Such is a brief description of some of the leading properties of light. Of all the objects that present themselves to the philosophic and contemplative mind, light is one of the noblest and most interesting. The action it exerts on all the combinations of matter, its extreme divisibility, the rapidity of its propagation, the sublime wonders it reveals, and the office it performs in what constitutes the life of organic beings, lead us to consider it as a substance acting the first part in the economy of nature. The magic power which this emanation from the heavens exerts on our organs of vision, in exhibiting to our view the sublime spectacle of the universe, cannot be sufficiently admired. Nor is its power confined to the organs of sight; all our senses are, in a greater or less degree, subjected to the action of light, and all the objects in this lower creation--whether in the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms--are, to a certain extent, susceptible of its influence. Our globe appears to be little more than an accumulation of terrestrial materials introduced into the boundless ocean of the _solar light_, as a theatre on which it may display its exhaustless power and energy, and give animation, beauty and sublimity to every surrounding scene--and to regulate all the powers of nature, and render them subservient to the purposes for which they were ordained. This elementary substance appears to be universal in its movements, and in its influence. It descends to us from the solar orb. It wings its way through the voids of space, along a course of ninety-five millions of miles, till it arrives at the outskirts of our globe; it passes freely through the surrounding atmosphere, it strikes upon the clouds and is reflected by them; it irradiates the mountains, the vales, the forests, the rivers, the seas, and all the productions of the vegetable kingdom, and adorns them with a countless assemblage of colours. It scatters and disperses its rays from one end of creation to another, diffusing itself throughout every sphere of the universe. It flies without intermission from star to star, and from suns to planets, throughout the boundless sphere of immensity, forming a connecting chain and a medium of communication among all the worlds and beings within the wide empire of Omnipotence.