[Illustration:  Fig. 34.]

The invention of the Nicol prism was a great step in practical optics, and quite recently such prisms have been constructed of a size and purity which enable audiences like the present to witness the chromatic phenomena of polarized light to a degree altogether unattainable a short time ago.

(The two prisms employed in these experiments were lent to me by my lamented friend Mr. William Spottiswoode, and they were manufactured by Mr. Ahrens, an optician of consummate skill.)

Sec. 2. Colours of Films of Selenite in Polarized Light.

Two Nicol prisms play the same part as the two plates of tourmaline.  Placed with their directions of vibration parallel, the light passes through both; while when these directions are crossed the light is quenched.  Introducing a film of mica between the prisms, the light, as in the case of the tourmaline, is restored.  But notice, when the film of mica is thin you have sometimes not only light, but coloured light.  Our work for some time to come will consist of the examination of such colours.  With this view, I will take a representative crystal, one easily dealt with, because it cleaves with great facility—­the crystal gypsum, or selenite, which is crystallized sulphate of lime.  Between the crossed Nicols I place a thick plate of this crystal; like the mica, it restores the light, but it produces no colour.  With my penknife I take a thin splinter from the crystal and place it between the prisms; the image of the splinter glows with the richest colours.  Turning the prism in front, these colours gradually fade and disappear, but, by continuing the rotation until the vibrating sections of the prisms are parallel to each other, vivid colours again arise, but these colours are complementary to the former ones.

Some patches of the splinter appear of one colour, some of another.  These differences are due to the different thicknesses of the film.  As in the case of Hooke’s thin plates, if the thickness be uniform the colour is uniform.  Here, for instance, is a stellar shape, every lozenge of the star being a film of gypsum of uniform thickness:  each lozenge, you observe, shows a brilliant and uniform colour.  It is easy, by shaping our films so as to represent flowers or other objects, to exhibit such objects in hues unattainable by art.  Here, for example, is a specimen of heart’s-ease, the colours of which you might safely defy the artist to reproduce.  By turning the front Nicol 90 degrees round, we pass through a colourless phase to a series of colours complementary to the former ones.  This change is still more strikingly represented by a rose-tree, which is now presented in its natural hues—­a red flower and green leaves; turning the prism 90 degrees round, we obtain a green flower and red leaves.  All these wonderful chromatic effects have definite mechanical causes in the motions of the ether.  The principle of interference duly applied and interpreted explains them all.