After an interval the polarization begins to be incomplete in the perpendicular direction, the light which reaches the eye when the nicol is set to minimum transmission being of a beautiful blue, much richer than anything that can be seen in the earlier stages.
The "correctness" of his attitude on all public questions won for him the commendation of Catholic writers; he is not included in Nicol Burne's list of "periurit apostatis"; but his policy and influence were misliked by James VI., who, when the Assembly had elected Arbuthnot to the charge of the church of St Andrews, ordered him to return to his duties at King's College.
James Nicol (1769-1819), the poet, was minister of Traquair, and his son James Nicol (1810-1879), the geologist and professor of natural history in Aberdeen University, was born in the manse.
In the early r6th century the use of the vernacular is extended, chiefly in the treatment of historical and polemical subjects, as in Murdoch Nisbet's version of Purvey (in MS. till 1901), a compromise between northern and southern usage; Gau's (q.v.) Richt Vay, translated from Christiern Pedersen; Bellenden's (q.v.) translation of Livy and Scottish History; the Complaynt of Scotlande, largely a mosaic of translation from the French; Ninian Winzet's (q.v.) Tractates; Lesley's (q.v.) History of Scotland; Knox's (q.v.) History; Buchanan's (q.v.) Chamaeleon; Lindesay of Pitscottie's (q.v.) History; and the tracts of Nicol Burne and other exiled Catholics.
Nicol Saunderson (1682-1739), Euler and Lambert helped in developing the theory, and much was done by Lagrange in his additions to the French edition of Euler's Algebra (1795).