The Nature of Light and Colour in the Open Air

Brocken

the nature of

LIGHT &

COLOUR

in the open air

M. MINNAERT

translation H.M.Kremer-Priest

revision K.E.Brian Jay

Dover Publications Inc.

Copyright © 1954 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

This Dover edition is an unabridged republication of the first English translation which was published under the title Light and Colour in the Open Air. This translation was originally published by G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. and this edition has been made available through a special arrangement with them.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-10021

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-20196-2

ISBN-10: 0-486-20196-1

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

20196123

www.doverpublications.com

Preface

A lover of Nature responds to her phenomena as naturally as he breathes and lives, driven by a deep innate force. Sun and rain, heat and cold are alike welcome to his observation; in towns and woods, on sandy tracts and on the sea he finds new objects of interest. Each moment he is struck by new and interesting occurrences. With buoyant step he wanders over the countryside, eyes and ears alert, sensitive to the subtle influences that surround him, inhaling deeply the scented air, aware of every change of temperature, here and there lightly touching a shrub to feel in closer contact with the things of the earth, a human being supremely conscious of the fullness of life.

It is indeed wrong to think that the poetry of Nature’s moods in all their infinite variety is lost on one who observes them scientifically, for the habit of observation refines our sense of beauty and adds a brighter hue to the richly coloured background against which each separate fact is outlined. The connection between events, the relation of cause and effect in different parts of a landscape, unite harmoniously what would otherwise be merely a series of detached scenes.

The phenomena described in this book are partly things of everyday life, which it is fascinating to study from a scientific point of view, and partly things unfamiliar to you as yet, though they can be seen any moment, if only you will touch your eyes with the magic wand of ‘knowing what to see.’ And finally there are the rare, remarkable wonders of Nature, occurring only occasionally in a lifetime, so that even the most practised observer may wait year after year to see them. When he does see them he is filled to the very depths of his consciousness by the sense of their rareness, and by an ineffable feeling of pleasure.

However extraordinary it may seem, it remains a fact that the things one notices most are the things with which one is familiar; it is very difficult to see new things, even when they are before our very eyes. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages innumerable eclipses of the sun were observed; and yet the corona was scarcely noticed before 1842, although nowadays it is regarded as the most striking phenomenon of an eclipse and can be seen by anyone with the naked eye. In order to draw your attention to them, I have tried to collect in this book those things that in course of time have become known through the activities of many able students of Nature. No doubt there is far more yet to be seen in Nature; every year numbers of treatises are published concerning new phenomena; and it is strange to think how blind and deaf we must be to so many things around us that posterity is bound to notice.

The study of plants and animals is the usual meaning attached to ‘observation of Nature,’ as if the display of wind and weather and clouds, the thousands of sounds with which space is filled, the waves, the sun’s rays, the rumblings of the earth were not part of Nature, too ! And a textbook containing notes of all that is to be seen of particular interest to the student of physical science among the inanimate is just as necessary to him as a book on flora and fauna is to the biologist. We shall be led unavoidably into the domain of the meteorologist, and into the regions bordering on astronomy, geography and biology, but nevertheless I hope to have found a certain unity, in which the connection between the subjects treated can be perceived.

Since we are concerned with a simple, direct way of observing Nature we must systematically avoid : (i) Anything that can be found only with the help of instruments (con-centrating instead on our senses, our chief helpers, whose characteristics, therefore, we ought to know), (ii) Anything deduced from long series of statistical observations. (iii) Theoretical considerations not directly concerning what we see with our eyes.

We shall see that a surprising abundance of observations even then remain possible; indeed, there is hardly one branch of physics that is not applicable out of doors, and often on a scale exceeding any experiments in our laboratories. Bear in mind, therefore, that everything described in this book is within your own powers of understanding and observation. Everything is meant to be seen by you and done by you !

Where our explanations are perhaps too concise, we suggest that the reader should refresh his memory of fundamental physical theories by turning to some elementary textbook.

The importance of outdoor observations for the teaching of physics has not yet been sufficiently realised. They help us in our increasing efforts to adapt our education to the requirements of everyday life; they lead us by natural methods to ask a thousand questions, and, thanks to them, we find later on that what we learnt at school is to be found again and again beyond our school walls. And so the omnipresence of the laws of Nature is felt as a continually surprising and impressive reality.

