SPECTRUM OF THE SUN AND ELEMENTS

Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. SPECTRUM OF THE SUN AND ELEMENTS.

SPECTRUM OF THE SUN AND ELEMENTS.

The Johns Hopkins University Circular, No. 85, issued in February, contains Prof. Rowland's report of progress in spectrum work. The spectra of all known elements, with the exception of a few gaseous ones, or those too rare to be yet obtained, have been photographed in connection with the solar spectrum, from the extreme ultra-violet down to the D line, and eye observations have been made on many to the limit of the solar spectrum. A table of standard wave lengths of the impurities in the carbon poles extending to wave length 2,000 has been constructed to measure wave lengths beyond the limits of the solar spectrum. In addition to this, maps of the spectra of some of the elements have been drawn up on a large scale, ready for publication, and the greater part of the lines in the map of the solar spectrum have been identified. The following rough table of the solar elements has been constructed entirely according to Prof. Rowland's own observations, although, of course, most of them have been given by others:

Elements in the Sun, arranged according to Intensity and the Number of Lines in the Solar Spectrum.

  According to intensity.             According to number.


  Calcium   Zirconium         Iron (2,000 or more) Magnesium (20 or more)
  Iron      Molybdenum        Nickel               Sodium (11)
  Hydrogen  Lanthanum         Titanium             Silicon
  Sodium    Niobium           Manganese            Strontium
  Nickel    Palladium         Chromium             Barium
  Magnesium Neodymium         Cobalt               Aluminum (4)
  Cobalt    Copper            Carbon (200 or more) Cadmium
  Silicon   Zinc              Vanadium             Rhodium
  Aluminum  Cadmium           Zirconium            Erbium
  Titanium  Cerium            Cerium               Zinc
  Chromium  Glucinum          Calcium (75 or more) Copper (2)
  Manganese Germanium         Scandium             Silver (2)
  Strontium Rhodium           Neodymium            Glucinum (2)
  Vanadium  Silver            Lanthanum            Germanium
  Barium    Tin               Yttrium              Tin
  Carbon    Lead              Niobium              Lead (1)
  Scandium  Erbium            Molybdenum           Potassium (1)
  Yttrium   Potassium         Palladium

Doubtful Elements.

Iridium, osmium, platinum, ruthenium, tantalum, thorium, tungsten, uranium.

Not in Solar Spectrum.

Antimony, arsenic, bismuth, boron, nitrogen, cæsium, gold, indium, mercury, phosphorus, rubidium, selenium, sulphur, thallium, praseodymium.

With respect to these tables, Prof. Rowland adds: "The substances under the head of 'Not in the Solar Spectrum' are often placed there because the elements have few strong lines or none at all in the limit of the solar spectrum when the arc spectrum, which I have used, is employed. Thus, boron has only two strong lines at 2497. Again, the lines of bismuth are all compound, and so too diffuse to appear in the solar spectrum. Indeed, some good reason generally appears for their absence from the solar spectrum. Of course, there is but little evidence of their absence from the sun itself; were the whole earth heated to the temperature of the sun, its spectrum would probably resemble that of the sun very closely."

The powerful instrument used at Baltimore for photographing spectra, and the measuring engine constructed to fit the photographs so that its readings give the wave lengths of lines directly within 1/100 of a division on Angström's scale, give the foregoing results a weight superior to many others published.

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