it surrounds all bodies in the universe, from
the smallest atom to the largest sun or star in the firmament of heaven.
Our sun, then, which is to our system the source of all its light, will
be surrounded by what are practically spherical aetherial envelopes or
shells which decrease in density as they recede from the sun (Art. 46).
These aetherial shells are, according to our conception, made up of
minute aetherial spherical vortex atoms possessing polarity and rotation
(Art. 43), and these atoms will be closer together the nearer they are
to the central body, because of the increased density of the Aether due
to the attractive influence of the sun. Thus, when a wave motion is set
up in the Aether around the sun by the intense atomic activity of that
incandescent body, each atom of that aetherial spherical shell or
envelope participates in the motion or impulse received, at one and the
same time, so that the wave is transmitted from envelope to envelope, by
the elasticity of the aetherial atoms which compose the envelope or
shell. Thus the light wave is always spherical in form, or nearly so, as
the rotational and orbital motion of the sun affect the exact shape of
the aetherial envelope as we shall learn more fully later on.

Further, the wave front always takes the form of a sphere, as the waves
are radiated out from the luminous body in all directions, and we shall
learn, in the next article, that the vibrations are always in the wave
front, that is, take place on the surface of each of these envelopes,
and these vibrations are also transverse to the propagation of the wave.
As these aetherial envelopes extend right into space, the wave is
transmitted from envelope to envelope by means of the aetherial atoms
with the velocity of 186,000 miles per second, but as each succeeding
envelope possesses a larger surface than the preceding one, the
intensity of the light is proportionally decreased. The surface of such
envelope is always proportionate to the square of the radius, the other
quantities remaining equal. So that the intensity of the light waves,
which are coincident with the surface of each spherical envelope, will
always vary inversely as the square of the distance from the luminous
body, which agrees with the law of inverse squares that governs light
and heat.

[Illustration: Fig: 4.]

We have considered the wave motion as a whole, that is, we have viewed
it from the standpoint of the whole of the aetherial e