Wonders Of The Universe

YVliat assertion wil] make one belicve that in one second of time - one bent of the pendnluro of a dock - a ray of light travels over 165,000 miles, and would tberefore, perform the tour of our world in about the same time it requiros to wink with our eye-lides, and in much less time than a swil't runner oecupies in tilking a single stride ? VVhat mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is over a million times larger than the é'arth, and so far frorn us that a camión ball shot directly towards it, and main taining lts full speed, would be tvventv years íd reauhing it; yet the sun affects the earth appreciably, by its attracüon in an instant of time ? Who would not ask for demonstration, when told that a gnat's wing, n its ordinary fliht beata many hundred times in a second ? Or that there exista animated and regularly-organized beings, many thonsands of whose bodies, laid together would not cover the squaie of an inch ? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical inquines have disclosed, 'and which teach that every point of a medium througli which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly recurring at equal intervals, no less than five hundred miüions of millions of times in a single second ? That it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of tho eye, that we are enabled to see ; nay, moro, that it is the diflerence in the freqtiency of divrsiiy of color ! That for instan ce, in acquit1 - ing t li e sensation of redneas, our eyes are iffected f ur huudred and eighty two inillions of tuillions of times ; of yoliowuess, five huudred and furty-twc imllions of tniilions of times; and ot violets, seven hundred and seven millious oí millions of times per second. Do not such things sound more like the raviugs of madmen, than solier conolusions of people in their waking sensc? They are neverlhel' ss, conclusions to which auy one may certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examiuing the ehaio of reasoning by which thoy huve been obtaiued. It is worthy of examination.