Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 575 



illustration of his theory was unwittingly examined by me in Berlin, 

 and the exact result which he had theoretically predicted arrived at 

 by way of experiment." — Edit.] 



OBSERVATIONS UPON THE RADIATION OF LUMINOUS BODIES. 

 BY M. BAUDRIMONT. 



On looking at a very brilliant light, it sometimes appears to be 

 surrounded by brilliant luminous rays, clear, free from cloudiness, 

 and which must not be confounded with those caused by the eye- 

 lashes when the eyes are partially closed. These rays may be ob- 

 served most distinctly by looking at an image of the sun reflected 

 upon the surface of a convex glass, or still better upon a lens having 

 a considerable curvature. They may be most easily observed by 

 looking at an image of the sun formed in the focus of a lens placed 

 at the extremity of a tube blackened in the interior. If the observer 

 place himself in a room into which the light penetrates only through 

 a narrow opening, the phaenomenon appears with great splendour, 

 and it may even be said with extraordinary magnificence. The rays 

 are either white, or present all the colours of the spectrum. In that 

 case a motion appears to take place in their interior, which cannot be 

 compared with anything better than that of a liquid circulating with 

 difficulty in narrow channels in which it meets with obstacles. 

 There are also seen irregular concentric rings, which appear to move 

 from their common centre. Whatever may be the circumstances in 

 which the observer places himself, and whatever may be the precau- 

 tions which are taken to obviate the complication of the phsenome- 

 non, the rays do not appear disposed as those in a circle ; they have 

 not all a common centre, but form entangled bundles in a very pe- 

 culiar manner. 



At first sight I was struck with the resemblance which appeared 

 to me to exist between the arrangement of these rays and that of 

 the fibres of the crystalline lens ; and I attempted immediately some 

 experiments directed from that point of view. From among those 

 which I have made I will quote the two following, which, if they 

 do not prove that this apparent radiation is to be attributed to the 

 crystalline lens, at least show completely that the phsenomenon takes 

 place in the eye, and depends upon the structure of that organ. 



1. On looking at an image of the sun produced in the circum- 

 stances above described through a black screen with a circular 

 opening of 5 or 6 millims. diameter, the image is seen upon the sur- 

 face which reflects it ; while the rays are separated from it, and ap- 

 pear to be superimposed upon the screen, and this even when it is 

 brought very near the eye. 



2. If the head is inclined to the right or the left, the want of sym- 

 metry which is observed in the arrangement of the rays follows the 

 movement of the eye, which under those circumstances turns upon 

 its axis in the direction in which the head is inclined. — Comptes 

 Renclus, Nov. 3, 1851. 



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