Sharp County record., 1878-12-12
The Forces in a Sunbeam.

Rev. DR.. H. w. Warren in his lecture
on I" Forces in a Sunbeam" says wind,
tempest and heat, are all the sunbeam.
He explains how the velocity OF light IS
measured by the apparent difference IN
time of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons
1t was $4,000 miles per second. Pho
tographs were taken by exposing the
plate in the camera the twenty thou
sandth part of second. During that
time stream of light nine miles long
had fallen upon it. Nobody ever saw
the sun for the light that left it took
eight minutes to reach the earth. Some
stars were so distant that their light
took thousands of years to reach us and
although we seem to see them they may
have been blotted out of existence tens
of centuries ago. Every ray OF light
flies unwearied from age to age. Sendit
through solid wall OF crystal and its
speed is not reduced. 1t can be made
to 90 in opposite directions in the same
time and same place. A sunbeam traV-
els keeping all its rays of color togther
and yet each color had different step
from the others. L the sun rises
through clouds, red, the strongest
of all, alone has power to come
through. Matter abSorbs colors and
appears of the tint which it reflects. If
by means Of prisms light is decom-
posed and partly recombined SO that
the red is left out, and piece OF red
cloth is put in such imperfect light, it
appears black. Light comes in undula-
tions like the waves of sound. The
ear can not distinguish over $4,000 vi
brations second. As light comes with
undulations it must come with song.
Were our ears fine enough we could
catch the keynote of every star. No
wonder God rejoices in his works. They
pour into his ear one ceaSelesS stream
of rapturous song. The fine lines OF
the spectrum are not found in pure
light but are signs of some substance in
the light or the medium through which
it passes. By the analysis of light we
may discover the presence of the ten
thousandth of a grain of arsenic in a
quart; by chemistry only the one hun
dredth of grain. We are on the eve
of discovering of what the most distant
stars are made. We know there is salt
in the sun and in Sirius.
Beyond the violet ray in the list of
color rays there were yet other rays in
the sunbeam which had chemical power.
1t was these rays that worked the chan
ges of photography and enabled plants
to grow, If dark glass is placed
around the roots of plant to keep out
the illuminative rays the chemical rays
work better and the plants grow twice
as fast. For this reason blue glass was
placed in the skylights photographers
rooms. Daguerreotypes are taken all
through the plate and can not be rubbed
IA out. An artist once tried to take a
lady's picture on plate from which he
thought he had erased the picture of a
man. He developed it when both came
out together and confusion was the re-
suit. The chemical beams are lasting
while the illuminative beams can be
shut out in an instant. The only differ
ence is in the number of vibrations, and
eyes enlarged in power to see by the
chemical rays could see in the night
time. Man might as well have ten SEN
ses and there was enough in the universe
to fill them all. ...
On the other side of the illuminative
rays were the heat rays. There are
many different sorts of heat. Glass will
absorb one kind of heat and air another
kind. A stream of heat can be sent
through a lump of ice without melting
the ice if heat is used which has been
passed through water A lens of ice
will concentrate heat rays like a lens of
glass. The heat of the sun melted ice
all the way through. Hence ice in the
spring was always rotten. Ice melted
in the dark melts only on the outside.
The heat of the air comes through glass
with perfect facility; artificial heat did
not, and if it could no building could be
heated The most economical furnace
in the world was the human body. The
power of heat stretches rigid bars of
iron, and the sunbeams of summer bend
the great monument at Bunker Hill.
"Does it not seem," says the lecturer
in concluding, " as if God having said
'Let there be light, there was no need
to say any thing else. Power in that to
make the coal; power in that to make
the river; power in that to bring forth
the steam; power in that to make all
nature covered with beauty; power in
that to make all the worlds swing and
all things keep theirplaces."
A Poets Death Song.
from the San Francisco Call Oct 81