[XXIX.]
COMBINATION OF SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE EXPERIMENTS.
Having shown above ([318]) that refraction, considered objectively and subjectively, must act in opposite directions, it will follow that if we combine the experiments, the effects will reciprocally destroy each other.
Let the sun's image be thrown upwards on a vertical plane, through a horizontally-placed prism. If the prism is long enough to admit of the spectator also looking through it, he will see the image elevated by the objective refraction again depressed, and in the same place in which it appeared without refraction.
Here a remarkable case presents itself, but at the same time a natural result of a general law. For since, as often before stated, the objective sun's image thrown on the vertical plane is not an ultimate or unchangeable state of the phenomenon, so in the above operation the image is not only depressed when seen through the prism, but its edges and borders are entirely robbed of their hues, and the spectrum is reduced to a colourless circular form.
By employing two perfectly similar prisms placed next each other, for this experiment, we can transmit the sun's image through one, and look through the other.