Abstract
IT is not many years since physicists considered that a spectroscope constructed of a large number of prisms was the best and only instrument for viewing the spectrum, where great power was required. These instruments were large and expensive, so that few physicists could possess them. Prof. Young was the first to discover that some of the gratings of Mr. Rutherfurd showed more than any prism spectroscope which had then been constructed. But all the gratings which had been made up to that time were quite small, say 1 inch square, whereas the power of a grating in resolving the line of the spectrum increases with the size. Mr. Rutherfurd then attempted to make as large gratings as his machine would allow, and produced some which were nearly 2 inches square, though he was rarely successful above 13/4 inches, having about 30,000 lines. These gratings were on speculum metal, and showed more of the spectsum than had ever before been seen, and have, in the hands of Young, Rutherfurd, Lockyer, and others, done much good work for science. Many mechanics in this country, and in France and Germany, have sought to equal Mr. Rutherfurd's gratings, but without success.
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Preliminary Notice of the Results Accomplished in the Manufacture and Theory of Gratings for Optical Purposes 1 . Nature 26, 211–213 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026211b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026211b0