BY CONSTITUENTS OF LIGHT IN ALKALIES AND ACIDS. 



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(all of which are known to contain oxygen in excess,} the 



-m?w is changed to red; by adding more of the alkali, the 

 green is restored, and by a fresh dose of acid, sufficient 

 to neutralize the alkali, first the blue returns, and by a 

 further, the red is again reinstated : thus proving the alter- 

 nate change of color, and that it depends on the predominat- 

 ing ray, or mixture of rays then constituting the exposed 

 surfaces of the atoms forming the liquid ; evincing the cor- 

 respondence that exists between the original elements, and 

 the properties, qualities, and colors they produce in matter, 

 from the proportions in which they combine to form it ; and 

 that in most instances the reflected rays accord with those 

 rays in excess, in its constitution. There is an exception, as 

 far as color, exhibited in the instance of iodine, in solution 

 in water, but there the yellow tint becomes evident by the 

 neutralization of the coloring powers of oxygen and hydrogen, 

 in their proportions to constitute water. 



There are many instances in which solid and liquid bodies 

 do not exhibit in the color they assume the traces of their 

 composition, they are therefore neutralized as to the coloring 

 principle, and require the addition of agents, the component 

 parts of which are familiar to us, to cause the development 

 of their constituents. 



The acids in a fluid state are, in many instances, trans- 

 parent and colorless. The alkalies are in a concrete form, 

 white, and in aqueous solution equally transparent, and free 

 from color as the water in which they are dissolved ; some 

 metallic solutions are similar. 



Vegetables display in their growth a diversity of color and 

 shade ; and it would appear that the circulation of their sap 

 and juices is essential to the display of those vivid tints to 

 which they owe their tenacity. When they are allowed to grow 

 in places from which light is completely excluded, they are 

 totally white, and void of those colors which they uniformly 

 exhibit when possessed of the natural advantages arising from 



