COLORIFICATION IN GENERAL. 



state of the analytic art, equally extends to the 

 synthetic ; although a multitude of compound 

 bodies, can factitiously be formed from those 

 that are simple ; no effort of human ingenuity, 

 has been able to discover the means by which 

 the pure colorless solar rays, in their passage 

 through the atmosphere, acquire properties 

 which are totally different from those which 

 they originally possessed ; and have the power> 

 in consequence, of exciting on the optic organs 

 of animated beings, the sensations of illumina- 

 tion in general, and of color in particular. The 

 phenomena which these colors display, have 

 been particularly examined by Sir ISAAC NEW* 

 TON, and are amply detailed in his celebrated 

 Lectiones Opticce, as w r ell as by a variety of 

 others ; and are the objects which the science 

 of optics is intended to unfold. The theory of 

 colors, which he entertained, was founded on 

 the assumption, that the sun was a globe of 

 fire, emitting rays composed of seven different 

 colors, which were separable from each other 

 by means of the prism ; that these seven co- 

 lored rays* instead of being compounded, were 

 original and simple ; and that they constituted 

 the sources whence the infinite variety of colors 

 which exist throughout the whole system of 

 nature, are produced. It was his opinion also, 

 that all bodies have the property of absorbing 



