Fragments of science Part 8

The parallel beam employed in these experiments tracked its way through the laboratory air, exactly as sunbeams are seen to do in the dusty air of London. I have reason to believe that a great portion of the matter thus floating in the laboratory air consists of organic particles, which are capable of imparting a perceptibly bluish tint to the air. These also showed, though far less vividly, all the effects of polarisation obtained with the incipient clouds. The light discharged laterally from the track of the illuminating beam was polarised, though not perfectly, the direction of maximum polarisation being at right angles to the beam. At all points of the beam, moreover, throughout its entire length, the light emitted normally was in the same state of polarisation. Keeping the positions of the Nicol and the selenite constant, the same colours were observed throughout the entire beam, when the line of vision was perpendicular to its length.

The horizontal column of air, thus illuminated, was 18 feet long, and could therefore be looked at very obliquely. I placed myself near the end of the beam, as it issued from the electric lamp, and, looking through the Nicol and selenite more and more obliquely at the beam, observed the colours fading until they disappeared. Augmenting the obliquity the colours appeared once more, but they were now complementary to the former ones.

Hence this beam, like the sky, exhibited a neutral point, on opposite sides of which the light was polarised in planes at right angles to each other.

Thinking that the action observed in the laboratory might be caused, in some way, by the vaporous fumes diffused in its air, I had the light removed to a room at the top of the Royal Inst.i.tution. The track of the beam was seen very finely in the air of this room, a length of 14 or 15 feet being attainable. This beam exhibited all the effects observed with the beam in the laboratory. Even the uncondensed electric light falling on the floating matter showed, though faintly, the effects of polarisation.

When the air was so sifted as to entirely remove the visible floating matter, it no longer exerted any sensible action upon the light, but behaved like a vacuum. The light is scattered and polarised by _particles_, not by molecules or atoms.

By operating upon the fumes of chloride of ammonium, the smoke of brown paper, and tobacco-smoke, I had varied and confirmed in many ways those experiments on neutral points, when my attention was drawn by Sir Charles Wheatstone to an important observation communicated to the Paris Academy in 1860 by Professor Govi, of Turin. [Footnote: Comptes Rendus,' tome li, pp. 360 and 669.] M. Govi had been led to examine a beam of light sent through a room in which were successively diffused the smoke of incense, and tobacco-smoke. His first brief communication stated the fact of polarisation by such smoke; but in his second communication he announced the discovery of a neutral point in the beam, at the opposite sides of which the light was polarised in planes at right angles to each other.

But unlike my observations on the laboratory air, and unlike the action of the sky, the direction of maximum polarisation in M. Govi's experiments enclosed a very small angle with the axis of the illuminating beam. The question was left in this condition, and I am not aware that M. Govi or any other investigator has pursued it further.

I had noticed, as before stated, that as the clouds formed in the experimental tube became denser, the polarisation of the light discharged at right angles to the beam became weaker, the direction of maximum polarisation becoming oblique to the beam. Experiments on the fumes of chloride of ammonium gave me also reason to suspect that the position of the neutral point was not constant, but that it varied with the density of the illuminated fumes.

The examination of these questions led to the following new and remarkable results: The laboratory being well filled with the fumes of incense, and sufficient time being allowed for their uniform diffusion, the electric beam was sent through the smoke. From the track of the beam polarised light was discharged; but the direction of maximum polarisation, instead of being perpendicular, now enclosed an angle of only 12 or 13 with the axis of the beam.

A neutral point, with complementary effects at opposite sides of it, was also exhibited by the beam. The angle enclosed by the axis of the beam, and a line drawn from the neutral point to the observer's eye, measured in the first instance 66.

The windows of the laboratory were now opened for some minutes, a portion of the incense-smoke being permitted to escape. On again darkening the room and turning on the light, the line of vision to the neutral point was found to enclose, with the axis of the beam, an angle of 63.

The windows were again opened for a few minutes, more of the smoke being permitted to escape. Measured as before, the angle referred to was found to be 54.

This process was repeated three additional times the neutral point was found to recede lower and lower down the beam, the angle between a line drawn from the eye to the neutral point and the axis of the beam falling successively from 54 to 49, 43 and 33.

The distances, roughly measured, of the neutral point from the lamp, corresponding to the foregoing series of observations, were these:

1st observation 2 feet 2 inches.

2nd observation 2 feet 6 inches.

3rd observation 2 feet 10 inches.

4th observation 3 feet 2 inches.

5th observation 3 feet 7 inches.

