TREATISE ON LIGHT CONTAINING 7 THE EXPLANATION OF REFLECTION AND OF RE- FRACTION AND ESPECIALLY OF ‘THE RE- MARKABLE REFRACTION WHICH OCCURS IN ICELAND SPAR BY OHRISTIAAN HUYGENS (Leyden, 1690)CONTENTS Preface... Table of Contents. The Rectitinear Propagation of Rays and some General Considerations concerning the Nature of Light. 7 Explanation of the Laws of Reflection Explanation of the Laws of Refraction, 2 SRTREATISE ON LIGHT BY CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS PREFACE Tuis treatise was written during my stay in Paris twelve years ago, and in the year 1678 was presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences, to which the king had been pleased to call me. Several of this body who are still living, especially those who have devoted themselves to the study of mathematics, will remember having been at the meeting at which I present~ ed the paper ; of these I recall only those distinguished gentle- men Messrs. Cassini, Rémer, and De la Hire. Although since then I haye corrected and changed several passages, the copies which I had made at that time will show that I have added noth- ing except some conjectures concerning the structure of Iceland spar and an additional remark concerning refraction in rock- crystal. I mention these details to show how long I have been thinking about these matters which I am only just now publish- ing, and not at all to detract from the merit of those who, with- out having seen what I have written, may have investigated similar subjects: as, indeed, happened in the case of two dis- tinguished mathematicians, Newton and Leibnitz, regarding the question of the proper figure for a converging lens, one surface being given. It may be asked why I have so long delayed the publication of this work. ‘The reason is that I wrote it rather carelessly in French, expecting to translate it into Latin, and, in the mean- time, to give the subject still further attention. Later I 8