The reflecting media of the atmosphere a natural law (Part I) : and A treatment of smallpox, scarlet fever & measles ... (Part II) / by James Shaw.

Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The reflecting media of the atmosphere a natural law (Part I) : and A treatment of smallpox, scarlet fever & measles ... (Part II) / by James Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    understood, their office in the atmosphere as its reflectors and refractors of light; while at the same time the air itself, in which they float, when denuded of their presence, presenting no resist- ance to the free transmission of the sun's light, could not reflect it and make it visible; and was confirming the exposition of the use of the floating particles, by showing its own incapacity to reflect or refract light without them. And the whole phenomena werg eminently proving the reason why the particles are in such countless numbers in the air, and why they pervade all atmospheric space. They are The Eeflecting Media of the Atmosphere, and a Natural Law ; without the aid of which we should be almost shrouded in dark- ness, the sun's rays notwithstanding. To show the transparency of the media we have only to look at any object in a room during day- light, and we see it distinctly; the media are there in all their numbers, yet we do not see them, we see the object through them ; this proves their transparency. To explain the mode of operation by the sun's light when they are rendered visible, as in a sun- beam ; if powerful sunlight falls directly upon a transparent bright surfaced medium, such as a glass window, and we look at the window from