Moreover, this book is written for all those who love Nature; for the young people going out into the wide world and gathering together round the camp-fire; for the painter who admires but does not understand the light and colour of a landscape; for those living in the country; for all who delight in travelling; and also for town-dwellers, for whom, even in the noise and clamour of our dark streets, the manifestations of Nature still remain. Even for the trained physicist we hope it will contain something new, for the field it covers is vast and often lies outside the ordinary course of science. So it will be understood why very simple as well as more complicated observations have been chosen, grouped according to their mutual relationship.

This book is very probably the first attempt of its kind, and as such is not perfect. I feel more and more overwhelmed by the beauty and extent of the material, and more and more conscious of my inability to explain it according to its merit. I have been experimenting systematically for twenty years and I have collected here the gist of some thousands of articles from every possible periodical, although only those articles have been quoted which give a comprehensive survey or throw light on very special points. But I am well aware how incomplete this collection still is. Many things already known are still unknown to me, and much remains a problem even to a professional. I shall, therefore, be all the more grateful to those who, through their own observations or by literary references, are willing to help me correct my mistakes or fill up any gaps.

M. M.

Contents

I.SUNLIGHT AND SHADOWS

II.REFLECTION OF LIGHT

III.REFRACTION OF LIGHT

IV.THE CURVATURE OF LIGHT RAYS IN THE ATMOSPHERE

V.INTENSITY AND BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

VI.THE EYE

VII.COLOURS

VIII.AFTER-IMAGES AND CONTRAST PHENOMENA

IX.JUDGING SHAPE AND MOTION

X.RAINBOWS, HALOES AND CORONAE

XI.LIGHT AND COLOUR OF THE SKY

XII.LIGHT AND COLOUR IN THE LANDSCAPE

XIII.LUMINOUS PLANTS, ANIMALS AND STONES

INDEX

Plates

I.THE SPECTRE OF THE BROCKEN

II.THE SUN REFLECTED IN THE SEA

III.(a)  RINGS OF LIGHT SEEN THROUGH THE BRANCHES OF A TREE

(b)THE SAME TREE BY DAYLIGHT

IV.(a)  SUNLIGHT REFLECTED FROM THE RIPPLED SURFACE OF WATER

(b)SUNLIGHT REFRACTED BY UNDULATING SHALLOW WATER

V.(a)INFERIOR MIRAGE

(b)MIRAGE ALONG A SUNLIT WALL

VI.THE SETTING SUN SEEN DISTORTED

VII.(a)BEATS BETWEEN THE BOARDS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDES OF A SHED

(b)THE POLE OF A MAN PUNTING APPEARS TO HIM ‘BROKEN’ AND THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER ‘LIFTED’

VIII.(a)CONTRAST BORDER SEEN ALONG THE EDGES OF ROOFS IN THE EVENING

(b)CONTRAST PHENOMENA OBSERVED OVER UNDULATING GROUND

IX.(a)RAINBOWS

(b)HALO ROUND THE MOON

X.IRIDESCENT CLOUDS

XI.THE Heiligenschein

XII.LUMINOUS NIGHT CLOUDS

XIII.REFLECTING THE ZENITH IN A MIRROR

(a)WHEN THE SKY IS BLUE

(b)WHEN THE SKY IS CLOUDED

XIV.UNDULATIONS ON A SHEET OF WATER

XV.(a)SUNBEAMS THROUGH A CUMULUS CLOUD

(b)SHADOW CAST ON THE RUFFLED SURFACE OF A POND

XVI.(a)A PATCH OF HEATHLAND SEEN WITH THE SUN BEHIND, AND BY REFLECTION WITH THE SUN IN FRONT

(b)TRACKS LEFT BY A MOWING MACHINE ON A LAWN

L IGHT

&

COLOUR

I

Sunlight and Shadows

1. Sun-Pictures

In the shade of a group of trees we see on the ground a number of spots of light, scattered irregularly, some large, some small, but all of them of a similar elliptical shape. Hold a pencil in front of one of them; the line connecting pencil and shadow indicates the direction from which the rays of light come that make the little patch on the ground. It is, of course, the sunlight piercing through an aperture in the crown of the tree; our eye sees a dazzling brightness here and there among the leaves.

The surprising thing is that all these spots have the same shape, and yet it is unlikely that all those chinks and openings should happen to be so nicely similar and round ! Intercept one of these images by a piece of paper, held at right angles to the rays, and you will see that it is no longer elliptical, but circular. Raise the paper higher and the spot grows smaller and smaller. So we conclude that the pencils of light forming such a spot have the shape of a cone and the spots are elliptical only because the ground cuts this cone slantwise.

