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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
It is now, I believe, generally admitted that the light which we receive from the clear sky is due in one way or another to small suspended particles which divert the light from its regular course. On this point the experiments of Tyndall with precipitated clouds seem quite decisive. Whenever the particles of the foreign matter are sufficiently fine, the light emitted laterally is blue in colour, and, in a direction perpendicular to that of the incident beam, is completely polarized.
About the colour there is no prima facie difficulty; for as soon as the question is raised, it is seen that the standard of linear dimension, with reference to which the particles are called small, is the wave-length of light, and that a given set of particles would (on any conceivable view as to their mode of action) produce a continually increasing disturbance as we pass along the spectrum towards the more refrangible end; and there seems no reason why the colour of the compound light thus scattered laterally should not agree with that of the sky.
On the other hand, the direction of polarization (perpendicular to the path of the primary light) seems to have been felt as a difficulty.
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