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Optics and Optical Amusements

"'Seeing is believing,' so the sages say, To prove this false, hear me, my friends, I pray, And very soon you all will be agreeing, That nought is so deceptive as our seeing."-MARTIN.

OPTICS is the science of light and vision. Concerning the nature of light, two theories are at present very ably maintained by their respective advocates. One is termed the Newtonian theory, and the other the Huygenean. The Newtonian theory considers light to consist of inconceivably small bodies emanating from the sun, or any other luminous body. The Huygenean conceives it to consist in the undulations of a highly elastic and subtle fluid, propagated round luminous centres in spherical waves, like those arising in a placid lake when a stone is dropped into the water.