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tions from the smaller number of molecules, which thus became really new centres of light, different from the sun's light, though owing to it; the one celestial, the other terrestrial; and the latter vibrations being more rapid than those of the blue light, their refrangibility was less, and therefore their colour lower in the prismatic scale. Mr. Power computed from his formulæ, that fluorescent light is produced by undulations which are a major or minor third below the pitch of the general vibration of the medium-that is to say, below the vibrations which the whole molecules of the body most readily assume.

Professor Stokes, of Cambridge, who made the preceding experiment, found that the chemical rays from a point in the solar spectrum produced, in a solution of the sulphate of quinine, light of a sky-blue colour, which emanates in all directions from the liquid, and that this blue fluorescent light contains, when analysed, all the rays of the spectrum; hence he inferred that the dispersive power or fluorescence had lowered the refrangibility of the chemical rays, so as to make them visible: and Sir David Brewster observes that the new spectrum, of all colours into which they were transformed, must possess the extraordinary property of being a luminous spectrum, either without chemical rays or full of them. The dispersion in the quinine solution is greatest near the surface, but the blue emanation proceeds from every part of the liquid; and Sir John Herschel, who discovered the fluorescent property in this liquid, and gave it the name of epipolic light, found that the remainder of the beam, when it issued from the solution, though not apparently different from the incident white light, is yet so much changed in passing through the liquid, that it is no longer capable of producing fluorescence, though still capable of common dispersion. The blue light from the solution of quinine, when examined, consisted of rays extending over a great part of the spectrum.

By passing a sunbeam through a bluish kind of fluor-spar, Sir David Brewster perceived that the blue colour is not superficial, as it appears to be, but that some veins in the interior of the crystal disperse blue light, others pink, and even white light; in short, he met with fluorescence in such a variety of substances, that he concludes it may prevail more or less in the greater number of solids and liquids.

Professor Draper, of New York, proved that the result is the same whether the incident light be polarized or not, and that the dispersed or degraded light is never polarized, but that it emanates in all directions, as if the substance were self-luminous ; he made experiments with light from all parts of the solar spectrum, and with various substances, and always found that the refrangibility of the incident ray was diminished by internal dispersion, and that the colour was changed to suit the new refrangibility. Professor Draper has also shown that the law of action and reaction prevails in all the phenomena of the sunbeam, as in every other department of nature; so that a beam cannot be reflected, refracted, much less absorbed, without producing some change upon the recipient medium; and Mr. Power proved analytically that the solar rays can exercise no action upon any medium through which they are transmitted, without being accompanied by a diminution of refraction. He says, "The new light emanating from the fluorescent media is just like any other light of the same prismatic composition. In its physical properties it retains no trace of its parentage; it is of terrestrial origin, and its colour depends simply on its new refrangibility, having nothing to do with that of the producing rays, nor to the circumstance of their belonging to the visible or invisible part of the spectrum." These phenomena can only be explained by the undulatory theory of light.

SECTION XXIII.

Objections to the Undulatory Theory, from a difference in the Action of Sound and Light under the same circumstances, removed - The Dispersion of Light according to the Undulatory Theory - Arago's final proof that the Undulatory Theory is the Law of Nature.

THE numerous phenomena of periodical colours arising from the interference of light, which do not admit of satisfactory explanation on any other principle than the undulatory theory, are the strongest arguments in favour of that hypothesis; and even cases which at one time seemed unfavourable to that doctrine have proved upon investigation to proceed from it alone. Such is the erroneous objection which has been made, in consequence of a difference in the mode of action of light and sound, under the same circumstances, in one particular instance. When a ray of light from a luminous point, and a diverging sound, are both transmitted through a very small hole into a dark room, the light goes straight forward and illuminates a small spot on the opposite wall, leaving the rest in darkness; whereas the sound on entering diverges in all directions, and is heard in every part of the room. These phenomena, however, instead of being at variance with the undulatory theory, are direct consequences of it, arising from the very great difference between the magnitude of the undulations of sound and those of light. The undulations of light are incomparably less than the minute aperture, while those of sound are much greater. Therefore when light, diverging from a luminous point, enters the hole, the rays round its edges are oblique, and consequently of different lengths, while those in the centre are direct, and nearly or altogether of the same lengths. So that the small undulations between the centre and the edges are in different phases, that is, in different states of undulation. Therefore the greater number of them interfere, and by destroying one another produce darkness all around the edges of the aperture; whereas the central rays, having the same phases, combine, and produce a spot of bright light on a wall or screen directly opposite the hole.