The origin of this phenomenon is to be found in the fact that the sun is not a mere point. Any very small opening P (Fig. 1) forms a small, well-defined image of the sun AB; another small opening P′ gives a somewhat shifted image A′B′ (dotted lines); a wider opening, which contains both P and P′, gives a less sharp but brighter image of the sun A′B. We can indeed see spots of light of every degree of brightness, and if there are two of equal size, the brighter one is at the same time the less sharp.

In confirmation of this, notice that when clouds pass before the sun you can see them glide over each patch of sunlight, but in the opposite direction; during a partial eclipse of the sun, all the sun-pictures are crescent-shaped. When there is a large sunspot it is visible on the sharpest images of the sun. You can make a very well-defined image of the sun by piercing a small, perfectly round hole in a sheet of thin cardboard, and holding it up so that the sun’s image falls on a well-shaded spot.

FIG. 1. Sun’s rays penetrating dense louage.

Examine the image of the sun formed at various distances by a square aperture.

radian,’ meaning that the sun seems to be as large as 1 inch at a distance of 108 inches, or as large as 10 inches at a distance of 1,080 inches (Fig. 2). Similarly, therefore, the diameter of a well-defined picture of the sun must be 108th part of that picture’s distance from the opening; and for a hazy picture the size of the aperture in the foliage must be added. Intercept a weak, clearly defined sun-picture on a sheet of paper, hold it perpendicular to the rays of light, measure the diameter

radian.

k of the light-spot, and determine by means of a piece of string the distance L from the paper to the opening in the foliage. Is k ?

If the sun-pictures formed on a level surface are ellipses, we measure the short axis k and the long axis b. In this way the axes of a strikingly large sun-picture formed by the foliage of a beech-tree were found to measure 21 inches and 13 inches; the height of the aperture from the ground was, therefore, 870 inches or 72 feet 6 inches.

Observe that the sun-pictures are more oblong in the morning and evening, and rounder about noon.

Good sun-pictures are to be found in the shade of beeches, lime-trees and sycamores, but seldom in that of poplars, elms and plane-trees.

Look at the sun-pictures formed by the trees on the banks of shallow water; they can be seen very curiously defined on the bed of the water.

2. Shadows

Look at your own shadow on the ground; the shadow of your feet is sharp, the shadow of your head is not. The shadow of the bottom part of a tree-trunk or post is sharp, whilst the shadow of the higher parts becomes more and more hazy towards the top.

Hold your hand open in front of a piece of paper; the shadow is sharp. Hold it further away; the umbra of each finger becomes narrower and narrower, while the penumbras grow larger until they merge into one another.

These peculiarities are likewise a consequence of the sun’s not being a mere point, and correspond to what the sun-pictures showed us. Look at the shadow of a butterfly, of a bird (how seldom we usually notice such things !) and you will notice that it looks like a round spot; it is a ‘sun-shadow-picture.’

The shadow of wire-netting used as a fence, consisting of rectangular meshes, struck me once as very odd, for only the shadows of the vertical wires were visible, and not those of the horizontal ones ! If a sheet of perforated paper is held in the rays of the sun, each hole in the paper is seen to form an elliptical light-spot on the ground; one can imagine the shadow of a wire to be due to a number of similar small ellipses, only dark this time, placed close together, which makes it fairly sharp when the wire lies in the direction of the longer axis, and indistinct in the direction of the shorter axis (Fig. 3).

FIG. 3. Shadows of iron wires in slanting rays of the sun. (a) Distinct shadow, (b) Indistinct shadow.

Hold a piece of paper immediately behind the wire-netting, then take it farther and farther away, so that the gradual appearance of the remarkable shadows can be followed. Investigate similar cases where the sun’s rays make different angles with the ground: examine also the shadows of slanting meshes, etc.

Shadows have played an important part in folklore. It used to be considered a terrible punishment for anyone to lose his shadow, and anyone possessing a headless shadow would die within a year ! Tales like these, which are told by all peoples at all times are interesting to us, too, as they prove how cautious one should be in believing the assertions of untrained observers, however numerous and unanimous they may be.

3. Sun-Pictures and Shadows during Eclipses and at Sunset

During an eclipse the dark moon is seen to glide in front of the sun’s disc, so that, after a short time, only a crescent remains visible. It is worth while to notice at that moment the resemblance of small sun-pictures underneath the foliage to diminutive crescents, all lying in the same direction, large or small, bright or dim.

