LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. A SERIES OF FAMILIAR ESSAYS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS, NATURAL PHENOMENA, &c. &c. 'I bear you witness as ye bear to me, Time, day, night, sun, stars, life, death, air, sea, earth.' SWINBURNE. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. PREFACE. THE ESSAYS in the present volume have been selected from my contributions to serial literature during the past three or four years. Although I have for some time been urged to publish such a volume, I think I should not have ventured to do so but for the kindness with which my Other Worlds' and 'The Sun' have been received, both by the press and the public. In preparing these Essays, my chief object has been to present scientific truths in a light and readable form-clearly and simply, but with an exact adherence to the facts as I see them. I have followed-here and always-the rule of trying to explain my meaning precisely as I should wish others to explain, to myself, matters with which I was unfamiliar. Hence I have avoided that excessive simplicity which some seem to consider absolutely essential in scientific essays intended for general perusal, but which is often even more perplexing than a too technical style. The chief rule have followed, in order to make my descriptions (RECAP) 738 .3 vol. 34312 |