GENERAL PROPERTIES: THE CORPUSCLES. 



395 



designated by letters of the alphabet, A, B,C, D, E, etc., as shown in the charts 

 below. If while using solar light or an artificial light a solution of any sub- 

 stance which gives absorption bands is so placed in front of the slit that the 

 light is obliged to traverse it, the spectrum as observed through the telescope 

 will show one or more narrow or broad black bands that are characteristic 

 of the substance used and constitute its absorption spectrum. The positions 

 of these bands may be designated by describing their relations to the Fraun- 

 hofer lines, or more directly by stating the wave lengths of the portions of 

 the spectrum between which absorption takes place. Some spectroscopes are 

 provided with a scale of wave lengths superposed on the spectrum, and when 

 properly adjusted this scale enables one to read off directly the wave lengths 

 of any part of the spectrum. 



When very dilute solutions of oxyhemoglobin are examined with 

 the spectroscope, two absorption bands appear, both occurring in 



Fig. 169. Spectroscope : P, The glass prism ; A, the collimator tube, showing the slit, S, 

 through which the light is admitted; B, the telescope for observing the spectrum. 



the portion of the spectrum included between the Fraunhofer lines 

 D and E. The band nearer the red end of the spectrum is known 

 as the "a-band"; it is narrower, darker, and more clearly defined 

 than the other, the "/3-band" (Fig. 170). With a solution con- 

 taining 0.09 per cent, of oxyhemoglobin, and examined in layers one 

 centimeter thick, the a-band extends over the part of the spectrum 

 included between the wave-lengths X 583 (yrinnnnr f a millimeter) 

 and X 571, and the /?-band between X 550 and X 532 (Gamgee). 

 The width and distinctness of the bands vary naturally with the 

 concentration of the solution used (see Fig. 171), or, if the con- 

 centration remains the same, with the width of the stratum of liquid 

 through which the light passes. With a certain minimal percentage 



