The back cover of the February 2000 issue of The Spectrum had a picture of the cover of one of the two volumes of a book on spectroscopy that was published in 1874.  I asked, "Is this the oldest book on spectroscopy?" because a brief online biography of Boisbaudran (click here) said it "must be one of the earliest texts on spectroscopy".   Some readers responded with information on earlier books.

Phil McKittrick nominated Spectrum Analysis in its Application to Terrestrial Substances by Dr. Heinrich  Schellen.  His copy is the second edition, published in 1872, and the German edition was a year earlier.  Mike Epstein saw the English-language edition recently, and he found that it has three main sections; the first is on light sources, the second on applications to terrestrial materials, and the third on astronomical applications. 

Edgar F. Paski cited La Lumiere, ses Causes et ses Effects by Edmond Becquerel, published in 1867.  Paski does not have the book, but he borrowed the two volumes of this book from a university library about ten years ago.  Paski's description of the Becqurel book is: Antoine Cesar Becquerel, in collaboration with his son Edmond, published the first drawings of luminescence spectra in Volume II of "Traite de Physique" (Paris, 1844). In this book, drawings of the luminescence emission of CaS and BaS along with a solar spectrum containing the Fraunhofer lines for comparison were shown.  Although "Traite de Physique" is a landmark publication, containing much spectroscopy related material - it covered many other topics and should not qualify as the first book devoted to spectroscopy.  And yes, Henri Becquerel, discoverer of radioactivity, is the son of Edmond Becquerel. Quite a productive family!

Alex Scheeline cited two early books; one he found in a card catalog: Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations, Embracing a Consideration of the Photographic Process by  Robert Hunt (1854); another that was mentioned in an 1898 text: and De Spectraal-Analyse by Dibbits (first name unknown), 1869.  A list of 19th century books on photography at http://world.std.com/~cbw/list2.htm describes Hunt's book as "the first history of photography".

My small collection of rare books includes Annual of Scientific Discovery: or Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art for 1854, edited by David A. Wells.  It includes a detailed account of a lecture by Stokes on "The change of refrangibility of light", which we now call fluorescence.  That is followed by a shorter report on a talk by Robert Hunt on the chemical action of solar light of different wavelengths, and after that a long report on studies by Helmholtz on the reproduction of all colors by combining three basic colors.  If we accepted Becquerel's book as being on spectroscopy, Wells' book would have to be accepted as an earlier one.  Incidentally, there are no illustrations in Wells' book, so Traite de Physique may well be the first to include an illustration of a luminescence spectrum.

For now, Schellen's 1871 book appears to be the first book truly on spectroscopy.  Epstein's report on Boisbaudran follows (click here), followed by samples of plates  from the book (click here).  The book can be read or downloaded in .pdf ot .tiff format at a site maintained by the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris (click here).  The quality of the figures online are not as good as in the book itself, but they give a sense of what Boisbaudran achieved.

My thanks to each of the readers who provided information for this discussion.  I would like to receive more information and opinions; e-mail them to the Editor.

Marvin Margoshes