58 THEORY OF LIGHT. 



same power of repulsion as these new-formed molecules of light 

 can exercise towards each other, from the angular position of 

 their poles, as long as they remain in an insulated state, as ex- 

 hibited by the Diagram No. 5, Plate IV. 



The decomposition of light effected naturally by the chemical 

 operations in continued action throughout our globe, produces 

 accumulated quantities of either species of electricity, in cer- 

 tain localities where the opposite species has been electively and 

 chemically combined with fixed matter, in either organic or 

 inorganic bodies. 



The alternations that occur by the abstraction of some or one 

 of these elements from the compound molecules of light, effect 

 redundancies and deficiencies of quantities in localities of cer- 

 tain extension, governed by the amount of consumption of the 

 abstracted elements, and these continuous alternations produce 

 the detached and isolated aggregations of electricity of the 

 opposite species, which is never far distant, and is to be found 

 either in the adjacent atmosphere, when the reunion is exhi- 

 bited under the phenomena of lightning ; or should that not be 

 the case, through the medium of conduction in the body of the 

 earth. 



These interferences, of a minor description, have no effect in 

 deranging the electrical envelopes of the opposite surfaces of 

 the earth, being proportional as they are in force to the mag- 

 nitude of the area of the earth, acting as they do in respect to 

 their polarity, as the minutest particle or atom is affected by 

 its proportionate quantum. 



By the motion of a triangle round one of its sides as an axis 

 is formed, as it were, a circular prism, which from its uniting 

 the properties and figure of a lens with that of the prism, may 

 be called a lenticular prism, or double convex prismatic lens, 

 of which the following presents an outline. See Plate II., 

 Fig. 1. 



By a like circular motion of a triangle upon that angle, 

 which corresponds to the angle of refraction in a prism, will be 



