vs colours.
324 ON THE CHANGE OF REFRANGIBILITY OF LIGHT.
slit, the paper was placed in a pure spectrum formed in the usual manner. On the coloured part the fixed lines were seen with the utmost facility far beyond the line H, on a yellowish ground. The colours too of all the more highly refrangible part of the spectrum were totally changed. From the red end, as far as the line F, or thereabouts, there was no material change of colour; but a little further on a very perceptible reddish tinge came on, which was quite decided at F^G, where it was mixed with the proper colour of that part of the spectrum. About G%H the colour became yellowish. The reality of a change of refrangibility was easily proved by refracting the spectrum on the screen by a prism applied to the eye. When the refraction took place in a plane parallel to the fixed lines, they were seen distinctly throughout the spectrum ; but when it took place in a plane perpendicular to the former, the fixed lines in the less refrangible part of the spectrum, and as far as F, were distinctly seen; but in the rest of the spectrum they were more or less confused, or even wholly obliterated, according to their original strength, the refracting angle and dispersive power of the prism, and its distance from the paper. With a prism of small angle the edges of the broad bands H were seen tinged with prismatic
90. The change of refrangibility was further shown by the following observation. The paper WHS placed in the pure spectrum in such a manner that the line of junction of the coloured and uncoloured parts ran lengthways through the spectrum, so that the same fixed line was seen partly on the coloured and partly on the uncoloured portion. On viewing the whole through a prism of moderate angle applied to the eye, and so held as to refract the system in a direction perpendicular to the fixed lines, the line F was seen uninterrupted, but (! was dislocated, the portion formed on the yellow part of the paper being a good deal less refracted than that formed on the white. The latter was indeed faintly prolonged into the yellow part of the paper, so that on this part 0 was seen double; but the image which was by far the more intense of the two was less refracted than that formed on the white paper. The whole appearance was such as to create a strong suspicion of some illusion, as if some other group of fixed lines formed on the yellow part of the paper