The Travelling Of Light

Light travels at the rate of a hundred and fifty thousand miles in a

single second; and it is seven minutes in passing from the sun to the

earth, which is nearly a distance of seventy millions of miles. Such

is the rapidity with which these rays dart themselves forward that a

journey they thus perform in less than eight minutes, a ball from the

mouth of a cannon would not complete in several weeks! But the

minuteness o the particles of light are still several degrees beyond

their velocity; and they are therefore harmless, because so very

small. A ray of light is nothing more than a constant stream of minute

parts, still flowing from the luminary, so inconceivably little, that

a candle in a single second of time, has been said to diffuse several

hundreds of millions more particles of light, than there could be

grains in the whole earth, if it were entirely one heap of sand. The

sun furnishes them, and the stars also, without appearing in the least

to consume, by granting us the supply. Its light is diffused in a wide

sphere, and seems inexhaustible.