Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
And that this was the surface of the Air that gave so vivid a
_re-percussion_ I try’d by this means I sunk half of a _stiria_ in Water,
so that only Water was contiguous to the under surface, and then the
internal reflection was so exceedingly faint, that it was scarce
discernable. Again, I try’d to alter this vivid reflection by keeping off
the Air, with a body not fluid, and that was by rubbing and holding my
finger very hard against the under surface, so as in many places the pulp
of my finger did touch the Glass, without any _interjacent_ air between,
then observing the reflection, I found, that wheresoever my finger or skin
toucht the surface, from that part there was no reflection, but in the
little furrows or creases of my skin, where there remain’d little small
lines of air, from them was return’d a very vivid reflection as before. I
try’d further, by making the surface of very pure Quicksilver to be
contiguous to the under surface of this _pellucid_ body, and then the
reflection from that was so exceedingly more vivid than from the air, as
the reflection from air was than the reflection from the Water; from all
which trials I plainly saw, that the strong reflecting air was the cause of
this _Phænomenon_.
And this agrees very well with the _Hypothesis_ of light and _Pellucid_
bodies which I have mention’d in the description of _Muscovy-glass_; for we
there suppose Glass to be a _medium_, which does less resist the pulse of
light, and consequently, that most of the Rays incident on it enter into
it, and are refracted towards the _perpendicular_; whereas the air I
suppose to be a body that does more resist it, and consequently more are
_re-percuss’d_ then do enter it: the same kind of trials have I made, with
_Crystalline Glass_, with drops of fluid bodies, and several other ways,
which do all seem to agree very exactly with this _Theory_. So that from
this Principle well establish’d, we may deduce severall Corollaries not
unworthy observation.
And the first is; that it plainly appears by this, that the production of
the Rainbow is as much to be ascribed to the reflection of the concave
surface of the air, as to the refraction of the _Globular_ drops: this will
be evidently manifest by these Experiments, if you _foliate_ that part of a
Glass-ball that is to reflect an _Iris_, as in the _Cartesian_ Experiment,
above mention’d, the reflections will be abundantly more strong, and the
colours more vivid: and if that part of the surface be touch’d with Water,
scarce affords any sensible colour at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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