The influence of the blue ray of the sunlight and of the blue colour of the sky, in developing animal and vegetable life; in arresting disease, and in restoring health in acute and chronic disorders to human and domestic animals

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By way of illustration of this idea, we may suggest that this planet is surrounded, at variable altitudes above its surface, by a canopy of cold, increasing in intensity with its distance above the earth. Now, we may ask, what produces the changes of our seasons? We answer, simply the descent or ascent of columns of this canopy of cold !

It has been observed, for many years, that the first frost of the autumn appears in Texas or Louisiana, or some other of the OJulf States, while at the same time no frost is observable in other localities situated much farther to the north — the commonly supposed place of departure of our winters. This frost, therefore, must come from the descent of the cold of the higher atmosphere immediately over the locality where it prevails. Following the valley of the Mississippi and those of its tributaries, frost appears successively in various places along those routes, till it reaches the vallies of the Northern Lakes, running along which it is felt in Northern New York and the New Englamd States, and subsequently in the Middle and Southern Atlantic States. It does not reach the vicinity of Philadelphia until some fifteen or twenty days after it has shown itself on the Gulf of Mexico. Now would it not seem that the influences producing this frost are telluric, and not exclusively solar, as hitherto they have been supposed to be?

We know that in the ocean there are columns of fresh water which differ in temperature from the surrounding sea water, and with which they do not mingle for a long time. So is it for a hundred or more miles at sea, distant from the mouths of the great rivers Amazon, Orinoco, Mississippi, etc., whose fresh waters do not mix with the salt waters surrounding them, owing to the difference of their densities. In like manner the cold air of the upper atmosphere descends in columns of various extent over particular localities, to vary the temperature and change the seasons, on the surface of our earth, without mixing with thewarmer and more expanded air beneath, which it displaces.

The spring and summer seasons are produced by increased radiations from the interior heat of the earth, forcing upwards the dense cold of winter, whose particles are so close together as to prevent the intrusion among them of the expanded warm air in its ascent. Much of the heat of the lower atmosphere is also developed in the conversion of vapor into clouds by condensation from cold.

It is in this way that our seasons are changed. Let our savans discover how and why these effects are produced. Until they do, it may be suggested that they are owing to electrical atmospherical disturbances in the upper atmosphere, repelling the negative electricity of those regions, and forcing the cold air to the surface of the earth, where it displaces the warmer and more rarefied and expanded air, and condenses in rain, snow and hail, the vapors it contains, driving the displaced warmer air to the tropics, and the heat from the tropics attracted to the condensed vapor in the clouds in the temperate zones to liquefy them in rain, producing winter.

In the opposite manner the warm seasons of spring and summer are produced by the positive electricity of the surface-air of the earth becoming warmed by increased radiation of heat from the interior of the earth, repelling itself, and displacing the upper strata of cold air, till by induction of electricity the temperature of the season is established.

Geologists tell us that in the early existence of this planet, the greater part of the earth's surface was covered with ice, and that this period of time is called the Glacial Period.

Let us imagine that the igneous action of the elementary substances of the interior of the earth's crust, just before that period, might have been so intense as by the radiation of its heat to the surface of the earth to rarefy the lower atmosphere, converting into vapor the water it contained, and forcing it upward till the whole surface of the earth was almost incandescent.

To restore the equilibrium, the canopy of cold repelled by its own negative electricity from above, which has been increased by the currents of polar electricity, largely developed by this central and interior igneous action — and attracted by the positive electricity in the heated atmosphere below — descended to the surface of the earth, condensing the vapors of the atmosphere into rain, and afterwards into hail and snow, driving the remainder of the warmer air of what we call, now, the temperate zones, to the tropics, and covering the surfaces of the earth, from the poles to the tropics, with a dense mantle of ice, freezing the rivers, bays, and seas of those latitudes. The internal central fires thus concentrated, in due season increased their radiation of heat, and melted the superjacent ice, which, breaking from the sides of glaciers in large masses, slid and rolled to the ocean, there becoming icebergs, and carrying with them those immense boulders which, torn from the mountain sides by the adhesion of the ice, have left the traces of their furrows on the slopes of the mountains, and have marked their courses till, by the melting of the bergs, they have been dropped in the ocean, which subsequently, by its subsidence, have left them dry on the land. If such was the cause of the glacial period, it would require no great stretch of fancy to comprehend the deluge of Deucalion or that of our great ancestor Noah, when the rain descended for forty days ;

The following memoir was read by Gen. A. J. Pleasonton, before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, on Wednesday, the 3d of May, 1871, at their room, S. W. corner of 9th and Walnut Streets, in the City of Philadelphia, upon the following request:

1309 Walnut St., April 27th, 1871.

My Dear General:

Will it suit you, and will you do us the favor to explain your process of using glass in improving stock to the Philadelphia Society ior Promoting Agriculture, on Wednesday next, the 3d oi May, at eleven o'clock, A. M., at their Room, S. W. corner of Ninth and Walnut Streets, (entrance on Ninth street)? You were kind enough to express to me, in conversation, your willingness to give us the result of your experiments.

