Abstract
Rev. J. B. Reade on Solar Rays AT a meeting of the Royal Society on December 22, 1836, the secretary, J. G. Children, communicated a paper by the Rev. J. B. Reade entitled “Observations and Experiments on the Solar Rays that occasion Heat; with the application of a remarkable property of these rays in the construction of the Solar and Oxy-Hydrogen Microscope”. The method employed by the author for obtaining, by a combination of lenses, the convergence to foci of the ‘colorific’ solar rays, together with the dispersal of the ‘calorific1 rays, consisted in making a beam of solar light, after it had been converged to a focus, pass through a second convex lens placed at a certain distance beyond that focus; that distance being so adjusted that the calorific rays were collected into a focus more remote from the first lens than the colorific rays, and consequently nearer to the second lens. By this means, the calorific rays emerged either parallel or divergent while the colorific rays could be brought to a focus which would exhibit a brilliant light without manifesting any sensible degree of heat. The light so obtained could be advantageously applied to the solar, and to the oxy-hydrogen microscope, producing no injurious effects on objects enclosed in Canada balsam or even on living animalcules.
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Science News a Century Ago. Nature 138, 1068 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381068a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381068a0