Essay Review: Spectroscopy,Historiography and Myth: The Victorians Vindicated

James F. A. J. L. , “The creation of a Victorian myth: The historiography of spectroscopy”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 1–24, p. 1.

ibid., 15.

Talbot W. H. F. , “Some experiments on coloured flames”, Edinburgh journal of science, v (1826), 77–81.

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 3.

Brewster was the editor of the journal in which Talbot's 1826 paper appeared. Herschel had forwarded it for publication: A letter from Talbot (Royal Society MSS “J. F. W. Herschel”, xvii, no. 261) thanks him for doing so. For Herschel's “Light”, see the Encyclopaedia metropolitan or universal dictionary of knowledge (25 vols, London, 1817–45), iv, 341–586; Talbot's work is referred to on pp. 437–8. Talbot repeated his suggestion that spectra could be used in chemical analysis in “Facts relating to optical science. No. 1”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, iv (1834), 112–14. In “Facts relating to optical science. No. 3”, (ibid., ix (1836), 1–4), he wrote: “It may be expected, therefore, that optical researches, properly conducted, may throw some additional light upon chemistry” (p. 3).

Talbot's mechanical theory of the origin of spectra is described in the letter Talbot-Herschel, 31 May 1833: Royal Society MSS “J. F. W. Herschel”, xvii, no. 272. It also appears in Talbot W. H. F. , “On the nature of light”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, vii (1835), 113–18.

Herschel refers to the encyclopaedia article (op. cit., ref. 5) as “my Essay on Light” several times in his paper “On the absorption of light by coloured media, viewed in connexion with the undulatory theory”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, iii (1833), 401–12.

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 3.

Turner pointed out the similarity of the flames produced by lithia and strontia in his “On the means of detecting lithia in minerals by the blowpipe”, Edinburgh journal of science, iv (1825–26), 113–17. But he does not mention their spectra in his Elements of chemistry (Edinburgh, 1827). For comment on this, see Sutton M. A. , “Spectroscopy and the chemists: A neglected opportunity?”, Ambix, xxiii (1976), 16–26, p. 16; James agrees that Turner “must have been aware of the existence of Talbot's work”, op. cit. (ref. 1), 4.

See, for example, Frankland's Edward remarks at the Chemical Society meeting of 20 June 1861, reported in Chemical news, iv (1861), 131. The same point is made in a letter from Herschel to John Tyndall, dated 27 July 1861, Royal Society MSS “J. F. W. Herschel”, xvii, no. 388(a).

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 4.

The emergence of disciplinary specialization in science is too large a question to be dealt with properly here: It will be a central topic in my forthcoming book on the early history of physical chemistry. For some illuminating comments on the intellectual context of this transformation see: Cannon S. F. , Science in culture: The early Victorian period (New York, 1978), especially ch. 4, “The invention of physics” and ch. 5, “Professionalization”; compare Heyck T. W. , The transformation of intellectual life in Victorian England (London, 1982), ch. 3, “The worlds of science and the universities”.

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 12.

ibid., 15.

ibid., 17.

This comment occurs in an unsigned editorial note, presumably by Crookes William , “Early researches on the spectra of artificial light from different sources”, Chemical news, iii (1861), 184. Incidentally, James makes a small error when quoting from this note in his own paper, op. cit. (ref. 1), 11: Where James has “…many of the observations which are now being followed by…”, the original reads “…followed up by…”; however, the import of the passage is clear enough in either version.

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 18.

Almost all the British protests appeared in print within a few months of the first announcement of the discoveries of Bunsen and Kirchhoff , and were only a few sentences long. There was no sustained campaign to revise the history of spectroscopy. See Crookes W. , op. cit. (ref. 16), and “Early researches on the spectra of artificial light”, Chemical news, iii (1861), 303–4; Stokes G. G. , “On the simultaneous emission and absorption of rays of the same definite refrangibility”, Philosophical magazine, 4th series, xix (1860), 196; Miller W. A. , “The new method of spectrum analysis: An address to Section B of the British Association”, Chemical news, iv (1861), 159–61, and “On spectrum analysis — a lecture to the Pharmaceutical Society”, ibid., v (1862), 201–3, 214–18.

Crookes was busy with his newly discovered element, thallium. Miller was working on the analysis of stellar spectra with the astronomer Huggins William , while Stokes was continuing with his studies of the spectra of fluorescent light.

See Kirchhoff G. R. , “Contributions towards the history of spectrum analysis and of the analysis of the solar atmosphere”, Philosophical magazine, 4th series, xxv (1863), 250–62 (translated from “Zur Geschichte der Spectral-Analyse und der Analyse der Sonnenatmosphar”, Poggendorf's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, cxviii (1863), 94–111). He concludes “Experiments which were greatly varied, and were for the most part new, led us to the conclusion upon which the foundations of the ‘chemical analysis by spectrum observations’ now rests”. Compare Roscoe H. E. , “On the application of the induction coil to Steinheil's apparatus for spectrum analysis”, a lecture to the Chemical Society delivered on 20 June 1861, published in Chemical news, iv (1861), 118–22, especially the historical comment on p. 119. See also the same author's Six lectures on spectrum analysis (London, 1868).

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 10.

Sutton , op. cit. (ref. 9).

Sutton M. A. , “Sir John Herschel and the development of spectroscopy in Britain”, The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 42–60, p. 42.

James , op. cit. (ref. 1), 5.

See Brewster D. , “Observations on the absorption of specific rays, in reference to the undulatory theory of light”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, ii (1833), 360–3.

Brewster D. , “On the colours of natural bodies”, ibid., viii (1836), 468–74.

These results were read to the British Association in 1833, and later published as Herschel , op. cit. (ref. 7).

See von Wrede F. , “An attempt to explain the absorption of light according to the undulatory theory”, Taylor's scientific memoirs, i (1836), 477–502; originally published as “Forsok att harleda Ljusets absorption fran Undultions-Teorienen”, Konglia Svenska Vetenskaps Akademiens Handlinger, (1834), 318–53. See also the editorial comment in the Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, iii (1837), 355.

Draper J. W. , for example, who in a series of papers, published over several years, tried to explain the phenomena of absorption spectra, photocatalysis and allotropic change in a broad theoretical synthesis: See “On the allotropism of chlorine as connected with the theory of substitution”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, xxvii (1845), 327–46.

James's F. A. J. L. “The debate on the nature of the absorption of light 1830–35: A core-set analysis”, History of science, xxi (1983), 335–68, and Cantor's G. N. Optics After Newton (Manchester, 1983), though valuable, do not exhaust the topic.

For remarks by ‘physicists’ on the chemical possibilities of spectra, see the works by Herschel and Talbot cited in ref. 5 above, and the paper by Draper J. W. mentioned in ref. 29: Compare the Thompson-Stokes correspondence, in vol. iv of Stokes's Mathematical and physical papers, ed. by Larmor J. (Cambridge, 1904), 367–71. For discussion of the way in which the ‘tunnel vision’ of chemists may have limited their perception of the utility of spectra, see my 1976 paper, cited in ref. 9 above.

De la Rue spoke from the chair to introduce a debate on the paper read by Roscoe to the Chemical Society, op. cit. (ref. 20), Chemical news, iv (1861), 130–3, p. 130.