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8. Transmutation of Rays[1]: Calorescence.
Eminent experimenters were long occupied in demonstrating the substantial identity of light and radiant heat, and we have now the means of offering a new and striking proof of this identity. A concave mirror produces beyond the object which it reflects an inverted and magnified image of the object; withdrawing, for example, our iodine solution, an intensely luminous inverted image of the carbon points of the electric light is formed at the focus of the mirror employed in the foregoing experiments. When the solution is interposed, and the light is cut away, what becomes of this image? It disappears from sight, but an invisible thermograph remains, and it is only the peculiar constitution of our eyes that disqualifies us from seeing the picture formed by the calorific rays. Falling on white paper, the image chars itself out: falling on black paper, two holes are pierced in it, corresponding to the images of the two coal points: but falling on a thin plate of carbon in vacuo, or upon a thin sheet of platinized
- ↑ I borrow this term from Professor Challis, Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XII. p. 521.
