appear, but Marat fainted. Assistance was called, and he was carried home to his house, his offence against all the laws of propriety being forgiven by his more talented and better-tempered adversary.
There are many persons, no doubt, whom we should astonish, and possibly enrage, by asserting positively that we could cause darkness by means of light, that silence could be produced by sound, or cold by heat. These are daring paradoxes, and at first sight appear almost as reasonable as that of Anaxagoras, a Greek philosopher, who asserted that snow was black. But as I hope that most of my readers do not possess the passionate temper of the French tribune, I will confide to them a little secret that will make these paradoxes plain. It is called by natural philosophers the theory of interference.
The experiments connected with this subject are exceedingly difficult to perform, and require the aid of apparatus far beyond the reach of the ordinary student. It is a case where theory and description are much easier than practice.
If a ray of electric light is thrown upon a screen, it is possible to direct another ray upon the same spot in such a manner that they will extinguish each other mutually. The reason of this phenomenon may be understood, if we remember that light is caused by undulatory movement, and that by opposing two series of waves to each other in such a manner that their vibrations coming in contact produce rest, we can easily see how the waves of light of one ray may be stopped by those of a second.
Going back to our illustration of the eddies on a pool of water, it is easy to prove that by throwing a second stone into the water we form another series of undulations; which are mutually destroyed when they encounter each other. It is the same with the
