494 ON THE ABSORPTION OF LIGHT, ETC 



able of being transmitted with any considerable intensity 

 to even moderate distances. This strikes me as ob- 

 viously analogous to the ready transmissibility of a ray 

 polarized in one certain direction, through a tourmaline 

 or other absorbing doubly-refracting crystal, while the 

 oppositely-polarized ray (whose vibrations are rectangu- 

 lar to those of the first) is rapidly absorbed and stifled, 

 i.e., dispersed, by the agency of the colouring matter 

 which acts the part of the air in MrWheatstone's experi- 

 ment, and self-neutralized by the opposition of its sub- 

 divided portions as above explained. 



SLOUGH, October 19, 1833. 



