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X. On the Optical Properties of Sulphuret of Carbon, Carbonate of Barytes, and Nitrate of Potash, with Inferences respecting the Structure of Doubly Refracting Crystals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

David Brewster
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Extract

In examining the changes which light undergoes during its passage through transparent bodies, we not only receive information respecting the properties of that mysterious agent; but we are in some measure made acquainted with the composition of the substances themselves, and with the manner in which their ingredients are combined. The optical phenomena, therefore, which bodies exhibit in their action upon light, are so many tests, to which the philosopher may have recourse, either in supplying the place of chemical analysis, or in correcting and modifying its results. A difference in the optical properties of two bodies, is generally an infallible indication of a difference in their elementary principles; and whatever confidence we may place in the skill of the chemist, or in the accuracy of his methods, the mind can never rest satisfied with the results of an analysis which is directly opposed by optical phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , 1815 , pp. 285 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1815

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References

page 296 note * See Phil: Trans. Lond. 1814. Part 1. p. 218.

page 298 note * See Phil. Trans. Lond. 1813, Part 1. p. 101.

page 301 note * Phil. Trans. Lond. 1814, Part 1. p. 230.

page 301 note † This substance, whose remarkable optical properties I have explained in another place, resembles the Agate, the Carbonate of Barytes, and the light is transmitted in one direction, and two bright images, when the light is transmitted in another direction; but it possesses this property under circumstances of such an extraordinary nature, that I could not with propriety have introduced any account of it into this paper.

A number of soft substances, of animal and vegetable origin, have likewise the faculty of forming a bright and a nebulous image, under various singular modifications. A full account of the results which I have obtained with this class of substances, will be found in another paper.