Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/140

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The efficiency of the grating depends on the order m of the spectrum and the number n of lines in the grating, i. e., on the product of the two. Hitherto the efforts of makers of gratings have been directed toward increasing n as much as possible by making the total number of lines in the grating as great as possible. It has been found that as many as 100,000 lines can be ruled side by side on a metallic surface; but in ruling 100,000 lines it is extremely difficultFIG. 88 to get them in their proper position. Very little attention has as yet been directed toward producing a spectrum of a very high order. The chief reason for this is that the intensity of the light in the spectra of higher orders diminishes very rapidly as the order increases. The first spectrum is by far the brightest; the second has an intensity of something like one-third of the first, and the succeeding spectra are still fainter. There have been, occasionally, gratings in which the diamond point happened to rule in such a way as to throw an abnormal proportion of light in one spectrum. Such are exceedingly rare and exceedingly valuable. It seems to be a matter of chance whether the diamond rules such gratings or not. It was with the double purpose of multiplying the order of the spectrum, and at the same time of throwing all the light in one spectrum, that the instrument shown in Fig. 88 was devised.