Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/490

474 the more refrangible rays that call forth fluorescence. For, if we illuminate them with light which has passed through a red glass, no trace of fluorescence is visible. But, if the red be exchanged for a blue glass, the fluorescence becomes as strongly marked as Avith the direct solar light. A remarkable phenomenon is presented in the splendid bright-green light which is emitted by uranium glass under the action of blue illumination.

The highly-refrangible rays which possess in so high a degree the power of exciting fluorescence are contained in large proportion in the light emitted by a Geissler's tube filled with rarefied nitrogen. In order to expose fluorescing fluids to the influence of this light, the arrangement represented in Fig. 3 may be employed with advantage, A narrow tube is surrounded by a wider glass tube, into which the fluid is introduced by a side opening which can be closed if required. Another form of Geissler's tube is represented in Fig. 4, which contains

in its interior a number of hollow spheres composed of uranium glass. Where a beam of reddish violet nitrogen light traverses the tube, the uranium glass balls shine with a beautiful bright-green fluorescent light.

The electric light passing between carbon-points is rich in rays of high refrangibility, indeed the ultra-violet end of its spectrum reaches even farther than that of the solar spectrum. In the light of the magnesium-lamp the ultra-violet rays are also abundant, and both sources