The shape of the shadows is influenced in a similar way. The shadows of our fingers, for instance, are peculiarly claw-shaped. Every small, dark object would at such a time cast a crescent-shaped shadow; the shadow of a small rod consists of a number of similar crescents, the curvature appearing at the end.

A good example of an isolated dark object of this kind is a balloon, and indeed it has been noticed that during eclipses of the sun the shadow of both balloon and basket are crescent-shaped. An aeroplane, if high enough, casts a curved shadow, too.

Eclipses of the sun, even partial ones, occur rarely; but similar shadow formations can also be seen while the sun is setting over the sea behind an open horizon, if you study the shadows of coins and discs of different sizes stuck on the window-pane, or hung on a piece of wire. The shape and the distribution of light vary according to the size of the coins, and also as the sun’s disc sinks below the horizon.

4. Doubled Shadows

When the trees have lost their leaves, we often see the shadows of two parallel branches superposed upon each other. A branch quite near to us gives a sharp and dark shadow, one more distant gives a broader and more greyish shadow. The curious thing now is that, when they accidentally fall one upon the other, we see a bright line in the middle of the sharpest shadow, so that this looks double (Fig. 4). What can be the explanation?

Let us suppose that the distant branch looks thicker, the nearer branch thinner. In order to find how strong is the illumination of the ground at different points of the shadow, and at points near to it, we imagine that we are looking successively from these several points towards the sun. Suppose first that our eye is looking from a point at some inches distance from the shadow; we should see the whole solar disc sending light towards us. Suppose now that we shift the position of our eye slightly, till we come, as shown at A in Fig. 4, into the penumbra of the distant branch. We now see that branch before the sun’s disc; because it obliterates part of this disc, the illumination on the ground at the point where our eye is supposed to be is decreased. We shift our eye still more until it is at B; now the second branch comes before the sun, and both branches together intercept a considerable part of the light. But suppose that we shift our eye still further, till it reaches the position C where the two branches are seen superposed, then the intercepted fraction of the sun’s disc is again smaller, the brightness on the ground, which we use as our screen, is again greater. Realising that when we look at the shadow on the ground we see simultaneously the various cases which we have discussed separately above, we understand why the central strip of the whole shadow is brighter than the adjacent parts either to the right or to the left.

FIG. 4. How double shadows arise.

In Fig. 4 I have shown roughly how the eye will see the solar disc when looking successively from A, B, C, D, E, supposing as above that the distant branch appears thicker than the nearer one.

This phenomenon will apparently be visible whenever both branches subtend an angle smaller than the sun’s disc.

‘Some time ago I was walking along the shore. . . . It was an evening late in March. The sun was setting in the sea to the West, the moon was shining brightly to the East. For a long time it was the sunset that cast my shadow on the ground, so that it fell eastwards; but then, for a short time I had no shadow at all, until the brightness of the moon outshone the evening-glow and my shadow fell westwards.’¹

Was this observed correctly?

(For shadows on a surface of water, see §§ 216, 217, and shadows on mist, see § 183; for contrast-edges along boundaries of shadows, see § 92.)

¹ From the Icelandic of S. Nordal : Alfur of Windhael.

II

Reflection of Light

5. The Law of Reflection

Look for a place where the moon is reflected in a very quiet surface of water. Compare the angle of the moon above the horizon and the angle of the reflected image below the horizon; they are both the same, within the errors of observation.

If the moon is not high in the sky you can hold your walking-stick vertically at arm’s length, so that you can see the end of the stick opposite the disc of the moon, while your thumb covers the horizon. Then twist the stick upside down with your arm as axis, and see whether the end of it touches the reflection of the moon.

FIG. 5. Sunlight reflected from a deep-set window.

Similar measurements performed with the telescope on stellar images are the most accurate test of the law of reflection.

A window built far back in a wall catches the rays of the sun when this is not too high (Fig. 5). The shadow AB shows the direction of the incident beam; the reflected light falls as a brighter spot of light in the direction BC. One can see now that both directions are symmetrical relative to the normal BN and that, therefore, ∠.ABN = ∠.CBN. This is not the same as the law of reflection, but a consequence of it. Prove this.

Why do the windows of distant houses reflect only the rising or the setting sun?

6. Reflection by Wires

FIG. 6. The reflection of a street-lamp from telegraph wires.

