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Or all the elements which place part in the material universe, the which enunates from the sun is cert tis most remarkable, whether w in its sanatory, scientific, or thickens lotions. It is, to speak metaghoriadly the very life-blood of nature, win which every thing material would lady and perish. It is the fountabs of all our knowledge of the external universe, and it is now becoming the historiographer of the visible creation, recording and trans mitting to future ages all that is beautiful and sublime in organic and inorganic na ture, and stamping on perennial tablets the hallowed scenes of domestic life, the ever-varying phases of social intercouric,

* Besearches on Light in its Chemical Relations, embracing a Consideration of all the Photographic Processes. By ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S. Second Edition. 1854.

VOL XLV.--NO. III.

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RESEARCHES ON LIGHT-SANATORY-SCIENTIFIC AND ESTHETICAL.*

Or all the elements which play a high part in the material universe, the light which emanates from the sun is certainly the most remarkable, whether we view it in its sanatory, scientific, or æsthetical relations. It is, to speak metaphorically, the very life-blood of nature, without which every thing material would fade and perish. It is the fountain of all our knowledge of the external universe, and it is now becoming the historiographer of the visible creation, recording and transmitting to future ages all that is beautiful and sublime in organic and inorganic nature, and stamping on perennial tablets the hallowed scenes of domestic life, the ever-varying phases of social intercourse,

*Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations, embracing a Consideration of all the Photographic Processes. By ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S. Second Edition. 1854.

VOL XLV.-NO. III.

and the more exciting tracks of bloodshed and of war, which Christians still struggle to reconcile with the principles of their faith.

The influence of light on physical life is a subject of which we at present know very little, and one, consequently, in which the public, in their still greater ignorance, will take little interest; but the science of light, which, under the name of Optics, has been studied for nearly two hundred years by the brightest intellects in the Old and New World, consists of a body of facts and laws of the most extraordinary kind-rich in popular as well as profound knowledge, and af fording to educated students, male and

Note relative à L'Influence de la Lumiere sur les Animaux. Par. M. J. BECLARD. Comptes Rendus, etc., 1 Mars 1858, tom. xlvi. p. 441. Paris, 1858.

A Manual of Photography. By ROBERT HUNT,

20

A branch of knowledge so intimately connected with our physical well-being, so pregnant with displays of the Divine wisdom and beneficence, and so closely allied in its aesthetical aspect with every interest, social and domestic, might have been expected to form a part in our edu

female, simple and lucid explanations of all that man has perpetrated against that boundless and brilliant array of phe- the strongholds of his enemies, and all nomena which light creates, and mani- that he has more wisely done to improve fests, and develops. While it has given and embellish the home which has been to astronomy and navigation their tele- given him. scopes and instruments of discovery, and to the botanist, the naturalist, and the physiologist, their microscopes, simple, compound, and polarizing, it has shown to the student of nature how the juices of plants and animals, and the integuments and films of organic bodies, elicit from the pure sunbeam its prismatic elements-cational courses, or, through the agencies clothing fruit and flower with their gorgeous attire, bathing every aspect of nature in the rich and varied hues of spring and of autumn-painting the sky with azure and the clouds with gold.

Thus initiated into the mysteries of light, and armed with the secrets and powers which science has wrested from the God of Day, philosophers of our own age have discovered in certain dark rays of the sunbeam, a magic though invisible pencil, which can delineate instantaneously every form of life and being, and fix in durable outline every expression, demoniacal or divine, which the passions and intellects of man can impress upon the living clay. They have imparted to the cultivators of art their mighty secret, and thousands of traveling artists are now in every quarter of the globe recording all that earth, and ocean, and air can display

F.R.S. Fifth Edition, Revised. London and Glasgow, 1857.

The Practice of Photography. By ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S. London and Glasgow, 1857.

On the Action of Light upon Plants, and of Plants upon the Atmosphere. By CHARLES DAUBENY, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.., Professor of Chemistry and Botany in the University of Oxford. Phil. Trans., 1836, pp. 149-163.

Researches on the Influence of Light on the Germination of Seeds, and the Growth of Plants. By Mr. ROBERT HUNT, Secretary to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. Reports of British ASsociation, 1842, pp. 75-80.

Researches on the Influence of Light on the Germination of Seeds, and the Growth of Plants. By Mr. ROBERT HUNT, Secretary to the Royal Cornwell Polytechnic Society. Reports of British Association, 1844, pp. 29–32.

Researches on the Influence of the Solar Rays on the Growth of Plants. By the Same. Reports of British Association, 1847, pp. 17-30.

