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The "slitless spectroscope" consists simply of a prism placed outside the object-glass of a telescope or the lens of a camera, whereby the radiance encompassing the eclipsed sun is separated into as many differently tinted rings as it contains different kinds of light. These tinted rings were simultaneously viewed by Respighi at Poodacottah, and by Lockyer at Baikul.

Among the treasures kept for special occasions there may be pipes for soap-bubbles, a prism of some kind with which to make rainbows, a tiny mirror to make "light-birds" on the wall and ceiling, and a magnet with the time-honoured ducks and fish, if these are still to be bought, along with other articles, delicately made or coloured, which require care.

Apparently the sun of prosperity burned in the zenith and gilded her path with happiness, but analyzed by the prism of her consciousness the brightness faded, the colors paled, and grim menace crossed all, like the dark lines of Fraunhofer.

* A portion of butter, weighing from one pound to six or eight, made in the shape of a prism. Then again, never did a forbidding face shine with so winning and amicable an expression as did hers on that merciful occasion.

But it is not the man, it is merely his mental machinery which is under this "necessity." This it is which translates, analyses, incorporates in finite images the boundless perceptions of the spirit: passing through its prism the White Light of Reality, and shattering it to a succession of coloured rays.

Then, in close succession, we find in the solar light obscure calorific rays, the existence of which could admit of being established only with the thermometer, and which may be completely separated from luminous rays by the aid of the prism; we discover, by the aid of terrestrial bodies, that the emission of caloric rays, and consequently the cooling of those bodies, is considerably retarded by the polish of the surfaces; that the colour, the nature, and the thickness of the outer coating of these same surfaces, exercise also a manifest influence upon their emissive power.

The red rays are thus said to be at the lower edge of the prism, and the violet rays at the upper edge. Below the red rays there are now known to be certain invisible rays, as of heat and electricity. Above the violet rays are other invisible rays, such as the actinic influence. In fact, the spectrum, beginning invisibly, passes by way of the visible rays to the invisible again.

She settled herself comfortably in the low rocking-chair beside the bed, tossed back her curls and was about to begin, when one of the rainbow lights from the prism danced across the page. She waited, smiling, until it glimmered away. Then she read the verses on which it had shone.

Yet even then we cannot long proceed before we find the charm returning; as we pass from the blaze of light on the carcass, where all the tints of the prism seem to be faintly subdued, we are met on its borders by the dark harslet, glowing like rubies; then we repose awhile on the white cap and kerchief of the nursing mother; then we are roused again by the flickering strife of the antagonist colors on a blue jacket and red petticoat; then the strife is softened by the low yellow of a straw-bottomed chair; and thus with alternating excitement and repose do we travel through the picture, till the scientific explorer loses the analyst in the unresisting passiveness of a poetic dream.

"Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished than you did for a minute or two." "I did, did I?" said her brother, in the same indifferent tone. "My dear child, what an active imagination you have. Did you ever look through a prism, Emily?" "Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?"