Abstract
IN February, 1880, I took occasion, on the ground of my observations to the spectrum of chemically pure hydrogen, to take objection, to Lockyer's view, that calcium, at a very high temperature, is dissociated.2 From the fact, inter alia, that of the two calcium lines, H′ and H″, only the first is present in the spectra of so-called white stars photographed by Huggins, Lockyer proceeded to lay down the theory that calcium at a high temperature is decomposed into two substances, X and Y, of which the first gives the line H′, the other the line H″, and that in the stars referred to, only the first is met with. Against this I urged that hydrogen, besides the four known and easily visible lines, has a remarkable line of very intense photographic power, which nearly coincides with Fraunhofer's H′, and that one is the more warranted in regarding the supposed calcium-line observed by Huggins as a fifth hydrogen line, that the hydrogen lines in the spectra of those stars are developed in a striking manner, and also the ultra-violet star lines observed by Huggins, agree with the ultra-violet hydrogen lines photographically fixed by me.3
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References
A paper by read to the Berlin Academy on November 2, 1882. Communicated by the author.
Proc. Roy. Soc., xxviii. 157.
Monatsb. der Berliner Acad., der Wiss., 1880, p. 192.
Comptes Rendus, t. xcii. 904.
Proc. Roy. Soc., 30, 93. Wied, Beibl., iv. 366.
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Lockyer's Dissociation-Theory 1 . Nature 27, 233 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/027233a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027233a0