'What radiant changes strike th' astonished sight! What glowing hues of mingled shade and light! Not equal beauties gild the lucid west With parting beams o'er all profusely drest, Not lovelier colors paint the vernal dawn, When Orient dews impearl th' enamelled lawn, Than in its waves in bright suffusion flow, That now with gold empyreal seem to glow; Now in pellucid sapphires meet the view, And emulate the soft celestial hue; Now beams a flaming crimson on the eye, And now assume the purple's deeper dye. But here description clouds each shining ray-- What terms of art can Nature's powers display?'
We gaze upon those colors, ever changing in their lustre and variety, until imagination revels in its most delightful dreams, suggesting thoughts of the good and beautiful, and reminding how beauty lingers amid the most unpromising things of earth! And just as the bow that spans the mantling cloud reminds us of all beautiful things that glow around its antitype that spans the emerald throne on high, so, as we gaze upon the prismatic tints that are reflected from the oily surface, we dream of all that is beautiful in color and gorgeous in tinted radiance, as being hidden amid the elements of petroleum.
This dream has its fulfilment amid the processes of distillation and treatment. One product in these processes is called aniline, that is, the base of those beautiful colors so popular with ladies these last days--Mauve, Magenta, and Solferino. And in process of time, no doubt, the most delicate colors for flower and landscape painting will be educed, that will give a new impetus to the fine arts, and to the development of taste in our midst.
And now where shall we look for the origin of this treasure? From what elements is it elaborated? We cannot go with the great Chemist to his laboratory and look upon the ingredients, and notice the treatment used there. Science, although denominated the 'star eyed,' cannot penetrate the mighty strata of everlasting rocks that lie beneath us, and reveal to us these mysteries of nature. 'There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen: the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. He putteth forth His hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and His eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid, bringeth He forth to light.'