The following tube-observations were taken together, because my friend Mr. Henry R. Procter (to whom I am indebted for many profitable hints and suggestions in Auroral work) was disposed to regard the spectra found in the carbon-tubes and in those marked “O” as identical, suggesting that pure O, with the ordinary non-intensified discharge, gives only a continuous spectrum; and that the O tubes are in fact generally lighted up by a carbon-spectrum, as the result of impurity from accidental causes. The tubes examined for the purpose of comparison were as follows:—A coal-gas tube, a tube marked “C.A.,” three O tubes (two of, I believe, London make, and the third from Geissler), and an OH₂ tube, also from Geissler. The carbon-tubes were both brilliantly and steadily lighted by the current. The C.A. tube glowed with a peculiar silvery-grey green light in the capillary part, and with a grey glow, considerably stratified, in the bulbs. The coal-gas tube illumination was whiter and still more brilliant than the C.A., and with even finer stratification in the bulbs. The spectra of both tubes were conspicuous for the same three well-known principal bright lines or bands in the yellow, green, and blue (with one fainter in the violet), all shading off towards the violet, and in both cases with fainter intervening bands or lines. These last bands or lines only partially coincided when the two tubes were compared.
The spectra in both cases were rich and glowing, with a certain amount of continuous spectrum between the lines; and the three principal bands or lines showed well and distinctly their respective place-colours.
Tubes tested for distance.
Tubes tested for distance.—In the case of the C.A. tube, at 18 inches from the slit the continuous spectrum and fainter lines disappeared, while the four principal lines still shone out, that in the green being the strongest. At 24 inches the same lines were still visible, though somewhat faintly.
In the case of the coal-gas tube, at 24 inches the whole spectrum was quite brilliant, the four principal lines being very bright and even preserving their distinctive colours. The H line, near the line or band in the blue, was also plainly seen.
O tubes lighted up.
The O tubes, when treated by the same current as the carbon-tubes, were found to be all three identical in general features. The discharge lighted up each of the tubes feebly and somewhat intermittently. Grey in the bulbs and a faint but decidedly pinkish white in the capillary part were the distinguishing light colours; while nothing could be more marked than the difference in brilliancy between these and the preceding carbon-tubes.
OH₂ tubes lighted up. O tubes spectra described.
The OH₂ tube presented very much the same character; but the discharge occasionally varied from a pinkish white to a yellow colour, somewhat like that which artists call brown-pink, and reminding one of the “golden rays” in certain Auroræ. These O spectra presented, in common with the carbon-tubes, three principal bright lines or bands in the yellow, green, and blue, with a fainter one in the violet, all shading off towards the violet. The bands, however, showed but very little trace of local colour, and the whole spectrum had a faint and washed-out look, very different from the carbon-spectra. (I certainly, by a little management, subsequently succeeded in getting the same look to the C.A. spectrum; but it was only by removing the tube to some distance from the slit, and thus depriving the spectrum of very much of its brightness.) The hydrogen line (solar F) was bright, more so than any of the O lines.