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to our knowledge, for its explanation of the absorptive phenomena. In attempting to explain the extinction of light on the corpuscular doctrine, we have to account for the light so extinguished as a material body, which we must not suppose annihilated. It may, however, be transformed; and among the imponderable agents, heat, electricity, &c., it may be that we are to search for the light which has become thus comparatively stagnant. The heating power of the solar rays gives a primá facie plausibility to the idea of the transformation of light into heat by absorption. But, when we come to examine the matter more nearly, we find it encumbered on all sides with difficulties. How is it, for instance, that the most luminous rays are not the most calorific, but that, on the contrary, the calorific energy accompanies, in its greatest intensity, rays which possess comparatively feeble illuminating powers? These and other questions of a similar nature may perhaps admit of answer in a more advanced state of our knowledge; but at present there is none obvious. It is not without reason, therefore, that the question, ‘What becomes of light?' which appears to have been agitated among the photologists of the last century, has been regarded as one of considerable importance as well as obscurity by the corpuscular philosophers. On the other hand, the answer to this question, afforded by the undulatory theory of light, is simple and distinct. The question, What becomes of light?' merges in the more general one, 'What becomes of motion ?' And the answer, on dynamical principles, is, that it continues for ever. No motion is, strictly speaking, annihilated; but it may be divided, and the divided parts made to oppose and in effect destroy one another. A body struck, however perfectly elastic, vibrates for a time, and then appears to sink into its original repose. But this apparent rest (even abstracting from the inquiry that part of the motion which may be conveyed away by the ambient air) is nothing else than a state of subdivided and mutually destroying motion, in which every molecule continues to be agitated by an indefinite multitude of internally reflected waves, propagated through it in every possible direction, from every point in its surface on which they successively impinge. The superposition of such waves will, it is easily seen, at length operate their mutual destruction, which will be the more complete the more irregular the figure of the body, and the greater

the number of internal reflections." Thus Sir John Herschel, by referring the absorption of light to the subdivision and mutual destruction of the vibrations of ether in the interior of bodies, brings another class of phenomena under the laws of the undulatory theory.

According to Mr. Rankin's hypothesis of Molecular Vortices* the absorption of light and radiant heat consists in the transference of motion from the molecules to their atmospheres, and conversely the emission of light and radiant heat is the transmission of motion from the atmospheres to the molecules. The great velocity of light and heat is a natural consequence of this hypothesis, according to which the vibratory masses must be extremely small compared with the forces exerted by them.

The ethereal medium pervading space is supposed to penetrate all material substances, occupying the interstices between their molecules; but in the interior of refracting media it exists in a state of less elasticity compared with its density in vacuo; and, the more refractive the medium, the less the elasticity of the ether within it. Hence the waves of light are transmitted with less velocity in such media as glass and water than in the external ether, As soon as a ray of light reaches the surface of a diaphanous reflecting substance, for example a plate of glass, it communicates its undulations to the ether next in contact with the surface, which thus becomes a new centre of motion, and two hemispherical waves are propagated from each point of this surface; one of which proceeds forward into the interior of the glass, with a less velocity than the incident waves; and the other is transmitted back into the air, with a velocity equal to that with which it came (N. 203). Thus, when refracted, the light moves with a different velocity without and within the glass; when reflected, the ray comes and goes with the same velocity. The particles of ether without the glass, which communicate their motions to the particles of the dense and less elastic ether within it, are analogous to small elastic balls striking large ones; for some of the motion will be communicated to the large balls, and the small ones will be reflected. The first would cause the refracted wave, and the last the reflected. Conversely, when the light passes from glass to air, the action is similar to large balls striking small ones. The small balls * See page 104.

receive a motion which would cause the refracted ray, and the part of the motion retained by the large ones would occasion the reflected wave; so that, when light passes through a plate of glass or of any other medium differing in density from the air, there is a reflection at both surfaces; but this difference exists between the two reflections, that one is caused by a vibration in the same direction with that of the incident ray, and the other by a vibration in the opposite direction.

