Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/372

1831.] perceive waves travelling as it were across the cloud in opposite directions, they could be most distinctly traced. This is exactly the appearance that would be produced by a dusty atmosphere lying upon the surface of a plate and divided into a number of alternate portions rapidly expanding and contracting simultaneously.

126. The spaces were very many times too small to represent the interval through which the air by its elasticity would vibrate laterally once for two vibrations of the plate, in analogy with the phenomena of liquids; and this forms a strong objection to its being an effect of that kind. But it does not seem impossible that the air may have vibrated in subdivisions like a string or a long column of air; and the air itself also being laden with particles of lycopodium would have its motions rendered more sluggish thereby. I have not had time to extend these experiments, but it is probable that a few, well-chosen, would decide at once whether the e appearances of the particles in the air are due to real lateral vibrations of the atmosphere, or merely to the direct action of the vibrating plate upon the particles.

127. If the atmosphere vibrates laterally in the manner supposed, the effect is probably not limited to the immediate vicinity of the plate, but extends to some distance. The vertical plates intersecting the surface of water and vibrating in a horizontal plane (117) produced ripples proceeding directly out from them five or six inches long; whilst the waves parallel to the vibrating plate were hardly sensible; and something analogous to this may take place in the atmosphere. If so, it would seem likely that these vibrations occurring conjointly with those producing sound, would have an important induence upon its production and qualities, upon its apparent direction, and many other of its phenomena.

128. Then by analogy these views extend to the undulatory theory of light, and especially to that theory as modified by M. Fresnel. That philosopher, in his profound investigations of the phenomena of light, especially when polarized, has conceived it necessary to admit that the vibrations of the ether take place transversely to the ray of light, or to the direction of the wave causing its phenomena. "In fact we may conceive direct light to be an assemblage, or rather a rapid succession,