upon the clouds sufficiently distinct, and for a sufficiently long time, to permit of my taking a sketch in my journal and studying the physical condition of the clouds upon which it was produced.  I was able to determine directly the circumstances of its production.  Indeed, as this brilliant phenomenon occurred in the midst of the very clouds which I was traversing, it was easy for me to ascertain that these clouds were not formed of frozen particles.  The thermometer marked 2 deg. above zero.  The hygrometer marked a maximum of humidity experienced, namely, seventy-seven at three thousand seven hundred and seventy feet, and the balloon was then at four thousand six hundred feet, where the humidity was only seventy-three.  It is therefore certain that this is a phenomenon of the diffraction of light simply produced by the vesicles of the mist.

The name of diffraction is given to all the modifications which the luminous rays undergo when they come in contact with the surface of bodies.  Light, under these circumstances, is subject to a sort of deviation, at the same time becoming decomposed, whence result those curious appearances in the shadows of objects which were observed for the first time by Grimaldi and Newton.

The most interesting phenomena of diffraction are those presented by gratings, as are technically denominated the systems of linear and very narrow openings situated parallel to one another and at very small intervals.  A system of this kind may be realized by tracing with a diamond, for instance, on a pane of glass equidistant lines very close together.  As the light would be able to pass in the interstices between the strokes, whereas it would be stopped in the points corresponding to those where the glass was not smooth, there is, in reality, an effect produced as if there were a series of openings very near to each other.  A hundred strokes, about 1/25th of an inch in length, may thus be drawn without difficulty.  The light is then decomposed in spectra, each overlapping the other.  It is a phenomenon of this kind which is seen when we look into the light with the eye half closed; the eyelashes in this case, acting as a net-work or grating.  These net-works may also be produced by reflection, and it is to this circumstance that are due the brilliant colors observed when a pencil of luminous rays is reflected on a metallic surface regularly striated.

To the phenomena of gratings must be attributed, too, the colors, often so brilliant, to be seen in mother-of-pearl.  This substance is of a laminated structure; so much so, that in carving it the different folds are often cut in such a way as to form a regular net-work upon the surface.  It is, again, to a phenomenon of this sort that are due the rainbow hues seen in the feathers of certain birds, and sometimes in spiders’ webs.  The latter, although very fine, are not simple, for they are composed of a large number of pieces joined together by a viscous substance, and thus constitute a kind of net-work.