On the Influence of Physical Agents on Life. By W. F. EDWARDS, M.D., F.R.S., Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Paris. Translated from the French by Dr. HODGKIN and Dr. FISHER. Pp. 504. London, 1832. The Stereoscope its History. Theory, and Construction, with its Application to the Fine and Useful

of cheap literature and popular exposi
tion, to have commanded a place in the
school and in the drawing-room, and to
have gilded, if not to have replaced, the
frivolities of fashionable life. Such expec-
tations, however, have not been realized.
Men of science who are much in the
society of the educated world, and es-
pecially of those favored classes who have
the finest opportunities of acquiring know-
ledge, are struck with the depth of ignor-
ance which they encounter; while they
are surprised at the taste which so gene-
rally prevails for natural history pursuits,
and at the passion which is universally
exhibited even for higher scientific inform-
ation which can be comprehended by
the judgment and appropriated by the
memory. The prevailing ignorance, there-
fore, of which we speak, is the offspring
of an imperfect system of education, which
has already given birth to great social

Arts, and to Education. By Sir D. BREWSTER, K.H.,
D.C.L., F.R.S. London, 1856.

The Photographic Art Journal, illustrated. Nos.
I., II., III., and IV. February, March, April, and
May, 1858.

De L'Image Photochromatique du Spectre Solaire. Par M. E. BECQUEREL. Comptes Rendus, etc., tom. xxviii. p. 200. Feb. 1849.

Sur une Relation existant entre la Couleur des certaines Flammes Colorées, avec les Images Heliographiques Colorées par la Lumiere. Par M. NIEPCB DE ST. VICTOR. Comptes Rendus, etc., tom. xxxii. p. 834. May, 1851.

Second Memoire sur Heliochromie. Par M. NIEPCE DE ST. VICTOR. Comptes Rendus, etc., tom. xxxiv. p. 215.

Troisieme Memoire sur Heliochromie. Par M. NIEPCE DE ST. VICTOR. Comptes Rendus, etc., tom. xxxv. p. 696. Nov. 1852.

Memoires sur une Nouvelle Action de la Lumiere Par M. NIEPCE DE ST. VICTOR. Comptes Rendus, etc., tom. xlv. p. 811, Nov. 1857, and tom. xlvi. pp. 448-489, Mars, 1858.

Photographic Art Treasures. Inventor, PAUL PRETSCH; Photographer, ROGER FENTON. Nos. I. to V., folio. London, 1856, 1857.

The Stereoscopic Magazine. No. I. London, June,

1858.

evils-to financial laws unjust to individuals, and ruinous to the physical and moral health of the community. If the public be ignorant of science, and its applications, in their more fascinating and intelligible phases; if our clergy, in their weekly homilies, never throw a sunbeam of secular truth among their people; if legislators hardly surpass their constituents in these essential branches of knowledge, how can the great interests of civil ization be maintained and advanced? how are scientific men to gain their place in the social scale? and how are the material interests of a great nation, depending so essentially on the encouragement of art and science, to be protected and extended? How is England to fare, if she shall continue the only civilized nation which, amid the perpetual struggles of political faction, never devotes an hour of its legislative life to the consideration of its educational establishments and the consolidation of its scientific institutions ?

Impressed with the importance of these facts, and in the hope that some remedy may be found for such a state of things, we have drawn up the following article, in order to show how much useful, and popular, and pleasing information may be learned from a popular exposition of the nature and properties of the single element of light, in its sanatory, its scientific, and its artistic or æsthetical relations. Should our more intelligent readers rise from its perusal with information which they had not anticipated, and which they had previously regarded as beyond their depth, our labor in preparing it will be amply rewarded, and we shall hope to meet them again in other surveys of the more popular branches of science.

I. In attempting to expound the influence of light as a sanatory agent, we enter upon a subject which, in so far as we know, is entirely new, and upon which little information is to be obtained; but, admitting the existence of the influence itself, as partially established by observation and analogy, and admitting too the vast importance of the subject in its personal and social aspects, we venture to say that science furnishes us with principles and methods by which the blessings of light may be diffused in localities where a cheering sunbeam has never reached, and where all the poisons and malaria of darkness have been undermining the

soundest constitutions, and carrying thousands of our race prematurely to the grave.

The

The influence of light upon vegetable life has been long and successfully studied by the botanist and the chemist. researches of Priestley, Ingenhousz, Sennebier, and Decandolle, and the more recent ones of Carradori, Payen, and Maçaire, have placed it beyond a doubt, that the rays of the sun exert the most marked influence on the respiration, the absorption, and the exhalation of plants, and, consequently, on their general and local nutrition. Dr. Priestley tells us: "It is well known that without light no plant can thrive; and if it do grow at all in the dark, it is always white, and is in all other respects in a sick and weakly state." He is of opinion that healthy plants are in a state similar to sleep in the absence of light, and that they resume their proper functions when placed under the influence of light and the direct action of the solar rays.

In the year 1835, M. Daubeny communicated to the Royal Society a series of interesting experiments on the action of light upon plants, when the luminous, calorific, or chemical rays were made preponderant by transmission through the following colored glasses or fluids.

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The general result of these experiments is thus given by their author: "Upon the whole, then, I am inclined to infer, from the general tenor of the experiments I have hitherto made, that both the exhalation and the absorption of moisture by plants, so far as they depend upon the influence of light, are effected in the greatest degree by the most luminous rays, and that all the functions of the vegetable economy which are owing to the presence of this agent, follow, in that respect, the same law."*

This curious subject has been recently studied in a more general aspect by Mr.

*Phil Trans. 1836, p. 162-3.

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