to the other.

"You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly

the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if

it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if

you will consider only a second, you will see also that the powder

of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index

could be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no

refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air."

Yes, yes," said Kemp. "But a man's not powdered glass!"

No," said Griffin. "He's more transparent!"

Nonsense!"

That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten

your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are

transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up

of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same

reason that a powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper,

fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there

is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and

it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton

fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and bone, Kemp,

flesh, Kemp, hair, Kemp, nails and nerves, Kemp, in fact

147

The Invisible Man