Oldal 101 [101]
OCR
REFLEXIONS IN RIPPLED WATER s: near side of the next wave. These two portions of bank-reflexion, if followed in either direction (z.e. at right angles to the plane of the paper), will, as explained above, owing to local irregularities, unite sooner or later to form a flattened ring as in the photograph (Plate XXIV). If there were a light space of sky above the bank and above that again a stratum of darker cloud, the dark rings caused by the reflexion of the dark bank would in all likelihood be surrounded by light rings reflecting the light part of the sky | above it. In Plate XX XV the rings over the oar to the right are no doubt caused by the boom, their dark centres being probably due to a second reflexion showing the sail. In near ripples, which, from their proximity to the eye, appear large and few in proportion to the size of the object reflected, the image becomes strangely distorted, dancing madly with the movement of the water. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the foreground reflexions of masts and rigging, which writhe and twist themselves into bends and knots, or even detached rings. (See Plates XXV and XXXII, and note the curious zigzag reflexion of the bowsprit in Plate III, page 25.) In the middle distance such objects are reflected with less distortion, though not so sharply as these in the foreground. The reflexion of the hull of a boat, or even the lower parts of its rigging, takes place on a part of the water much farther off from the spectator than that of the top of the sails, so that, speaking roughly, the distortion of the image of a boat may be said to increase from the water-line upwards (see Plate XXVIII). The
