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tent assumption that color pervades the sun rays before 

 the prism, instead of after it; the fact being that colors 

 never appear in the primary rays until after having passed 

 through a deflecting lens, which creates the colors beyond 

 it. Hence we judge that an emanating theory of light, and 

 a corpuscular theory of colors are nearer to Newton's real 

 meaning, than the common interpretation. As his state- 

 ments show the undulations to be transmitting rather than 

 creating powers, he appreciated the distinction between 

 crossing and travelling with the ether waves. The sepa- 

 ration, or dispersion of rays by a prism, creates in the 

 atmosphere, according to the angle from whence the ray 

 is thrown, a body to the ray, not before possessed. 



Any resultant color is a legitimate consequence of the 

 introduction of a plate of the atmosphere with its molec- 

 ular composition, between, or overlying, the ray, proving 

 as tangible a result, perhaps, as mixing colored pigments 

 with a white base. We may fairly infer that light has 

 not the same consistency in the space between our atmos- 

 phere and the sun, as within the atmosphere itself. 



Rays of light probably do not meet exactly the same 

 resistance, at any two given points, in passage to our 

 atmosphere. This we may safely assert, though the at- 

 mosphere itself is but imperfectly known to us, even at 

 ten miles distance from the earth's surface. Although 

 the principle of light emanates from the sun, light itself 

 is only a small resultant element, as color may be a resul- 

 tant of light, not necessarily representing a constituent 

 principle of light itself. 



Undulations over or through which rays pass, may be 

 simply confined to the atmosphere near the earth's- sur- 

 face, though assumed to extend much farther into space. 

 The primary principle or power from the sun, would 

 naturally be composed of something more subtle than 



