A small pebble, placed in the way of the ring-ripples produced by heavy rain-drops on a tranquil pond, will throw back a large fraction of each ripple incident upon it, while the fractional part of a larger wave thrown back by the same pebble might be infinitesimal.  Now to preserve the solar light white, its constituent proportions must not be altered; but in the scattering of the light by these very small particles we see that the proportions are altered.  The smaller waves are in excess, and, as a consequence, in the scattered light blue will be the predominant colour.  The other colours of the spectrum must, to some extent, be associated with the blue:  they are not absent, but deficient.  We ought, in fact, to have them all, but in diminishing proportions, from the violet to the red.

We have thus reasoned our way to the conclusion, that were particles, small in comparison to the size of the ether waves, sown in our atmosphere, the light scattered by those particles would be exactly such as we observe in our azure skies.  And, indeed, when this light is analyzed, all the colours of the spectrum are found in the proportions indicated by our conclusion.

By its successive collisions with the particles the white light is more and more robbed of its shorter waves; it therefore loses more and more of its due proportion of blue.  The result may be anticipated.  The transmitted light, where moderate distances are involved, will appear yellowish.  But as the sun sinks towards the horizon the atmospheric distance increases, and consequently the number of the scattering particles.  They weaken in succession the violet, the indigo, the blue, and even disturb the proportions of green.  The transmitted light under such circumstances must pass from yellow through orange to red.  This also is exactly what we find in nature.  Thus, while the reflected light gives us, at noon, the deep azure of the Alpine skies, the transmitted light gives us, at sunset, the warm crimson of the Alpine snows.

But can small particles be really proved to act in the manner indicated?  No doubt of it.  Each one of you can submit the question to an experimental test.  Water will not dissolve resin, but spirit will; and when spirit which holds resin in solution is dropped into water, the resin immediately separates in solid particles, which render the water milky.  The coarseness of this precipitate depends on the quantity of the dissolved resin.  Professor Bruecke has given us the proportions which produce particles particularly suited to our present purpose.  One gramme of clean mastic is dissolved in eighty-seven grammes of absolute alcohol, and the transparent solution is allowed to drop into a beaker containing clear water briskly stirred.  An exceedingly fine precipitate is thus formed, which declares its presence by its action upon light.  Placing a dark surface behind the beaker, and permitting the light to fall into it from the top or front, the medium is seen to be of a very fair sky-blue.  A trace of soap in water gives it a tint of blue.  London milk makes an approximation to the same colour, through the operation of the same cause:  and Helmholtz has irreverently disclosed the fact that a blue eye is simply a turbid medium.