Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/97

Rh glass in a Bunsen flame—the visibility curve due to its radiations diminishes so rapidly that it reaches zero when the difference of path is about forty millimeters; it is practically impossible to go farther than this. It is seen that the curve is periodic, which would indicate that each one of the sodium lines is a double line. The intensity curve at the left represents one of the sodium lines only. The other, on the same scale, would be distant about half a meter. We can from this get some idea of the relative sensitiveness of this process of light-wave analysis, as compared with that of ordinary spectrum analysis. It will be observed that the intensity curve shows still another small component which corresponds to still another longer period, but the existence of these short companion lines is not absolutely certain.

Fig. 64 represents the curve of thallium. The oscillation shows that it is a double line, and not very close. The distance between the components is about one-sixtieth of the distance between the sodium lines. We have also a longer oscillation which shows that each one of the components is