[Illustration: Fig. 182.--Darker’s Selenite Films and Stage.]
The thickness of the film of selenite determines the particular tint. If, therefore, we use a film of irregular thickness, different colours are presented by the different thicknesses. These facts admit of very curious and beautiful illustration, when used under the object placed on the stage of the microscope. The films employed should be mounted between two glasses for protection. Some persons employ a large film, mounted in this way between the plates of glass, with a raised edge, to act as a stage for supporting the object, it is then called the “selenite stage.” The best film for the microscope is that which gives blue, and its complementary colour yellow. The late Mr. Darker constructed a selenite stage for the purpose (Fig. 182). With this a mixture of colours will be brought about, by superimposing three films, one on the other. By slight variations in their positions, produced by means of an endless-screw motion, all the colours of the spectrum can be shown. When objects are thus exhibited, it should be borne in mind that all negative tints, as they are termed, are diminished, and all positive tints increased; the effect of which is to mask the true character of the phenomena.
For a certain thickness of selenite the ellipse will become a circle, and we have thus what is called _circularly-polarised_ light, which is characterised by the property that rotation of the analyser produces no change of intensity. Circularly-polarised light is not, however, identical with ordinary light; for the interposition of an additional thickness of selenite converts it into elliptically (or in a particular case into plane) polarised light.
It is necessary, for the exhibition of colour in our experiments, that the plate of selenite should be very thin, otherwise the retardation of one component vibration as compared with the other will be greater by several complete periods for violet than for red, so that the ellipses will be identical for several different colours, and the total non-suppressed light will be sensibly white in all positions of the analyser.
Two thick plates may, however, be so combined as to produce the effect of one thin plate. For example, two selenite plates of nearly equal thickness may be laid one upon the other, so that the direction of greatest elasticity in the one shall be parallel to that of least elasticity in the other. The resultant effect in this case will be that due to the difference of their thicknesses. Two plates so laid are said to be _crossed_.