The waves of air producing sound, on the contrary, being very large compared with the hole, do not sensibly diverge in passing through it, and are therefore all so nearly of the same length, and consequently in the same phase or state of undulation, that none of them interfere sufficiently to destroy one another. Hence all the particles of air in the room are set into a state of vibration, so that the intensity of the sound is very nearly everywhere the same. Strong as the preceding cases may be, the following experiment, made by M. Arago, seems to be decisive in favour of the undulatory doctrine. Suppose a planoconvex lens of very great radius to be placed upon a plate of very highly polished metal. When a ray of polarized light falls upon this apparatus at a very great angle of incidence, Newton's rings are seen at the point of contact. But as the polarizing angle of glass differs from that of metal, when the light falls on the lens at the polarizing angle of glass, the black spot and the system of rings vanish. For although light in abundance continues to be reflected from the surface of the metal, not a ray is reflected from the surface of the glass that is in contact with it, consequently no interference can take place; which proves beyond a doubt that Newton's rings result from the interference of the light reflected from both the surfaces apparently in contact (N. 199).

Notwithstanding the successful adaptation of the undulatory system to phenomena, the dispersion of light for a long time offered a formidable objection to that theory, which has been removed by Professor Powell of Oxford.

A sunbeam falling on a prism, instead of being refracted to a single point of white light, is separated into its component colours, which are dispersed or scattered unequally over a considerable space, of which the portion occupied by the red rays is the least, and that over which the violet rays are dispersed is the greatest. Thus the rays of the coloured spectrum, whose waves are of different lengths, have different degrees of refrangibility, and consequently move with different velocities, either in the medium which conveys the light from the sun, or in the refracting medium, or in both; whereas rays of all colours come from the sun to the earth with the same velocity. If, indeed, the velocities of the various rays were different in space, the aberration of the fixed stars, which is inversely as the velocity,

would be different for different colours, and every star would appear as a spectrum whose length would be parallel to the direction of the earth's motion, which is not found to agree with observation. Besides, there is no such difference in the velocities of the long and short waves of air in the analogous case of sound, since notes of the lowest and highest pitch are heard in the order in which they are struck. In fact, when the sunbeam passes from air into the prism, its velocity is dimin ished; and, as its refraction, and consequently its dispersion, depend solely upon the diminished velocity of the transmission of its waves, they ought to be the same for waves of all lengths, unless a connexion exists between the length of a wave and the velocity with which it is propagated. Now, this connexion between the length of a wave of any colour, and its velocity or refrangibility in a given medium, has been deduced by Professor Powell from M. Cauchy's investigations of the properties of light on a peculiar modification of the undulatory hypothesis. Hence the refrangibility of the various coloured rays, computed from this relation for any given medium, when compared with their refrangibility in the same medium determined by actual observation, will show whether the dispersion of light comes under the laws of that theory. But, in order to accomplish this, it is clear that the length of the waves should be found independently of refraction, and a very beautiful discovery of M. Fraunhofer furnishes the means of doing so.

That philosopher obtained a perfectly pure and complete coloured spectrum, with all its dark and bright lines, by the interference of light alone, from a sunbeam passing through a series of fine parallel wires covering the object glass of a telescope. In this spectrum, formed independently of prismatic refraction, the positions of the coloured rays depend only on the lengths of their waves, and M. Fraunhofer found that the intervals between them are precisely proportional to the differences of these lengths. He measured the lengths of the waves of the different colours at seven fixed points, determined by seven of the principal dark and bright lines. Professor Powell, availing himself of these measures, has made the requisite computations, and has found that the coincidence of theory with observation is perfect for ten substances whose refrangibility had been previously determined by the direct measurements of M. Fraunhofer, and for ten others

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