Yours, very truly,

W. H. DRAYTON,

President.

General Pleasonton.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.

At the request of my old friend and your respected President, I have attended your meeting this morning to impart to you the results of certain experiments that I have made within the last ten years in attempts to utilize the blue color of the Bky in the development of vegetable and animal life.

I may premise that for a long time I have thought that the blue color of the sky, so permanent and so all-pervading, and yet so varying in intensity of color, according to season and latitude, must have some abiding relation and intimate connection with the living organisms on this planet.

Deeply impressed with this idea, in the autumn of the year 1860, I commenced the erection of a cold grapery on my farm in the western part of this city. I. remembered that while a student of chemistry I was taught that in the analysis of the ray of the sun by the prism, in the year 1666, by Sir Isaac Newton, he had resolved it into the seven primary rays, viz : red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, and had discovered that these elementary rays had different indices of refraction ; that for the red ray at one side of the solar spectrum being the least, while that of the violet at the opposite side thereof was the greatest, from which he deduced his celebrated doctrine of the different refrangibility of the rays of light ; and further, that Sir John Herschel in his subsequent investigation of the properties of light had shown that the chemical power of the solar ray is greatest in the blue rays, which give the least light of any of the luminous prismatic radiations, but the largest quantity of solar heat, and that later experiments established the fact of the stimulating influence of the blue rays upon vegetation. Having concluded to make a practical application of the properties of the blue and violet rays of light just referred to in stimulating vegetable life, I began to inquire in every accessible direction if this stimulating quality of the blue or violet ray had ever received any practical useful application. My inquiries developed the facts that various experiments had been made in England and on the European continent with glass colored with each of the several primary rays, but that they were so unsatisfactory in their results that nothing useful came of them so far as any improvement in the process of developing vegetation was concerned.

Finding no beaten track, I was left to grope my way as best I could under the guidance of the violet ray alone. My grapery was finished in March, 1861. Its dimensions were, 84 feet long, 26 feet wide, 16 feet high at the ridge, with a double-pitched roof. It was built at the foot of a terraced garden, in the direction of N. E. by E. to S. W. by W. On three'sides of it there was a border 12 feet wide, and on the fourth or N. E. by E. side the border was only five feet wide, being a walk of the garden. The borders inside and outside were excavated 3 feet 6 inches deep, and were filled up with the usual nutritive matter, carefully prepared for growing vines. I do not think they differed essentially from thousands of other borders which have been made in many parts of the world. The first question to be solved on the completion of the frame of the grapery, was the proportion of blue or violet glass to be used on the roof. Should too much be used, it would reduce the temperature too much, and cause a failure of the experiment ; if too little, it would not afford a fair test. At a venture I adopted every eighth row of glass on the roof to be violet colored, alternating the rows on opposite sides of the roof, so that the sun in its daily course should cast a beam of violet light on every leaf in the grapery. Cuttings of vines of some twenty varieties of grapes, each one year old, of the thickness of a pipe-stem, and cut close to the pots containing them, were planted in the borders inside and outside of the grapery, in the early part of April, 1861. Soon after being planted the growth of the vines began. Those on the outside were trained through earthen pipes in the walls to the inside, and as they grew they were tied up to the wires like those which had been planted within. Very soon the vines began to attract great notice of all who saw them from the rapid growth they were making. Every day disclosed some new extension, and the gardener was kept busy in tying up the new wood which the day before he had not observed. In a few weeks after the vines had been planted, the walls and inside of the roof were closely covered with the most luxurious and healthy development of foliage and wood.

