288 STUDIES OF NATURE* 



follows, and I fhall repeat it in another place, be!> 

 caufe of it's importance, that there is not a fingle 

 Ihade of colour employed in vain, through the 

 whole extent of the Univerfe ; that thofe celeftial 

 decorations were made for the level of the Earth, 

 and that their magnificent point of view is taken 

 from the habitation of Man. 



Thefe admirable concerts of lights and forms, 

 which manifefl themfelves only in the lower re- 

 gion of the clouds, the leaft illuminated by the 

 Sun, are produced by laws with which T am to- 

 tally unacquainted. But let their variety be what 

 it may, the whole are reducible to five colours : 

 yellow appears to be a generation from white ; red 

 a deeper fhade of yellow; blue, a tint of red 

 greatly ftrengthened ; and black, the extreme tint 

 of blue. It is impoffible to entertain a doubt re- 

 fpefting this progreffion, if you obferve, in the 

 morning, as 1 have mentioned, the expanfion of 

 light in the Heavens. You there fee thofe five 

 colours, with their intermediate (hades, gene- 

 nerating each other nearly in this order : white, 

 fulphur yellow, lemon yellow, yolk of egg yellow, 

 orange, Aurora colour, poppy red, full red, car- 

 mine red, purple, violet, azure, indigo, and black. 

 Each of thofe colours feems to be only a ilrong 

 tint of that which precedes it, and a faint tint of 



that 



