SPECTROGRAPIIY. 



657 



relinquished her boasted sovereignty after a 

 duration of little more than three months, and 

 relapsed into the condition of a submissive mem- 

 ber of an anti-free-trade and anti-slave- trade 

 Confederacy. Fort Surater was captured by 

 orders from the Confederate Government, on 

 which occasion the Governor addressed the peo- 

 ple and thus reviewed the events that had taken 

 place : " We have had a great many delicate 

 and peculiar relations since the 20th of Decem- 

 ber last. We took the lead in coming out of 

 this ohl Union, and in forming this new Con- 

 federacy. We, therefore, had certain relations 

 to those who were to come out and stand by our 

 side. We owed a great deal to those who were 

 expected to come with us. We were bound to 

 consult their feelings and their interests, and it 

 was due that we should be forbearing as well 

 as free. We are now one of the Confederate 

 States, and they have sent us a brave and sci- 

 entific officer, to whom the credit of this day's 

 triumph is due. We have humbled the flag "of 

 the United States, and as long as I have the 

 honor to preside as your chief magistrate, so 

 help me God, there is no power on this earth 

 shall ever lower from that fortress those flags, 

 unless they be lowered and trailed in a sea of 

 blood. I can here say to you it is the first time 

 in the history of this country that the Stars 

 and Stripes have been humbled. It has tri- 

 umphed for seventy years, but to-day, on the 

 13th day of April, it has been humbled, and 

 humbled before the glorious little State of 

 South Carolina. The Stars and Stripes have 

 been lowered before your eyes this day, but 

 there are no flames that shall ever lower the 

 flag of South Carolina while I have the honor 

 to preside as your chief magistrate." 



This closed military operations in the State 

 until near the end of the year, when the mili- 

 tary and naval expedition under Gen. Sherman 

 and Com. Dupont arrived at Port Royal. (See 

 EXPEDITION.) 



The volunteers of the State were sent away 

 tinder the orders of the Confederate Govern- 

 ment to defend the soil of Virginia from inva- 

 sion by Northern troops. The number of these 

 volunteers was about 19,000. The Representa- 

 tives of the State in the Confederate Congress 

 were R. Barnwell Rhett, and J. L. Orr, Sen- 

 ators ; and W. W. Boyce, W. P. Miles, M. L. 

 Bonham, John McQueen, L. M. Ager, and 

 James Farran, Representatives. (See CHABLES- 

 TOX, also STTMTER.) 



SPECTROGRAPHY; Analysis by means of 

 the prismatic spectrum. Some remarkable ex- 

 periments have been performed in 1861 in Ger- 

 many by MM. Bunsen and Kirchhoff, in detect- 

 ing the presence of elementary bodies, by 

 means of the effect they produce upon the pris"- 

 matic spectrum, when present in inconceivably 

 small quantities, and in whatever combination, 

 in the illuminated atmosphere. When a ray of 

 light is decomposed by being passed through a 

 prism, the different rays thrown upon a white 

 screen succeed each other in the following or- 

 42 



der : violet, green, indigo, blue, green, yellow, 

 orange, red. Under certain circumstances nu- 

 merous dark parallel lines of variable width and 

 distinctness may be produced, which traverse 

 the spectrum or assemblage of colored rays thus 

 obtained, each line extending through the ray 

 to which it belongs, and retaining the same po- 

 sition as respects its distance from the adjoin- 

 ing rays. Solar light, it has been observed, 

 produced a spectrum marked by lines differing 

 in position from those produced by gas light, 

 and spectra from other artificial lights also had 

 their respective peculiarities. 



The German optician Fraiinhofer, who had 

 closely studied the lines or bands upon the solar 

 spectrum, selected from the several hundred of 

 them which he observed, seven as particularly 

 conspicuous and easily recognized, which he 

 named from the letters of the alphabet, B, C, D, 

 E, F, G, n, and which are still referred to as 

 standard points of reference in the spectrum for 

 defining special rays of light which cannot be 

 exactly indicated by any descriptive names. B 

 and C extend through the red color in that half 

 of it nearest the orange, D is in the centre of 

 the orange, E at the junction of the yellow and 

 green, F at the junction of the green and blue, 

 G in the middle of the indigo, and H in that of 

 the violent. 



Bunsen and Kirchhoff found that the presence 

 of metallic or other elementary substances in 

 the flame producing the artificial light, caused in 

 the spectrum the appearance of characteristic 

 lines ; and these being determined for each 

 substance, might be taken as conclusive tests 

 of the presence of these substances ; and what 

 is remarkable, the presence of the element can 

 be determined when it is in infinitely smaller 

 quantity than is required for its detection by 

 ordinary modes of qualitative analysis. The 

 apparatus employed, of which a simple form, 

 described by M. Mousson in " Poggendorff 's 

 Annalen " under the name of the spectroscope, 

 and which may be obtained in New ( York 

 City,* consists essentially of a tube blackened 

 within, having at one extremity a metal plate 

 with an adjustable slit for the admission of 

 light, and a prism at the other extremity. It 

 is placed upon a stand and has a small metallic 

 screen for excluding extraneous light from the 

 eye of the observer, which is applied to the sec- 

 ond refracting surface of the prism. Various 

 methods were introduced by Bunsen and Kirch- 

 hoff of submitting substances to this new test. 

 A light giving great heat, and of little illumi- 

 nating power, is found to present the lines most 

 distinctly upon the spectrum, and that from 

 hydrogen gas is used in preference to others. 

 The burner is placed directly opposite the slit 

 in the metallic plate at the end of the tube, and 

 the substance to be examined may be intro- 

 duced into the flame attached to a hook of plat- 

 inum wire, as in blow-pipe experiments. When 

 in the form of chlorides, the metals being more 



* See American "Journal of Science," vol. XXXIL, p. 

 105, (July, 1S61.) 



