RECEPTION OF THE UNDULATORY THEORY. 115 



tute, and had to bear the brunt of the war, in the frequent discussions 

 on the undulatory theory ; to which theory Laplace, and other leading 

 members, were so vehemently opposed, that they would not even listen 

 with toleration to the arguments in its favor. I do not know how far 

 influences of this kind might operate in producing the delays which 

 took place in the publication of Fresnel's papers. We have seen that 

 he arrived at the conception of transverse vibrations in 1816, as the 

 true key to the understanding of polarization. In 1817 and 1818, in 

 a memoir read to the Institute, he analysed and explained the perplex- 

 ing phenomena of quartz, which he ascribed to a circular polarization. 

 This memoir had not been printed, nor any extract from it inserted in 

 the scientific journals, in 1822, when he confirmed his views by further 

 experiments. 4 His remarkable memoir, which solved the extraordinary 

 and capital problem of the connexion of double refraction and crystal- 

 lization, though written in 1821, was not published till 1827. He 

 appears by this time to have sought other channels of publication. In 

 1822, he gave, 5 in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, an explana- 

 tion of refraction on the principles of the undulatory theory ; alleging, 

 as the reason for doing so, that the theory was still little known. And 

 in succeeding years there appeared in the same work, his theory of re- 

 flection. His memoir on this subject (Memoirc sur la Loi des Modifi- 

 cations que la Reflexion impr'une a la Lumierc Polarisee,) was read to 

 the Academy of Sciences in 1853. But the original paper was mis- 

 laid, and, for a time, supposed to be lost ; it has since been recovered 

 among the papers of M. Fourier, and printed in the eleventh volume 

 of the Memoirs of the Academy. 6 Some of the speculations to which 

 he refers, as communicated to the Academy, have never yet appeared. 7 

 Still Fresnel's labors were, from the first, duly appreciated by some 

 of the most eminent of his countrymen. His M< moir on Diffraction 

 was, as we have seen, crowned in 1819 : and, in 1822, a Report upon 

 liis Memoir on Double Refraction was drawn up by a commission 

 consisting of MM. Ampere, Fourier, and Arago. In this report 8 Fres- 

 nel's theory is spoken of as confirmed by the most delicate tests. The 

 reporters add, respecting his " theoretical ideas on the particular kind 

 jf undulations which, according to him, constitute light," that "it 

 would be impossible for them to pronounce at present a decided judg- 



4 Ilorscb. Light, p. 539. 5 Ann. de Chim. 1822, torn. xxi. p. 235. 



8 Lloyd. Report on Optics, p. 363. (Fourth Rep. of Brit, Ass.) 

 ' Ib. p. 316, note. " Ann. CJdm. torn. xx. p. 343. 



