The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S.: A Biographical SketchThorpe, T. E. (Thomas Edward)
Science
The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S.: A Biographical Sketch
Thorpe, T. E. (Thomas Edward)
Roscoe, Henry E. (Henry Enfield), 1833-1915
One of these courses of six lectures given to the Society of Apothecaries
of London in 1868 was subsequently published, with additions, in an
admirably illustrated volume which had a considerable measure of
success—a second edition, still more largely augmented owing to the
extraordinary rapidity with which knowledge on celestial chemistry
increased, being called for within a year. In the preparation of a third
and fourth edition he was assisted by his friend Dr. Schuster. As the
successive editions show, the rate at which literature accumulated round
the subject was altogether unprecedented in the history of scientific
discovery.
Roscoe made an attempt to apply the spectroscope to the Bessemer process
of steel manufacture, and for this purpose caused a long series of
observations to be made, first at Brown’s Atlas works in Sheffield,
and then at the Crewe works of the L. & N.W. Railway Company, when a
considerable amount of information concerning the peculiarities of the
spectrum of the converter-flame was gained, mainly by the observations of
Dr. W. Marshall Watts, a former student and one of his assistants, who
took over the subsequent conduct of the inquiry.
Considering his interest in the subject, comparatively little original
work on spectroscopy was published by Roscoe.
The following is a list of the inquiries with which he was concerned:
“On the Effect of Increased Temperature upon the Nature of
the Light Emitted by the Vapour of Certain Metals on Metallic
Compounds.” By H. E. Roscoe and R. B. Clifton. _Manchester
Phil. Soc. Proc._ II. (1860-1862), pp. 227-230.
“Note on the Absorption-spectra of Potassium and Sodium at Low
Temperatures.” By H. E. Roscoe and A. Schuster. _Roy. Soc.
Proc._ XXII. (1874), pp. 362-364.
“On the Absorption-spectra of Bromine and Iodine Monochloride.”
By H. E. Roscoe and T. E. Thorpe. _Phil. Trans._ CLXVII.
(1878), pp. 207-212.
“Note on the Identity of the Spectra Obtained from the
Different Allotropic Forms of Carbon.” By H. E. Roscoe and A.
Schuster. _Manchester Lit. Phil. Soc. Proc._ XIX. (1880), pp.
46-49.
“The Spectrum of Terbium.” By H. E. Roscoe and A. Schuster.
_Chem. Soc. Jour._ XLI. (1882), pp. 283-287.
The only attempt he was able to make to contribute to our knowledge of
the chemistry of the sun by spectroscopic observations had an unlucky
ending. He formed one of the members of the Government expedition sent
to Sicily to observe the total solar eclipse of December 22, 1870. The
following letters refer to this subject:
VICTORIA PARK, MANCHESTER,
_November 2, 1870_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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