A number of telephone wires shine in the sun; if you walk parallel to those wires, the light moves as fast as you do. In the same way we can see how at night the light from a street-lamp casts a bright line on the overhead tram-wire. What determines the exact spot of these reflections? Construct in your mind an ellipsoid which touches the wire, with your eye and the source of light as the foci (Fig. 6). The illuminated spot is the tangent point, for it is a well-known property of an ellipsoid, that the lines connecting any point with the foci, make equal angles with the tangent plane.

7. Differences between an Object and its Reflected Image

Many people think that the reflection of a scene in a calm sheet of water looks exactly the same as the scene itself, upside down. Nothing is farther from the truth ! Note how at night some groups of street-lamps are reflected ! (Fig. 7A). The reflection of a dyke sloping down to the water appears shortened, and even disappears if we stand high enough above the water’s surface (Fig. 7B). You can never see the reflection of the top of a stone lying in the water.

All these effects are a matter of course if you consider that the reflected image is really identical with the landscape itself, only the perspective is different because it is shifted. We see it as if we were looking at the object from a point as far below the surface of the water as our eye is above it. The differences grow less the further away the objects are (cf. §§ 5, 130).

FIG. 7A.

FIG. 7B. An object can look different from its reflection.

There appears, however, to be still another point to be considered. The reflection of trees and shrubs in small ponds and in pools along the roadside often shows a clearness, a purity and warmth of colour, which seem greater than those of the object itself. We never see clouds so beautiful as those reflected in a mirror. A street reflected in the glass of a shop window with a dark curtain as a background is amazingly sharp.¹ These differences are due more to psychological than to physical causes. Some attribute them to the fact that a reflected scene arouses the same feelings as a picture lying in one plane (physically speaking, the reflected images lie in various planes, just as the objects themselves do). Others say that the frame makes us feel uncertain as to the position of an object in space, and this gives rise to a stronger impression of relief.² To me, however, a more important reason seems to be that the eye is not dazzled by the vast bright field of the sky round the scene observed, that is the effect is of the same kind as one gets when looking through a tube (§ 71). Moreover, the decreased brightness of the reflection is in itself enough to make it easier for us to observe the sky and the clouds, which otherwise are too bright for our eyes.

8. Freak Reflections

A row of houses casts a dark streak of shadow across the street, but with unexpected spots of light here and there in the middle (Fig. 8). How does the light get there? Hold your hand before the spot of light and deduce, from the situation of the shadow, from which direction the rays fall. It appears that they are reflected by the windows of the houses on the other side.

Similarly, one can see spots of light shining on the surface of a canal which is itself in the shade. The houses on the other side throw back the light.

FIG. 8. Patches of sunlight in a dark and narrow street.

A row of houses along the waterside stand completely in the shade, and yet there is a play of light on them, regular, more or less parallel streaks of light moving forwards. These are the reflections of the waves on the water (Fig. 9). The part AB of the waves acts as a concave mirror and produces a focal line at L; the part BC of the wave is less curved and unites the rays at a much greater distance. In this way, there is for every distance of the wall a part of the water’s surface that produces a sharp line of light, while the other parts give the general light-effect. Similar effects can also be seen along the quays and on the underside of the arches of bridges (Plate IV, a; p. 32). We have here actually a model of the twinkling of the stars (cf. § 40).

FIG. 9. Formation of light lines by reflection from slightly un-dulating water.

9. Shooting at a Reflection

Near Salzburg there is a lake, the Königsee, surrounded by high mountains, and therefore very calm. Shooting competitions are held there, at which the competitors aim at the reflection of the target in the water, the bullet rebounding from the surface to hit the mark. The chance of its actually hitting the mark seems at least as great as with a direct shot.

The curious thing is that the bullet does not rebound from the surface, but penetrates it and enters the water. Hydrodynamical theory shows that the effect of the movement of the liquid which surrounds the bullet is to force it towards the surface, so that it finally emerges at the same angle with the surface as that which it made on penetration. By hanging screens in the water it has been possible to follow the course of the bullet.³

10. Gauss’s Heliotrope

Place a mirror in such a position that it reflects the sunlight. Close to the mirror the light-spot has the same shape as the mirror; farther away it becomes less distinct; still farther it becomes round; and at a great distance it is a true image of the sun. Now cover part of the mirror. The spot of light remains round, but becomes less bright. It will not be possible to follow the light-spot for more than 50 yards, but an observer at that distance will be able to see the mirror still shining brilliantly in the sun.