6th observation 4 feet 6 inches.

At the end of this series of experiments the direction of maximum polarisation had again become normal to the beam.

The laboratory was next filled with the fumes of gunpowder. In five successive experiments, corresponding to five different densities of the gunpowder-smoke, the angles enclosed between the line of vision to the neutral point and the axis of the beam, were 63 degrees, 50, 47, 42, and 38 respectively.

After the clouds of gunpowder had cleared away, the laboratory was filled with the fumes of common resin, rendered so dense as to be very irritating to the lungs. The direction of maximum polarisation enclosed, in this case, an angle of 12, or thereabouts, with the axis of the beam. Looked at, as in the former instances, from a position near the electric lamp, no neutral point was observed throughout the entire extent of the beam.

When this beam was looked at normally through the selenite and Nicol, the ring-system, though not brilliant, was distinct. Keeping the eye upon the plate of selenite, and the line of vision perpendicular, the windows were opened, the blinds remaining undrawn. The resinous fumes slowly diminished, and as they did so the ring-system became paler. It finally disappeared. Continuing to look in the same direction, the rings revived, but now the colours were complementary to the former ones. _The neutral point had pa.s.sed me in its motion down the beam, consequent upon the attenuation of the fumes of resin_.

With the fumes of chloride of ammonium substantially the same results were obtained. Sufficient, however, has been here stated to ill.u.s.trate the variability of the position of the neutral point. [Footnote: Brewster has proved the variability of the position of the neutral point for skylight with the sun's alt.i.tude, a result obviously connected with the foregoing experiments.]

By a puff of tobacco-smoke, or of condensed steam, blown into the illuminated beam, the brilliancy of the selenite colours may be greatly enhanced. But with different clouds two different effects are produced. Let the ring-system observed in the common air be brought to its maximum strength, and then let an attenuated cloud of chloride of ammonium be thrown into the beam at the point looked at; the ring system flashes out with augmented brilliancy, but the character of the polarisation remains unchanged. This is also the case when phosphorus, or sulphur, is burned underneath the beam, so as to cause the fine particles of phosphorus or of sulphur to rise into the light.

With the sulphur-fumes the brilliancy of the colours is exceedingly intensified; but in none of these cases is there any change in the character of the polarisation.

But when a puff of the fumes of hydrochloric acid, hydriodic acid, or nitric acid is thrown into the beam, there is a complete reversal of the selenite tints. Each of these clouds twists the plane of polarisation 90, causing the centre of the ring-system to change from black to white, and the rings themselves to emit their complementary colours. [Footnote: Sir John Herschel suggested to me that this change of the polarisation from positive to negative may indicate a change from polarisation by reflection to polarisation by refraction.

This thought repeatedly occurred to me while looking at the effects; but it will require much following up before it emerges into clearness.]

Almost all liquids have motes in them sufficiently numerous to polarise sensibly the light, and very beautiful effects may be obtained by simple artificial devices. When, for example, a cell of distilled water is placed in front of the electric lamp, and a thin slice of the beam is permitted to pa.s.s through it, scarcely any polarised light is discharged, and scarcely any colour produced with a plate of selenite. But if a bit of soap be agitated in the water above the beam, the moment the infinitesimal particles reach the light the liquid sends forth laterally almost perfectly polarised light; and if the selenite be employed, vivid colours flash into existence. A still more brilliant result is obtained with mastic dissolved in a great excess of alcohol.

The selenite rings, in fact, const.i.tute an extremely delicate test as to the collective quant.i.ty of individually invisible particles in a liquid. Commencing with distilled water, for example, a thick slice of light is necessary to make the polarisation of its suspended particles sensible. A much thinner slice suffices for common water; while, with Bruecke's precipitated mastic, a slice too thin to produce any sensible effect with most other liquids, suffices to bring out vividly the selenite colours.

3. THE SKY OF THE ALPS.

The vision of an object always implies a differential action on the retina of the observer. The object is distinguished from surrounding s.p.a.ce by its excess or defect of light in relation to that s.p.a.ce. By altering the illumination, either of the object itself or of its environment, we alter the appearance of the object. Take the case of clouds floating in the atmosphere with patches of blue between them.

Anything that changes the illumination of either alters the appearance of both, that appearance depending, as stated, upon differential action.