In the early part of September, 1861, Mr. Robert Buist, Sr., a noted seedsman and distinguished horticulturist from whom I had procured the vines, having heard of their wonderful growth, visited the grapery. On entering it he seemed to be lost in amazement at what lie saw; after examining it very carefully, turning to me, he said, " General ! I have been cultivating plants and vines of various kinds for the last forty years ; I have seen some of the best vineries and conservatories in England and Scotland, but I have never seen anything like this growth." He then measured some of the vines and found them fortyfive feet in length, and an inch in diameter at the distance of one foot above the ground ; and these dimensions were the growth of only five months ! He then remarked, " I visited last week a new grapery near Darby, the vines in which I furnished at the same time I did yours ; they were of the same varieties, of like age and size, when they were planted as yours ; they were planted at the same time with yours. When I saw them last week, they were puny spindling plants not more than five feet long, and scarcely increased in diameter since they were planted — and yet they have had the best possible care and attendance ! "

The vines continued healthy and to grow, making an abundance of young wood during the remainder of the season of 1861.

In March of 1862 they were started to grow, having been pruned and cleaned in January of that year. The growth in this second season was, if anything, more remarkable than it had been in the previous year. Besides the formation of new wood and the display of the most luxuriant foliage, there was a wonderful number of bunches of grapes, which soon assumed the most remarkable proportions — the bunches being of extraordinary magnitude, and the grapes of unusual size and development.

In September of 1862 the same gentleman Mr. Eobert Buist, Sr., who had visited the grapery the year before came again — this time accompanied by his foreman. The grapes were then beginning to color and to ripen rapidly. On entering the grapery, astonished at the wonderful display of foliage and fruit which it presented, he stood for a while in silent amazement; he then slowly walked around the grapery several times, critically examining its wonders; when taking from his pocket paper and pencil, he noted on the paper each bunch of grapes, and estimated its weight, after which aggregating the whole, he came to me and said, "General! do you know that you have 1200 pounds of grapes in this grapery?" On my saying that I had no idea of the quantity it contained, he continued, " you have indeed that weight of fruit, but I would not dare to publish it, for no one would believe me." "We may well conceive of his astonishment at this product when we are reminded that in grapegrowing countries where grapes have been grown for centuries, that a period of time of from five to six years will elapse before a single bunch of grapes can be produced from a young vine — while before him in the second year of the growth of vines which he himself had furnished only seventeen months before, he saw this remarkable yield of the finest and choicest varieties of grapes. He might well say that an account of it would be incredible.

During the next season (1863) the vines again fruited and matured a crop of grapes estimated by comparison with the yield of the previous year to weigh about two tons ; the vines were perfectly healthy and free from the usual maladies which affect the grape. By this time the grapery and its products had become partially known among cultivators, who said that such excessive crops would exhaust the vines, and that the following year there would be no fruit, as it was well known that all plants required rest after yielding large crops ; notwithstanding, new wood was formed this year for the next year's crop, which turned out to be quite as large as it had been in the season of 1863, and so on year by year the vines have continued to bear large crops of fine fruit without intermission for the last nine years. They are now healthy and strong, and as yet show no signs of decrepitude or exhaustion.

The success of the grapery induced me to make an experiment with animal life. In the autumn of 1869 I built a piggery and introduced into the roof and three sides of it violet-colored and white glass in equal proportions — half of each kind. Separating a recent litter of Chester county pigs into two parties, I placed three sows and one barrow pig in the ordinary pen, and three other sows and one other barrow pig in the pen under the violet glass. The pigs were all about two months old. The weight of the pigs was as follows, viz : Under the violet glass, No. 1 sow, 42 lbs., No. 2, a barrow pig, 45£ lbs., No. 3, a sow, 38 lbs., No. 4, a sow 42, lbs., their aggregate weight 167J lbs. The weight of the others in the common pen was as follows, viz : No. 1., a sow, 50 lbs., No. 2, a sow, 48 lbs., No. 3, a barrow big, 59 lbs., No. 4, a sow, 46 lbs ; their aggregate weight was 203 lbs. It will be observed that each of the pigs under the violet glass was lighter in weight than the lightest in weight pig of those under the sunlight alone in the common pen. The two sets of pigs were treated exactly alike ; fed with the same kinds of food at equal intervals of time, and with equal quantities by measure at each meal, and were attended by the same man. They were put in the pens on the 3d day of November, 1869, and kept there until the 4th day of March, 1870, when they were weighed again. By some misconception of my orders, the separate weight of each pig was not had. The aggregate weight of the three sows under the violet light on the 3d of November, 1869, was 122 lbs ; on the 4th of March, 1870, it was 520 lbs., increase 398 lbs.

The aggregate weight of the three sows in the old pens on the 3d of November, 1869, was 144 lbs., and on the 4th of March, 1870, it was 530 lbs., increase 386 lbs., or 12 lbs. less than those under the violet glass had gained.

