THE FARMER AT HOME. 97 



ice; this produces the sensation of cold. The sensation of heat is 

 occasioned by caloric passing into our bodies ; the sensation of cold by 

 caloric passing out of our bodies. We say that a body is hot, when, 

 it communicates caloric to the surrounding bodies We call it cold, 

 when it absorbs caloric from other bodies 



COLORS. The different hues in which bodies appear to the eye. 

 The colors which are most grateful and refreshing to the sight, are 

 blue and green ; and hence our all-bountiful Creator has clothed the 

 heavens and the earth, those expansive and general objects of vision, 

 with these colors. The Turks prefer green to every other color; be- 

 cause, according to the tradition of their theologians, this was the 

 favorite color of Mahomet ; and his descendants alone, of all the 

 Turks, have the privilege of wearing the green turban. Yellow is in 

 China the imperial color, as green is in Turkey. The most beautiful 

 of all colors in the judgment of most nations, is red. The Russians, 

 when they would describe a beautiful girl, say she is red ; red and 

 beautiful, being with them synonymous terms. 



In Mexico and Peru, red was held in very high estimation. The 

 most magnificent present which the emperor Montezuma could devise 

 for Cortez, was a necklace of lobsters, which naturally have that rich 

 color. The only demand made upon the Spaniards by the king of 

 Sumatra, on their first landing in his country, and presenting him 

 with many samples of the commerce and industry of Europe, was 

 some corals and scarlet colored stuffs ; and he promised to give them 

 in return, all the spiceries and merchandise of India, for which they 

 might have occasion. There is no such thing as carrying on trade to 

 any advantage with the Negroes, the Tartars, and the East-Indians, 

 but through the medium of red cloths. It is with red that nature 

 heightens the most brilliant parts of the most beautiful flowers, and 

 she invests most of the feathered race in India with a plumage of 

 this color ; some have their heads covered with it ; others have a 

 breast-plate of it, a necklace, a capuchin, a shoulder-knot. 



COMPLEXION. The color of the skin, varying according to 

 climate. The Europeans, when they settle in New Spain or the 

 West India islands, soon lose their whiteness, and become of a 

 brownish yellow. The Europeans who reside long in the East 

 Indies, become of the same cream colored complexion. The Span- 

 iards, who have inhabited America under the torrid zone for any 

 considerable time, have become as dark colored as the native Indians 

 of Virginia. The descendants of the Portugese, who settled at Sen- 

 egal in Africa, in the year 1400, and of those who settled at Mitambo, 

 and on the coasts of Congo, have the African color and wooly heads. 

 The Jews who descended from one stock, and whose religion has 

 prevented their marrying with other people, have varied in complexion 

 according to climate. In Britain and Germany, they are white ; in 

 Erance and Turkey, they are brown ; in Spain and Portugal, their 

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