Inquiry into the Causes of Light and Colour . 
197 
Such disastrous vicissitudes need only to be known to occur, to occasion those 
melancholy reflections they are well calculated to produce in a reflecting mind. 
The 20 lakhs of begahs employed in indigo cultivation, probably yield to the state 
forty lakhs of revenue yearly ; while the official value of the gross returns perhaps 
fluctuate between 180 and 280 lakhs of rupees. Were cotton, coffee, and sugar to 
be produced on land of equal fertility, and to the same extent, it is conceived, that 
the gross returns would be more than double those of Indigo, which last suffers a 
fluctuation of value in this respect for each begah of from 9 to 14 rupees. 
The cultivation of land for the production of coffee and cotton must be very neg- 
ligently attended to, that would not yield 20 rupees for each begah, or 36 rupees 
under good management. 
The amount of these last in weight would exceed the most favourable season of 
indigo cultivation at least fifty fold, and require, instead of the limited tonnage of 
four or five thousand tons of shipping, at least twenty times as many ships as indigo 
employs, on a supposition even that more than one-half of these more commercially 
valuable staples were consumed in the country. 
The notorious fact that a petty factory commonly requires several patches of land 
for the requisite supply of the plant, is a sufficient reason to conclude, that larger 
establishments, excepting under some very particular circumstances of locality, 
must necessarily become spread over a considerable portion of an extensive district 
to the perpetual annoyance of many of the Ryots, and the production of those fre- 
quent litigations, the least inconvenience of which is that of rendering the native 
population discontented. 
To these objections ring-fence estates, for the purposes of cultivating coffee and 
cotton, would not be liable. 
Boundary pillars would properly mark their extent, and preclude unfriendly col- 
lision between the two classes. 
The prosecution of steady agricultural pursuits of a better character, would pro- 
duce better habits, while a liberal policy should direct proprietors to hold out a 
higher remuneration than what stipends would comprehend. 
The versatile employments of the stock farm, and of agricultural pursuits, would 
bring the Europeans and natives into a state of closer intimacy, which improved ha- 
bits and mutual good offices would not be tardy in strengthening; while an equitable 
system of general administration of such an establishment would procure the most 
industrious exertions, and tend to elevate alike the character of the Europeans and of 
their native fellow subjects. 
H.D.E. 
111 . — Inquiry into the Causes of Light and Colour . 
Whilst occupied in the examination of colouring matter, I could not avoid casting 
a glance at the source from whence this body derives its peculiar characteristic. 
As my knowledge of Newton’s researches on this subject was very superficial, and 
I had no books la which 1 could refer for information, so I was unwilling to intro- 
duce into the Memoir on Colouring Matter a few crude and unsatisfactory remarks. 
I have therefore thrown together in this paper such observations respecting Newton’s 
theory of light and colonr (as far as it is known to me) as were suggested by my 
inquiries into the properties of colouring matter. 
Newton dissected light, and showed that it possessed so many rays, of so many 
colours; and that these colours depended upon the size, of their particles: he said 
that white light consisted of all the coloured rays united together, and affirmed that 
if light were white only, there could be no colour. 
My inquiries into colouring matter have led me to a modification of this theory. 
Causes and effects in nature are always uniform, and it is natural to conclude that 
the same cause which produces colour in light, produces it throughout nature ; 
and that it is every where subservient to the same laws. In point of fact colour is 
a modification of light only, and the person or substances are agents causing that 
modification. 
Newton’s theory is inadequate to the explanation of several facts. He concluded 
that the union of colours caused whiteness, — a very egregious fallacy; and blackness, 
he thought, depended upon particles very small, being a supposition which I believe 
to be opposed to fact. 
Doctor Bancroft and other chemists, sometimes speak of the base of oxygen, of 
course implying that oxygen is a compound body. The subject requires much great- 
