Page:The wonders of optics (1869).djvu/245

Rh consequence of a single image being sent to his brain. He would, no doubt, after examining the things he saw with his hands, know they were solid, and generally see them so; but if a new object were presented to his view he would have some difficulty in knowing whether it had a flat surface or not.



The principle of binocular vision may be explained as follows: If a playing die, such as is represented in fig. 67, be held out at arm's length in the position indicated in the figure, and looked at first with the left eye and then with the right, we shall find that in the first case we see a little of the three dots on the left-hand side, and in the second we lose sight of the three dots and see a little of the single one on the right-hand side. The images seen by each eye are, therefore, slightly dissimilar, and it stands to reason that, if by any means we can combine two slightly dissimilar flat pictures of a solid object, we shall see it in relief. This was proved practically by Professor Wheatstone, who constructed an instrument capable of effecting the desired union, and which has since been called the stereoscope, from two Greek words signifying 'to see solid.' The instrument remained for a long time fallow, so to speak, from the difficulty of drawing two pictures that should be identical in size and details, although dissimilar in the arrangement of their perspective. It was, therefore, not until photography enabled us to do this with the greatest