82 THE ORIGIN OF' CRBATIOST. 



,.* 



ia colourless, and that it is the sunlight that gives them, or' 

 indeed anything else, their colour. 



It may be asked, how is it we see a spectrum of colours in 

 light at all ? Because the atmosphere in which light is exhibit- 

 ed, is composed of all the materials in a gaseous form of 

 which this earth is composed, and of course they retain their 

 inherent colours also. Consequently light by coming through 

 these different materials, displays also their colours to us. 



If the spectroscope is held to one of those mineral flames we 

 speak of r it shows a spectrum of all the colours 'too ; for a 

 similar reason, that hi order to produce flame at aH, there must' 

 be a mixture of the two classes of matter ; and adding the 

 materials of the atmosphere in which the experiment is shown,, 

 there need be no difficulty in collecting all the colours together. 

 In corroboration of our system, we give a few facts illustrative* 

 of the different colours, and the materials to which they belong. 



"Why is the sky blue? is a question which Prof. Tyndall 

 says is the most difficult one in meteorology ; and the explana- 

 tion he gives of it in his lecture on " The Scientific Use of the- 

 Imagination " is simply, to OUT mind, incomprehensible. Com- 

 pare our account of it with his. The atmosphere nearest the 

 earth is dense, and composed mainly of oxygen, while the higher 

 atmosphere is rarified, and composed mainly of hydrogen, or' 

 mineral atoms. As blue is the main, or distinctive colour of 

 the mineral atoms, the sky is blue in appearance, because in 

 looking xip wards, we are' gazing through a greater volume of the 

 mineral, than the vegetable atmosphere. But when we look at 

 the rising and setting sun, or moon, we see them red. Why T 

 Because we are looking through a dense volume of vegetable- 

 atmosphere, and red is the distinctive vegetable colour. 



