50 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
would in all probability strike us blind in an instant. Those atmo¬ 
spheric reflections and refractions which veil the stars when the 
sun is above the horizon, also soften the light of the sun, so that 
we can take a glance, though but a momentary glance, at its 
disc, even in the most transparent state of the atmosphere. Were 
it not for this, it is probable that the intensity of the direct light 
of the sun would take off the beauty of all reflected lights, and 
the gay colours of our flowers would be blended in a single inde¬ 
finite and dingy tint; but, in accordance with the beautiful law of 
adaptation which can be traced through the whole of nature, light 
and the eye are so suited to each other as to give us the enjoy¬ 
ment of every visual beauty. We may remark, that perhaps the 
nearest approximation which we have to pure and entire light is 
that which is produced by the combustion of oxygen and hydro¬ 
gen gases in the proportion in which they form water ; and when 
this is concentrated by a powerful lens, no eye can, even for an 
instant, bear the intense brilliancy of the focus. So much for entire 
light, which is a compound of all imaginable colours blended to¬ 
gether, just as perfect black is the absence of every colour. 
As long as light proceeds in its natural course of straight lines, 
whether directly from a luminous body, or by reflection from a 
surface having no tendency to decompose it, it retains its white¬ 
ness, or rather transparency, with more or less intenseness, ac¬ 
cording to circumstances ; and in this way a mixture of all possible 
shades of colour, intimately blended, is the medium by which we 
are enabled to see, and distinguish, and appreciate all the indi¬ 
vidual colours. This is a singular property of light, and as beau¬ 
tiful as it is singular ; and it is perhaps the only instance which 
we have in nature of a whole being the means of self-analyza- 
tion, and making known to us all the parts that can possibly enter 
into its composition. It is of entire light only that this can be 
said, for when we look at objects in a partial or coloured light, 
they are all tinged with that colour ; as, for instance, when we 
look through a piece of red glass, both earth and sky have a red¬ 
dish tinge. 
When light passes out of one transparent medium into another 
of different density, it is refracted, or bent out of its natural direc¬ 
tion ; and if it again pass into the first medium by a surface forming 
an angle wiih that at which it entered the refracting substance, it 
will be decomposed. The instrument commonly used for this 
