"On the Prismatic Decomposition of Electric Light" in "Notices of Communication to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Dublin in 1835."

WHEATSTONE, Charles. "On the Prismatic Decomposition of Electric Light" in "Notices of Communication to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Dublin in 1835", published as a part of the "Report of the Fifth Meeting for the British Association for the Ad-vancement of Science held in Dublin in 1835." London, John Murray, 1836. Lvi, 255; viii, 132, 37pp. Newly rebound in a good, strong, du-rable cloth, with new endpapers and pastedowns. There is some occasional foxing to the first and last few dozen pages, though in general the text is very clean and crisp. Text: VG. Bindng: New. [++] "In 1835, at the Dublin meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) reported that metals could be distinguished by the bright lines in the emission spectra of their sparks. This was the first time that spectrum analysis was applied to the identification of metals."--David Wenner, History of Physics—the Wenner Collection. [++] "(Wheatstone.) associated the spectrum of the light of a discharge with the metals that constituted the electrodes."--Complete DSB online. [++] Interesting to note Wheatstone's background: "Wheatstone was an experimenter and pioneering inventor in acoustics, optics, electricity, and telegraphy. He came from a family of musical instrument makers and dealers, a background that was rele-vant for much of his early acoustical research. He did not have any formal scientific education. In 1816 he was apprenticed to an uncle in the music business in London."--ibid. Can't help but thinking first of the Wheatstone bridge when thinking about this man. …