THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, HEAT, COLOUR, ETC. 63 



hitherto employed for the production of colour — those should prove the 

 most efficacious, and the most durahle, which are produced from the very- 

 same chemical combinations whence the light, which they in turn decom- 

 pose, is derived. 



The more practical part of my subject, as to the nature and application 

 of the various fossil hydro -carbons, I propose to consider in a subsequent 

 paper ; but, before I close these preliminary observations, I wish to start a 

 new theory into existence, which was suggested to my own mind by the 

 fact that we are procuring light, heat, and colour from the fossil hydro- 

 carbons. 



It appears to be both possible, and even probable, that the light, heat, 

 and colour which we receive from that great luminary which is the centre 

 of our planetary system, originates also in hydro-carbon : and the 

 scientific description of the glorious orb to which I referred rather confirms 

 the idea. " It seems scarcely to admit a doubt," writes Dr Milner in his 

 ' Gallery of Nature,' " that the sun is a solid body surrounded by two 

 " envelopes, suspended in a transparent atmosphere ; the upper one 

 " luminous, forming the visible surface ; the lower obscure, a layer of dense 

 " clouds, highly reflective, throwing back the light of the upper regions. 

 " In these strata temporary openings or rents are supposed to be made by 

 " currents operating from below, analogous to the hurricanes and tornados 

 " of our tropical districts. The altered appearance of the spots as they are 

 " carried round by the solar rotation strikingly confirms the fact that they 

 " are excavations. The variations are exactly those which depressions will 

 11 present in the course of rotation. Adopting this view, the nucleus of a 

 " spot is the exposed dense body or solid substance of the sun ; the 

 " penumbra is the cloudy interior surrounding stratum ; and the faculae, 

 " or bright ridges, are accumulations of the exterior • luminous matter 

 " heaped up by violent local agitation." 



Such being a proper description of the sun, it provides every condition, 

 or circumstance, necessary to the support of my theory. Moses informs us 

 that " God made two great lights :" and why may not the light of the sun, 

 which is the primary orb, be derived from large stores of coal or kindred 

 substances deposited in its solid bulk ; internal fire acting on the mass, and 

 converting it gradually into a gas, which escaping through the large 

 excavations or orifices called sun-spots, concentrates around the solar body 

 in dense clouds like the dark interior portion of the flame of a candle, 

 which is unburnt gas ? The luminous or outer surface of the sun, like the 

 outside portion of a candle's flame, may be the same dense gas undergoing 

 the process of combustion ; and the transparent atmosphere around, which 

 in all probability consists of pure oxygen, would furnish the needful 

 element for producing or sustaining combustion, since without oxygen the 

 gas would not burn. 



Upon this theory, the sun may be likened to an enormous lamp, sus- 

 pended on its own axis, and replenished with a certain amount of inflam- 

 mable gas, which is perhaps destined to last through a definite period, and 



