APPENDIX. 125 



an4 Hydrogen ; and that as Carbon was not necessary, though 

 commonly present in terrestrial light, it must be a compound 

 of the THREE, and which I expect will be shortly fully demon- 

 strated, from better authority, by its analysis. We have at 

 present the indirect testimony, that it has not been reduced to 

 the elastic or gaseous form, per se, and until such shall be 

 the case, its title to be considered an ELEMENT is FAIRLY CHAL- 

 LENGED, as are those of the metals, and all other bodies 

 of fixed matter, the THREE before-mentioned original gases 

 excepted. 



m eTHO 1 



rii ibsgu 3i PROSPECTUS 



Of a New Work, entitled "THE ELEMENTS OF RADIANT AND FIXED 

 gjjJoMATTER," Octavo Size, with Plates, containing THE DIRECT 

 EVIDENCES in support of the following THEORY OF MATTER, in 

 which are described its presumed original Basis, with the Laws by 

 which its reciprocal Transition to and from the State of Radiance 



and Fixation appears to be governed. 

 ' 



ORIGINAL THEORY. 1818. 



Matter exists in four forms, the solid, fluid, aeriform and radiant. 

 The three first may be denominated inert or passive, and to the agency 

 of the last, aided by caloric, are to be attributed the several changes 

 evinced throughout the universe. 



Light is a material compound, composed of the four* simple elemen- 

 tary principles, or undecompound constituents of matter, of which all 

 other bodies in nature are formed. 



By a prism, light is divisible into four original prismatic coloured 

 rays, which, by obliquity of position in the act of extended refraction, 

 exhibit three others, which not being innate compounds, may be 

 termed laminar intermediates, partaking of partial colorific intensity, as 

 they severally approximate that point in the spectrum, where the 

 original rays of which they are composed, are as to vision, evidently 

 homogeneous. See fig. 1, plate 1st. 



* Three in the amended Theory. 



