Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/451

436 but as the leaf is really very irregular in thickness, and ill stretched as a film, parts inclined at different angles are always present at once. The light transmitted is polarized in the same direction as that transmitted by a bundle of thin plates of glass, inclined in the same direction. The proportion of light transmitted is small, as might be expected from the high reflective power of the metal. The polarization does not seem due to any constrained condition of the beaten gold, for it is produced, as will be shortly seen, by the annealed colourless leaf-gold, and also by deposits of gold particles; but is common to it with other uncrystallized transparent substances. It would seem that a very small proportion of the gold-leaf can be occupied by apertures, since the light which passes is nearly all polarized. On subjecting thin gold-leaf, or heated gold-leaf, or films of gold, or any preparations which required the support of glass, results of polarization were obtained, but the observations were imperfect because of the interfering effect of the glass.

Proceeding to employ a polarized ray of light, it was found that a leaf of gold produced generally the same depolarizing effect as other transparent bodies. Thus, if a plate of glass be held perpendicular to the ray, or inclined to it either in the plane of polarization or at right angles to it, there is no depolarization; but if inclined in the intermediate positions, the ray is more or less depolarized. So it is with gold-leaf; the same efects are produced by it. Further, the depolarization is accompanied by a rotation of the ray, and in this respect the quadrants alternate, the rotation being to the right-hand in two opposite quadrants, and to the left in the intervening quadrants. So it is with gold-leaf; the same effects are produced by it, and the rotation is in the same direction with that produced by glass, when inclined in the same quadrant.

As further observation in this direction was stopped by the necessity of employing glass supports for the leaves, films, &c., I sought for a medium so near glass in its character, as should either reduce its effect to nothing, or render it so small as to cause its easy elimination. Either camphine or sulphide of carbon was found to answer the purpose with crown-glass; hut the latter, as it possesses no sensible power of rotation under ordinary circumstances, is to be preferred. Should a