of the corresponding kind of light.

It was also gradually discovered that dark bands could be produced artificially in spectra by passing light through various coloured substances; and that, on the other hand, the spectra of certain flames were crossed by various bright lines.

Several attempts were made to explain and to connect these various observations, but the first satisfactory and tolerably complete explanation was given in 1859 by Gustav