The weight of the barrow pig in the common pen on the 3d of November, 1869, was 59 lbs., and on the 4th of March, 1870, it was 210 lbs., increase 151 lbs. The weight of the barrow pig under the violet light, on the 3d of November, 1869, was 45J lbs., and on the 4th of March, 1870, it was 170 lbs., increase 124J lbs. The large increase of the weight of the barrow pig in the common pen is to be attributed to his superior size and weight on being put in the same common pen with the three sows, and which enabled him to seize upon and appropriate to himself more than his share of the common food.

If the barrow pig under the violet light had increased at the rate of increase of the barrow pig in the common pen, his weight on the 4th March, 1870, would have been only 161& lbs. instead of his actual weight of 170 lbs. — showing his rate of increase of weight to have been 8,«, lbs. more than that of the other barrow pig.

If the barrow pig under the sunshine in the common pen had increased at the rate of increase of the barrow pig under the violet glass, his weight on the 4th of March, 1870, should have been 224$ lbs. instead of 210 lbs., his actual weight at that date.

By these comparisons it seems obvious that the influence of the violet-colored glass was very marked, although it must be borne in mind that owing to the great declination of the sun during the period of the experiment and the consequent comparative feebleness of the force of the actinic or chemical rays of the blue sky at that time, the effect was not so great as it would have been at a later period of the season ; but the time of the experiment was selected for that very reason. The animals were not fed to produce fat or increase of size, but simply to ascertain, if practicable, whether by the ordinary mode of feeding usual on farms in this country, the development of stock could be hastened by exposing them in pens to the combined influence of sunlight and the transmitted rays of the blue sky.

My next experiment was with an Alderney bull calf born on the 26th of January, 1870 ; at its birth it was so puny and feeble that the man who attends upon my stock, a very experienced hand, told me that it could not live. I directed him to put it in one of the pens under the violet glass. It was done. In 24 hours a very sensible change had occurred in the animal. It had arisen on its feet, walked about the pen, took its food freely by the finger, and manifested great vivacity. In a few days its feeble condition had entirely disappeared. It began to grow, and its development was marvelous. On the 31st March, 1870, 2 months and 5 days after its birth, its rapid growth was so apparent, that as its hind quarter was then

f rowing, I told my son to measure its height, and to note own in writing the height of the hind quarter, and the time of measurement — which he did. On the 20th of the following May (1870), just fifty days afterwards, my son again measured the hind quarter, and found that in that time it had gained exactly six inches in height, carrying its lateral development with it. Believing the question solved, the calf was turned into the barn-yard, and when mingling with the cows he manifested every symptom of full masculine vigor, though at the time he was only four months old. Since the 1st of April of this year, when he was just 14 months old, he has been kept with my herd of cows, and has fulfilled every expectation that I had formed of him. He is now one of the best developed animals that can be found any where.

These, gentlemen, are the experiments about which your curiosity has been excited. If by the combination of sunlight and blue light from the sky, you can mature quadrupeds in twelve months with no greater supply of food than would be used for an immature animal in the same period, you can scarcely conceive of the immeasurable value of this discovery to an agricultural people. You would no longer have to wait five years for the maturity of a colt; and all your animals could be produced in the greatest abundance and variety. A prominent member of the bar a short time since told me that his sister, who is a widow of a late distinguished general in the army, had applied blue light to the rearing of poultry, with the moat remarkable success, after having heard of my experiments. In regard to- the human family, its influence would be wide spread — you could not only in the temperate regions produce the early maturity of the tropics, but you could invigorate the constitutions of invalids, and develop in the young, a generation, physically and intellectually, which might become a marvel to mankind. Architects would be required to so arrange the introduction of these mixed rays of light into our houses, that the occupants might derive the greatest benefit from their influence. Mankind will then not only be able to live fast, but they can live well and also live long.

Let us attempt an explanation of this phenomenon. It is well known that differences of temperature evolve electricity, as do also evaporation, pressure suddenly produced or suddenly removed, in which may be comprised a blow or stroke, as, for instance, from the horseshoe in the rapid motion of a horse on a stone in the pavement, striking fire, which is kindled by the electricity evolved in the impact, or, again, from the collision of two silicious stones in which there is no iron, is electricity produced.

Friction even of two pieces of dried wood excites combustion by the evolution of hydrogen gas which bursts into flame when brought into contact with the opposite electricity evolved by the heat. Chrystallization, the freezing of water, the melting of ice or snow — every act of combination in respiration, every movement and contraction of organic tissues, and, indeed, every change in the form of matter evolve electricity, which in turn contributes to form new modifications of the matter which has yielded it.