A single wave of air or ether would not produce the sensation of sound or light. In order to excite vision, the vibrations of the molecules of ether must be regular, periodical, and very often repeated: and, as the ear continues to be agitated for a short time after the impulse by which alone a sound becomes continuous, so also the fibres of the retina, according to M. d'Arcet, continue to vibrate for about the eighth part of a second after the exciting cause has ceased. The interval of time during which the impression lasts is longer for the blue than for red or white light it must not be less than 0.34. : Every one must have observed, when a strong impression is made by a bright light, that an object remains visible for a short time after shutting the eyes, which is supposed to be in consequence of the continued vibrations of the fibres of the retina. Occasionally the retina becomes insensible to feebly illuminated objects when continuously presented. If the eye be turned aside for a moment, the object becomes again visible. It is probably on this account that the owl makes so peculiar a motion with its head when looking at objects in the twilight. It is quite possible that many vibrations may be excited in the ethereal medium incapable of producing undulations in the fibres of the human retina, which yet have a powerful effect on those of other animals or of insects. Such may receive luminous impressions of which we are totally unconscious, and at the same time they may be insensible to the light and colours which affect our eyes, their perceptions beginning where ours end.

SECTION XXI.

Polarization of Light - Defined-Polarization by Refraction - Properties of the Tourmaline - All doubly Refracted Light is

Polarized

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Double Refraction

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- Properties of Iceland Spar-Tourmaline absorbs one of the two Refracted Rays - Undulations of Natural Light-Undulations of Polarized Light The Optic Axes of Crystals — M. Fresnel's Discoveries on the Rays passing along the Optic Axis - Polarization by Reflection.

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IN giving a sketch of the constitution of light, it is impossible to omit the extraordinary property of its polarization, "the phenomena of which," Sir John Herschel says, are so singular and various, that to one who has only studied the common branches of physical optics it is like entering into a new world, so splendid as to render it one of the most delightful branches of experimental inquiry, and so fertile in the views it lays open of the constitution of natural bodies, and the minuter mechanism of the universe, as to place it in the very first rank of the physicomathematical sciences, which it maintains by the rigorous application of geometrical reasoning its nature admits and requires."

Light is said to be polarized, which, by being once reflected or refracted, is rendered incapable of being again reflected or refracted at certain angles. In general, when a ray of light is reflected from a pane of plate-glass, or any other substance, it may be reflected a second time from another surface, and it will also pass freely through transparent bodies. But, if a ray of light be reflected from a pane of plate-glass at an angle of 57°, it is rendered totally incapable of reflection at the surface of another pane of glass in certain definite positions, but it will be completely reflected by the second pane in other positions. It likewise loses the property of penetrating transparent bodies in particular positions, whilst it is freely transmitted by them in others. Light, so modified as to be incapable of reflection and transmission in certain directions, is said to be polarized.

Light may be polarized by reflection from any polished surface, and the same property is also imparted by refraction. It is proposed to explain these methods of polarizing light, to give a short

account of its most remarkable properties, and to endeavour to describe a few of the splendid phenomena it exhibits.

If a brown tourmaline, which is a mineral generally crystallized in the form of a long prism, be cut longitudinally, that is, parallel to the axis of the prism, into plates about the thirtieth of an inch in thickness, and the surfaces polished, luminous objects may be seen through them, as through plates of coloured glass. The axis of each plate is in its longitudinal section parallel to the axis of the prism whence it was cut (N. 204). If one of these plates be held perpendicularly between the eye and a candle, and turned slowly round in its own plane, no change will take place in the image of the candle. But if the plate be held in a fixed position, with its axis or longitudinal section vertical, when a second plate of tourmaline is interposed between it and the eye, parallel to the first, and turned slowly round in its own plane, a remarkable change will be found to have taken place in the nature of the light. For the image of the candle will vanish and appear alternately at every quarter revolution of the plate, varying through all degrees of brightness down to total or almost total evanescence, and then increasing again by the same degrees as it had before decreased. These changes depend upon the relative positions of the plates. When the longitudinal sections of the two plates are parallel, the brightness of the image is at its maximum; and, when the axes of the sections cross at right angles, the image of the candle vanishes. Thus the light, in passing through the first plate of tourmaline, has acquired a property totally different from the direct light of the candle. The direct light would have penetrated the second plate equally well in all directions, whereas the refracted ray will only pass through it in particular positions, and is altogether incapable of penetrating it in others. The refracted ray is polarized in its passage through the first tourmaline, and experience shows that it never loses that property, unless when acted upon by a new substance. Thus, one of the properties of polarized light is the incapability of passing through a plate of tourmaline perpendicular to it, in certain positions, and its ready transmission in other positions at right angles to the former.

Many other substances have the property of polarizing light. If a ray of light falls upon a transparent medium, which has the same temperature, density, and structure throughout every part,

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