IX. On the lines of the solar spectrum

In a paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1833, Sir David Brewster stated that by various means he had examined the lines of the solar spectrum, and those produced by the intervention of nitrous acid gas, and had delineated them on a scale four times greater than that employed in the beautiful map of Fraunhofer. Some portions also, which were more particularly studied, had been drawn on a scale twelve times greater. "Fraunhofer,” he continued, "has laid down in his map 354 lines, but in the delineations which I have executed, the spectrum is divided into more than 2000 visible and easily recognized portions, separated from each other by lines more or less marked, according as we use the simple solar spectrum, or the solar and gaseous spectrum combined, or the gaseous spectrum itself, in which any breadth can be given to the dark spaces.” None of these drawings, however, were published at the time. Frequent observations were continued during the years 1837, 1838, and 1841; and now, after a lapse of many years, the various delineations, having been collated and arranged by Dr. Gladstone, form the principal diagrams in the Plate accompanying this paper. Fig. 1 of Plate IV. represents the lines observed when the sun was at a considerable altitude above the horizon, and its light was examined by means of a good prism and telescope. The spectrum is delineated on so large a scale that it was necessary to divide it into two portions, the upper diagram representing the part between the least refrangible end and the line designated F 7, the lower diagram the part between F 7 and the most refrangible end. On a comparison with Fraunhofer’s large map, the principal lines and features will be easily recognized; but it will be seen that every portion of the spectrum contains lines wanting in the earlier drawing, and that parts which Fraunhofer has marked by one line are resolved into groups of bright spaces alternating with dark lines. The figure of the spectrum extends at the more refrangible or violet end to about the same distance as that of the Bavarian philosopher, but it exhibits a considerable extension at the red or less refrangible end. The principal lines are indicated by those letters, A, a , B, C, &c., which were assigned to them by him, and the larger intermediate lines are marked by numbers, 1, 2, 3, &c., beginning afresh on the more refrangible side of each letter; so that any one of these may be expressed by a combination of a letter and numeral; as, for instance, C 6, a remarkable line in the orange, of which much will be said hereafter. The extreme violet is lettered, both in this and in a map to be subsequently described, by that continuation of the alphabet which has been adopted by M. Becquerel. It was necessary to indicate in some similar manner the newly published, though not newly discovered, lines at the red end of the spectrum; and as the alphabet has not been appropriated by M. Becquerel beyond P, and it is not likely that further research will largely extend the spectrum in that direction, it was thought safe to take the end of the alphabet, and denoting the first strongly-marked line before A by Z, to work backwards into those slightly refrangible rays, which have been as yet unresolved by human vision. Some of the dark spaces of the spectrum are of an appreciable breadth, in which case they are represented as bands; and where the observation of a line was indistinct or uncertain, it is marked by an interrupted instead of a continuous line.