COLorU DKPKND.S ON' CIJMATK. Ill 



eloiuly ilay, my results would he the saiuc ns yours. Let me 

 advise you, u»y frieud, to miike your eanniue ou hrij^lit sunny 

 days.' ' I will,' says the En-^lishman, ' hut I fear 1 shall make 

 M-ry little in London.' " 



Now this anecdote may he depended upon ; lor a person so 

 distinjjuislied as a eheiiiist and natural philosopher as Sir 

 Humphrey Davy would not have relati-d a story in regard to 

 the ettect of light, which was contrary to truth, or which he did 

 not directly know to he true. 



And if the etfcct of sunshine is so great on colour, as that tlic 

 increase or decrease of its hrilliancy shoidd cause a totally 

 ditFerent result to follow from the comhination of precisely the 

 same chemical ingredients, it will readily follow that much more 

 cfVect will he produced hy its excess in one case, or almost total 

 exclusion in another, upon hues so changeful as those which 

 glitter on the scales of a fish. 



That in a pun- limpid rajjid stream, rushing over a hright 

 gravelly bed, through open fields, where no envious houghs 

 intercept the sunlight, and in a dark turhid pond, the waters 

 of which are saturated with the draining of peat-bogs, or 

 «itli the juices of decomposed vegetable matter, and over- 

 shadowed by thick evergreen umbrage, the light even of the 

 most gorgeous noon will be transmitted in very different degrees, 

 and produce \cry different effects both of colotir, heat, and 

 radiance, any |)crson can judge, who will observe tlie sunbeams 

 as they fall through a sheet of pure plate-gla-ss, or a thick green 

 buH's-cye ; and that the consequences may ea*ily be as they are 

 stated above, he will, I think, be satisfied. 



Now, in the first place, analogous to this, and in corroboration 



