

CHAPTER XVIIL 



ON CALORIFICATION. 



SECTION I. 



On the Source from whence Fire is derived, and 

 the Means by which it is generated. 



THE free and ready admission of the solar 

 rays in bodies, both diaphonous and opaque, 

 will be readily understood, after the descrip- 

 tion which I have given of the subtlety of their 

 nature, and the power of motion which they 

 inherently possess. While they subsist in their 

 pure and elementary state, there is every rea* 

 son to believe, that they neither excite in ani- 

 mated beings the sensation of illumination in 

 general, nor of heat or cold in particular ; 

 they are, in fact, destitute of all the attri- 

 butes, by which the identity of color or of 

 temperature is characterised : they produce, 

 on the common matter into which they may 

 have been admitted, none of the phenomena of 

 ignition or of cumbustion ; they subsist in those 

 bodies, in what may be called a latent and ele- 

 mentary state, and are altogether invisible and 



