Fizeau

Three of the most eminent natural philosophers, Galileo, an Italian, Römer, a Dane, and Fizeau, a Frenchman, have fairly shared its labors.

If I might be pardoned the use of a phrase of Darwin's in this field, I should say that Fizeau's apparatus was the descendant of Galileo's lantern.

If we examine Fizeau's apparatus closely, we shall recognise in it an old acquaintance: the arrangement of Galileo's experiment.

You know Wheatstone's rotating mirror, Fizeau's wheel, Plateau's perforated rotating disks, etc.

How rapidly they changed from ghostly and almost invisible shadows to solid, visible, and all but tangible forms under the magical influence of Goddard’s and Claudet’s “bromine accelerator,” and Fizeau’s “fixing” or gilding process!