Fix the mirror in a clamp or between two stones, somewhere where the view is open, and in such a way that the reflected ray of the sun is perfectly horizontal. Walk backwards as far as you can while still seeing the light. It is rather difficult to keep in the beam, but fortunately its diameter increases the farther one recedes, as you will see if you move sideways in the beam and notice the width between its boundaries; at a distance of 100 yards, its width is one yard. Moreover, you must bear in mind that the sun in the meantime is moving across the firmament; for this reason it is advisable to carry out this test some time at midday, for then the reflected beam remains in the horizontal plane without need for much readjustment.

It is amazing how far such a tiny spot of light remains visible. Gauss, when triangulating, made very sharply defined light sources in this way, which could be observed through the telescopes of the measuring instruments at distances of sixty miles. A ‘heliotrope’ of this kind is fitted with special apparatus for directing the ray of light towards any spot one wishes. By covering and uncovering the light, Morse signals can be transmitted.

11. Reflection in a Garden-globe

The convex mirrors we are always taught about at school are small and only slightly curved. They correspond to that little portion AB of the garden-globe, turned straight towards us and in which we can see our own reflection (Fig. 10).

But the garden-globe as a whole is far more interesting, the most remarkable thing about it being that we can see the complete surface of the celestial sphere (more correctly, sky and earth) in it, confined within a circle. The garden-globe acts as an optical instrument with an ideally large aperture. Of course, this is only possible because the images are deformed; they are compressed in the direction of the radius, the more so the nearer they are situated to the surface of the garden-globe (from the centre of the globe. One sees that as α increases to 180°, r increases to R, and so the whole of earth and sky is indeed imaged on the globe. The only part that is missing is the little piece lying exactly behind the globe, which gets smaller, the farther we stand away from the globe.

FIG. 10. How the universe is reflected in a small garden-globe.

Helmholtz once remarked that a landscape as deformed by a globe would turn out to be quite normal if the measuring-rod employed were deformed according to the same law. This statement is closely related to the principles of the theory of relativity.

The garden-globe can be used for very fine observations in the domain of meteorological optics, because it gives so good a survey of a considerable part of the sky. If you stand a few yards away from it, and in such a manner that the reflection of the sun is covered by your head, you will see with extraordinary clearness (see later) : (a) rings, haloes, iridescent clouds, Bishop’s ring, the twilight shades; (b) Haidinger’s brush and the polarisation of the light from the sky. Because of the reduction of the image, the slowly changing tints are transformed into much steeper gradients, so that the differences of brightness and colour are more striking to the eye. In the shining surface of a convex bicycle mirror one can often see very delicate little clouds which one had not noticed by direct observation.

12. Irregularities of the Surface of Water

Imagine a pool of water in a hollow of the dunes where there is no wind to ruffle the surface. Here and there a stalk of grass or a reed sticks out of the water, and it is interesting to see how each stalk is surrounded by a patch of light just where it emerges from the water. The stalk acts as a capillary, so that the surface tension of the water causes it to heap up round the base of the stalk, and the mound of water so formed reflects the sunlight, thus making it visible a long way off. If one part of the pool reflects the dark slope of the dunes and another the bright sky, one can see close to the boundary line how all the tiny mounds of water show light and dark contrasts according to the direction in which one is looking.

inch or so in depth. Close to the boundary between light and dark reflections even the feeblest disturbances of the surface can be seen very distinctly. Often a set of striae is very obvious.

It has been raining. Water is lying along the tram-rails, and now we can see a cross-line reflected in it horizontally, e.g. the suspension wire supporting the overhead cable. If we look along the vertical plane of the rail we see the reflected image altered in shape symmetrically (Fig. 11, a), which proves clearly that the water’s surface is curved and forms a capillary meniscus. If we stand to the left of the rail, then the image is deformed as in Fig. 11, b, and to the right as in Fig. 11, c. Consider why the reflection assumes just this shape.

The images shown by a curved liquid surface can be studied from a steamer, because all along you are looking from the same position and in the same direction at the waves moving along with it. Note in particular how the shapes of the reflections are changed by the first swell caused by the bow. The images are strongly compressed; they are upright or inverted according as you look at a concave or convex part of the surface.

FIG. 11. Rain in a tram-rail forms a curved mirror.

13. Ordinary Window Glass and Plate Glass

You can tell at once by the reflection in the window panes of houses whether they are made of plate glass or window glass. If of plate glass the images are fairly regular; if