Now the light of the sky, being polarised, may, as the reader of the foregoing pages knows, be in great part quenched by a Nicol's prism, while the light of a common cloud, being unpolarised, cannot be thus extinguished. Hence the possibility of very remarkable variations, not only in the aspect of the firmament, which is really changed, but also in the aspect of the clouds, which have that firmament as a background. It is possible, for example, to choose clouds of such a depth of shade that when the Nicol quenches the light behind them, they shall vanish, being undistinguishable from the residual dull tint which outlives the extinction of the brilliancy of the sky. A cloud less deeply shaded, but still deep enough, when viewed with the naked eye, to appear dark on a bright ground, is suddenly changed to a white cloud on a dark ground by the quenching of the light behind it. When a reddish cloud at sunset chances to float in the region of maximum polarisation, the quenching of the surrounding light causes it to flash with a brighter crimson. Last Easter eve the Dartmoor sky, which had just been cleansed by a snow-storm, wore a very wild appearance.

Round the horizon it was of steely brilliancy, while reddish c.u.muli and cirri floated southwards. When the sky was quenched behind them these floating ma.s.ses seemed like dull embers suddenly blown upon; they brightened like a fire.

In the Alps we have the most magnificent examples of crimson clouds and snows, so that the effects just referred to may be here studied under the best possible conditions. On August 23, 1869, the evening Alpenglow was very fine, though it did not reach its maximum depth and splendour. The side of the Weisshorn seen from the Bel Alp, being turned from the sun, was tinted mauve; but I wished to observe one of the rose-coloured b.u.t.tresses of the mountain. Such a one was visible from a point a few hundred feet above the hotel. The Matterhorn also, though for the most part in shade, had a crimson projection, while a deep ruddy red lingered along its western shoulder. Four distinct peaks and b.u.t.tresses of the Dom, in addition to its dominant head--all covered with pure snow--were reddened by the light of sunset. The shoulder of the Alphubel was similarly coloured, while the great ma.s.s of the Fletschorn was all a-glow, and so was the snowy spine of the Monte Leone.

Looking at the Weisshorn through the Nicol, the glow of its protuberance was strong or weak according to the position of the prism. The summit also underwent striking changes. In one position of the prism it exhibited a pale white against a dark background; in the rectangular position it was a dark mauve against a light background. The red of the Matterhorn changed in a similar manner; but the whole mountain also pa.s.sed through wonderful changes of definition. The air at the time was filled with a silvery haze, in which the Matterhorn almost disappeared. This could be wholly quenched by the Nicol, and then the mountain sprang forth with astonishing solidity and detachment from the surrounding air. The changes of the Dom were still more wonderful. A vast amounts of light could be removed from the sky behind it, for it occupied the position of maximum polarisation. By a little practice with the Nicol it was easy to render the extinction of the light, or its restoration, almost instantaneous. When the sky was quenched, the four minor peaks and b.u.t.tresses, and the summit of the Dom, together with the shoulder of the Alphubel, glowed as if set suddenly on fire. This was immediately dimmed by turning the Nicol through an angle of 90. It was not the stoppage of the light of the sky behind the mountains alone which produced this startling effect; the air between them and me was highly opalescent, and the quenching of this intermediate glare augmented remarkably the distinctness of the mountains.

On the morning of August 24 similar effects were finely shown. At 10 A.M. all three mountains, the Dom, the Matterhorn, and the Weisshorn, were powerfully affected by the Nicol. But in this instance also, the line drawn to the Dom being very nearly perpendicular to the solar beams, the effects on this mountain were most striking. The grey summit of the Matterhorn, at the same time, could scarcely be distinguished from the opalescent haze around it; but when the Nicol quenched the haze, the summit became instantly isolated, and stood out in bold definition. It is to be remembered that in the production of these effects the only things changed are the sky behind, and the luminous haze in front of the mountains; that these are changed because the light emitted from the sky and from the haze is plane polarised light, and that the light from the snows and from the mountains, being sensibly unpolarised, is not directly affected by the Nicol. It will also be understood that it is not the interposition of the haze _as an opaque body_ that renders the mountains indistinct, but that it is the _light_ of the haze which dims and bewilders the eye, and thus weakens the definition of objects seen through it.

These results have a direct bearing upon what artists call 'aerial perspective.' As we look from the summit of Mont Blanc, or from a lower elevation, at the serried crowd of peaks, especially if the mountains be darkly coloured--covered with pines, for example--every peak and ridge is separated from the mountains behind it by a thin blue haze which renders the relations of the mountains as to distance unmistakable. When this haze is regarded through the Nicol perpendicular to the sun's rays, it is in many cases wholly quenched, because the light which it emits in this direction is wholly polarised. When this happens, aerial perspective is abolished, and mountains very differently distant appear to rise in the same vertical plane. Close to the Bel Alp for instance, is the gorge of the Ma.s.sa, and beyond the gorge is a high ridge darkened by pines. This ridge may be projected upon the dark slopes at the opposite side of the Rhone valley, and between both we have the blue haze referred to, throwing the distant mountains far away. But at certain hours of the day the haze may be quenched, and then the Ma.s.sa ridge and the mountains beyond the Rhone seem almost equally distant from the eye.

