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PREFACE.
HAVING been much interested in the phenomena of the physics of the earth,
the author, in offering to his readers a second edition of his work, "On the
Influence of the Blue Color of the Sky in Developing Animal and Vegetable
Life," may be indulged in his introduction into this preface of some views that
his observations have led him to entertain relative to the variations of temperature,
and changes of our seasons, which are in harmony with the subjects treated
by him in this work.
The first edition of the following memoir was printed for distribution
among scientific and literary institutions, and among persons of culture, for the
purpose of attracting the attention of those for whom it was intended, to the
subjects of which it treats. It was hoped that its publication would invite
investigation into the nature, composition, and influences of those great forces
which, in the poverty of our language, we call imponderables, that is to say, not
to be weighed in the balance, and consequently never to be found wanting.
This expectation is likely to be realized, if we may judge from the general
interest that appears to be taken in the memoir, which has been manifested in
the numerous applications that have been made to the author, from various
parts of our country, for copies of it. The edition has now been distributed,
yet so many persons who have applied for copies of the memoir are still without
it, that it has been deemed advisable to issue another edition.
If, by a course of study, and observation of the great forces of nature, as
they are exhibited, not in the laboratory, upon the minutest scale, but in those
grand operations by which physical changes are at every moment developed
before our eyes, we can succeed in penetrating the mysteries of their origin,
of their evolution, of their application, and of their reciprocal conversions into
each other, we shall become indeed wise in our generation, and mankind in the
future will be able to rejoice in a development never yet reached in any preceding
age.