Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.20068

    Lake ice

    Date
    1885
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    John Tyndall (1820 - 1893, British) , Physicist
    Object type
    Library reference
    12908
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 190mm
    width (page): 125mm
    height (print): 43mm
    width (print): 65mm
    Subject
    Description
    Study of ice formation on a lake’s surface.

    Captioned: ‘Liquid flowers in lake ice’

    Written in the associated text: ‘Take a slab of lake ice and place it in the path of a concentrated sunbeam. Watch the track of the beam through the ice. Part of the beam is stopped, part of it goes through; the former produces internal liquefaction, the latter has no effect whatever upon the ice. But the liquefaction is not uniformly diffused. From separate spots of the ice little shining points are seen to sparkle forth. Every one of those points is surrounded by a beautiful liquid flower with six petals.’

    Unnumbered plate from John Tyndall’s The forms of water, in clouds & rivers, ice & glaciers (London: Kegan Paul, 1885). From chapter 11, ‘Architecture of Lake Ice’.

    John Tyndall (1820-1893), British physicist and mountaineer, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1852.
    Object history
    This copy of Tyndall's Forms of water was donated to the Royal Society by Walter Thompson Welford FRS (1916 – 1990), British physicist.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline