A method was devised for measuring the minimum visibile in different parts of the spectrum, as done by Langley in 1888.
The results are generally in good agreement with those given by this author, although not as close on both sides of the wave length 0.55 µ; this may be due partly to the use of a rock salt prism, to the fact that the minimum was determined by looking at a beam of diffused transmitted, instead of diffused reflected light, and also to the fact that Langley experimented with the sun, through the earth's atmosphere, and had to take into account the thickness of the atmosphere interposed and the brightness of the sky. Although his experiments were made with great care, the differences from one day to another are important. However, when he expresses the energy in absolute units, he always refers to the same mean amount of energy radiated by the sun on 1 sq. cm. This amount is certainly not constant, if one judges from the differences observed in two measurements of sensitivity of the eye of the same individual at different dates. On the contrary, for a given wave length, our measurements always agreed closely, as our source of radiation was very nearly constant, owing to the absence of a varying amount of water vapor interposed. This may in some way account for the discrepancies observed.
Absorption of solar radiation by water vapor, oxygen, and related collision pairs in the Earth's atmosphere