The diamond, about whose origin so mu'ch mystery has always existed, it is likely, is the product of the decomposition of carbonic acid gas in the higher atmosphere by electricity, liberating the oxygen gas, converting it into ozone, fusing the carbon, and by the intense cold there prevailing, which is of opposite electricity, chrystallizing the fused carbon, which is precipitated by its gravity to the earth.

To the repellent affinity of electricity are we indebted for the expansive force of steam whose power wields the mighty trip hammer, propels the ship through the ocean, and draws the train over the land — and to the opposite electricities of the heated steam and the cold water introduced into the boiler to replenish it, do we owe those terrible explosions in steam boilers whose prevention has hitherto defied human skill. But the most interesting application of electricity, is in nature's development of vegetation. Let us illustrate it :

Seed perfectly dried, but still retaining the vital principle, like the seed of wheat preserved for thousands of years in mummy cases in the catacombs of Egypt, if planted in a soil of the richest alluvial deposits, also thoroughly dried, will not germinate. "Why? Let us examine. The alluvial soil is composed of the debris of hills and mountains containing an extensive variety of metallic and metalloid compounds mingled with the remains of vegetable and animal matter in a state of great comminution, washed by the rains and carried by freshets into the depressions of the surface of the earth. These various elements of the soil have different electrical attributes. In a perfectly dry state no electrical action will occur among them, but let the rain, bringing with it ammonia and carbonic acid, in however minute quantities, from the upper atmosphere, fall upon this alluvial soil, so as to moisten its mass within the influence of light, heat, and air, and plant your seed within it, and what will you observe ? Rapid germination of the seed. Why ? The slightly acidulated, or it may be alkaline water of the rain has formed the medium to excite galvanic curreuts of electricity in the heterogeneous matter of the alluvial soil — the vitality of the seed is developed and vegetable life is the result. Hence vegetable life owes its existence to electricity. Herein consists the secret of successful agriculture. If you can maintain the currents of electricity at the roots of plants by supplying the acidulated or alkaline moisture to excite them during droughts, you will secure the most abundant and unvarying crops. To do this, your soil should be composed of the most varied elements, mineral, earthy, alkaline, vegetable, and animal matter in a state of greatly comminuted decomposition.

The poverty of soils arises from the homogeneous character of their composition. A soil altogether clayey, or composed of silicious sand, or the debris of limestone, or of alkaline substances exclusively, must necessarily be barren for the want of electrical excitement, which no one of the said elements will produce ; but commingle them all with the addition of decomposed vegetable and animal matter, and you will form a soil which will amply reward the toil of the husbandman.

What do you suppose has produced the giant trees of Califorma? Electricity! Since the west coast of America haa been known to Europeans, and perhaps for centuries before, it has been subjected to the most devastating earthquakes. From the Straits of Magellan to the Arctic Ocean, traces of volcanic action are everywhere visible. Its mountains have been upheaved, broken, torn asunder, and sometimes, like Ossa upon Pelion, one has been superimposed on another.

All volcanic countries are noted in the temperate regions, where they produce anything, for the exuberance of tbeir vegetable productions. Etna has been famous for its large Chestnut trees, which have given a name Catania to the town near its base.

The mineral richness of California has doubtless, by the debris of its mountains, carried into the valleys where grow these large trees, furnished an immense deposite of various matter which, under the favorable circumstances of the localities, have maintained for ages a healthful electrical excitement resulting through centuries of undisturbed growth in these vegetable wonders.

Who is there that has not been struck with admiration in looking upon the firmament, when the atmosphere was clearest, and was unclouded by the slightest vapor, — when, in the brightness of sunlight, it would put on its livery of blue, and display its resplendent and glorious beauties? How many myriads of mankind, in all ages, have gazed upon this magnificent arch, of what men call "sky;" and how few have ever asked the question, Why is the sky blue? and why should ita intensity of blue vary in different latitudes, and in different seasons?

Humboldt said he had never seen its blue so intense as in the tropics and under the equator. Arctic navigators have also declared, that in the arctic regions the intensity of the blue color of the sky was amazing. Here are two extremes of latitude displaying the same effect; and in our own temperate region many have observed a variation in the intensity of the blue of the sky, in different seasons, extending from the early spring until the close of autumn, but never equaling in depth of color what is represented of it, either in the tropics or in the arctic or antarctic regions.