8 THEORY OF LIGHT. 



6. That these three gases are oxygen, nitrogen, and hydro- 

 gen; the elementary constituents flight. 



7. Therefore 51 in number, of the 54 at present acknow- 

 ledged original constituents of matter, are compounds. 



8. That carbon, for instance, from its color, (black, 

 formed by the union of the three original prismatic colors,) is 

 composed of the three original elements, and that its being 

 obtained from the combustion of organized vegetable bodies, 

 by whose analysis it has long been established that they are 

 principally constituted of the three elements, affords primd facie 

 evidence of its compound nature. 



That the diamond, which is considered to be pure carbon, is 

 not only combined with the water of crystallization, (oxygen 

 and hydrogen^) but displays its compound nature otherwise, and 

 has been pronounced on a late occasion, by an authority of great 

 eminence,* as affording strong traces of its vegetable origin. 



9. That the inflammation of the three original gases, in the 

 following proportions, as to volume and weight, produce 



PERFECT WHITE LIGHT. 



Oxygen : 

 wt. 16. vol. 5. 



Nitrogen : Hydrogen : 



wt. 14. vol. 3. wt. 1. vol. 8. 



10. That the order of polarity exercised in the formation of 

 light is constant and invariable ; that is, by the positive pole 

 of the one original element (oxygen) with the negative poles 

 of the two other original elements, (nitrogen and hydrogen,) 

 uniting at the centre of the compound molecule, or corpuscular 

 atom of light. 



11. That the reversion of matter from the radiant state of 

 light to that of fixation, by chemical combination with bodies 

 of palpable matter, is subject to a diversity of polarity go- 

 verned by the nature of those bodies, which are endowed with 

 certain influences of action dependent on their order of con- 

 stitution. 



* Sir David Brewster, at the meeting'of the British Association at Liverpool. 



