1. In a recent paper Dr. M. Wächtler (1), repeating and extending some previous experiments of H. Ambronn (2), has found that the residual double refraction in permanently overstrained celluloid, instead of increasing with the permanent strain, reaches a maximum and begins to decrease. For a permanent strain varying between 11 to 18 per cent, extension of the specimen (according to the wave-length of the light used), Wächtler states that the residual double refraction vanishes, and for higher values of the permanent strain he finds it to become negative and to increase negatively until the rupture limit is reached. This same phenomenon of reversal of double refraction had been previously observed by Ambronn (7). Wächtler bases upon this result certain severe criticisms upon the use of celluloid models for exploring the stresses in engineering structures, a method which has been employed of late years, with conspicuous success, by Prof. E. G. Coker (3). Wächtler, in the paper referred to, comments on the fact that neither Coker and Chakko (4), nor Filon and Jessop (5), in their investigations upon the law of artificial double refraction in celluloid, refer to the results of Ambronn, which were published in 1911.