RECEPTION OF THE UNDULATORY THEORY. 473 



its way slowly to the notice and comprehension 

 of men of science. M. Arago would perhaps have 

 at once adopted the conception of transverse vibra- 

 tions, when it was suggested by his fellow-labourer, 

 Fresnel, if it had not been that he was a member 

 of the Institute, and had to bear the brunt of the 

 war, in the frequent discussions on the undulatory 

 theory; to which theory Laplace, and other lead- 

 ing members, were so vehemently opposed, that 

 they would not even listen with toleration to the 

 arguments in its favour. 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 polariza- 

 tion. In 1817 and 1818, in a memoir read to the 

 Institute, he analyzed and explained the perplexing 

 phenomena of quartz, which he ascribed to a cir- 

 cular 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 

 crystallization, 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, 



4 Hersch. Light, p. 539. * Ann. de Cfiim. 1822, torn. xxi. p. 235. 



