ABSTRACT
In the 1880s the conduct of visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy settled into forms and procedures that survived essentially unchanged for another 50 years. Experimentally, the field had come of age. The Rowland grating brought spectral resolution into the range of a few linewidths, wavelength standards were available throughout the region, and the gelatin-supported emulsion, the “dry” plate, greatly simplified the use of photography.
