SMYTH, C. Piazzi. Madeira Spectroscopic being a Revision of 21 Places in the Red Half of the Solar Visible Spectrum with a Rutherford Diffraction Grating at Madeira (Lat. = 32° 38' N., Long. = 1h 8m W.) during the Summer of 1881.
Edinburgh: W. & A. K. Johnston, 1882.
Edinburgh: W. & A. K. Johnston, 1882.
£450
4to. Original green cloth, gilt; pp. x, 32; frontis. of spectrum scales, title-page vignette Woodbury-type photograph from a drawing by Smyth, 18 spectroscopic plates at rear; soiled, else a very good copy with the bookplate of Dudley Observatory, Albany, N.Y.
First edition. Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, became interested in spectroscopy as a tool in astrophysics during the 1870s. He worked in this discipline using instruments purchased at his own expense, and transported them to viewing locations in Lisbon and, later, Madeira, for the purposes of observation. One of his aims, successfully carried out, was to discriminate in the sun's spectrum between absorption lines of purely solar origin and those produced in the earth's atmosphere. The present work, sumptuously produced at great expense, records his findings from observations made in Madeira in 1881.