The one appears, as it were, a vertical continuation of the other. The haze varies with the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. At certain times and places it is almost as blue as the sky itself; but to see its colour, the attention must be withdrawn from the mountains and from the trees which cover them. In point of fact, the haze is a piece of more or less perfect sky; it is produced in the same manner, and is subject to the same laws, as the firmament itself. We live _in_ the sky, not _under_ it.

These points were further elucidated by the deportment of the selenite, plate, with which the readers of the foregoing pages are so well acquainted. On some of the sunny days of August the haze in the valley of the Rhone, as looked at from the Bel Alp, was very remarkable. Towards evening the sky above the mountains opposite to my place of observation yielded a series of the most splendidly-coloured iris-rings; but on lowering the selenite until it had the darkness of the pines at the opposite side of the Rhone 'valley, instead of the darkness of s.p.a.ce, as a background, the colours were not much diminished in brilliancy. I should estimate the distance across the valley, as the crow flies, to the opposite mountain, at nine miles; so that a body of air of this thickness can, under favourable circ.u.mstances, produce chromatic effects of polarisation almost as vivid as those produced by the sky itself.

Again: the light of a landscape, as of most other things, consists of two parts; the one, coming purely from superficial reflection, is always of the same colour as the light which falls upon the landscape; the other part reaches us from a certain depth within the objects which compose the landscape, and it is this portion of the total light which gives these objects their distinctive colours. The white light of the sun enters all substances to a certain depth, and is partly ejected by internal reflection; each distinct substance absorbing and reflecting the light, in accordance with the laws of its own molecular const.i.tution. Thus the solar light is _sifted_ by the landscape, which appears in such colours and variations of colour as, after the sifting process, reach the observer's eye. Thus the bright green of gra.s.s, or the darker colour of the pine, never comes to us alone, but is always mingled with an amounts of light derived from superficial reflection.

A certain hard brilliancy is conferred upon the woods and meadows by this superficially-reflected light. Under certain circ.u.mstances, it may be quenched by a Nicol's prism, and we then obtain the true colour of the gra.s.s and foliage. Trees and meadows, thus regarded, exhibit a richness and softness of tint which they never show as long as the superficial light is permitted to mingle with the true interior emission. The needles of the pines show this effect very well, large-leaved trees still better; while a glimmering field of maize exhibits the most extraordinary variations when looked at through the rotating Nicol.

Thoughts and questions like those here referred to took me, in August 1869, to the top of the Aletschhorn. The effects described in the foregoing paragraphs were for the most part reproduced on the summit of the mountain. I scanned the whole of the sky with my Nicol. Both alone, and in conjunction with the selenite, it p.r.o.nounced the perpendicular to the solar beams to be the direction of maximum polarisation.

But at no portion of the firmament was the polarisation complete. The artificial sky produced in the experiments recorded in the preceding pages could, in this respect, be rendered far more perfect than the natural one; while the gorgeous 'residual blue' which makes its appearance when the polarisation of the artificial sky ceases to be perfect, was strongly contrasted with the lack-l.u.s.tre hue which, in the case of the firmament, outlived the extinction of the brilliancy.

With certain substances, however, artificially treated, this dull residue may also be obtained.

All along the arc from the Matterhorn to Mont Blanc the light of the sky immediately above the mountains was powerfully acted upon by the Nicol. In some cases the variations of intensity were astonishing. I have already said that a little practice enables the observer to shift the Nicol from one position to another so rapidly as to render the alternative extinction and restoration of the light immediate. When this was done along the arc to which I have referred, the alternations of light and darkness resembled the play of sheet lightning behind the mountains. There was an element of awe connected with the suddenness with which the mighty ma.s.ses, ranged along the line referred to, changed their aspect and definition under the operation of the prism.

The physical reason of the blueness of both natural and artificial skies is, I trust, correctly given in the essay on the Scientific use of the Imagination published in the second volume of these Fragments.

V. ON DUST AND DISEASE.

[Footnote: A discourse delivered before the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain, January 21, 1870.]

Experiments on Dusty Air.