From Chapter 31 of Etidorhpa:
"We accordingly embarked, and a gentle touch of the lever enabled us
rapidly to skirt the shore of the underground sea. The soft, bright,
pleasant earth-light continually enveloped us, and the absence of either
excessive heat or cold, rendered existence delightful. The weird forms taken
by the objects that successively presented themselves on the shore were a
source of continual delight to my mind. The motion of our boat was
constantly at the will of my guide. Now we would skim across a great bay,
flashing from point to point; again we wound slowly through tortuous
channels and among partly submerged stones."
We finally reached a precipitous bluff, that sprung to my view as by magic,
and which, with a glass-like surface, stretched upward to a height beyond
the scope of my vision, rising
straight from the surface of the lake. It was composed of a material
seemingly black as jet, and yet when seen under varying spectacular
conditions as we skirted its base it reflected, or emitted, most gorgeously
the brilliant lines of the rainbow, and also other colors hitherto unknown
to me.
"There is something unique in these shades; species of color appear that I
can not identify; I seem to perceive colors utterly unlike any that I know
as the result of deflected, or transmitted, sunlight rays, and they look
unlike the combinations of primary colors with which I am familiar."
"Your observations are true; some of these colors are unknown on earth."
"But on the surface of the earth we have all possible combi-nations of the
seven prismatic rays," I answered. " How can there be others here ?"
" Because, first, your primary colors are capable of further subdivision."
"Second, other rays, invisible to men under usual conditions, also emanate
from the sun, and under favorable circumstances may be brought to the sense
of sight."
"Do you assert that the prism is capable of only partly analyzing the
sunlight?"
"Yes; what reason have you to argue that, because a triangular bit of glass
resolves a white ray into seven fractions that are, as men say, differently
colored, you could not by proper methods subdivide each of these so-called
primary shades into others? What reason have you to doubt that rays now
invisible to man accompany those capable of impressing his senses, and might
by proper methods become perceptible as new colors?"
"None," I answered; "only that I have no proof that such rays exist."
"But they do exist, and men will yet learn that the term `primitive' ray,
as applied to each of the seven colors of the rainbow, is incorrect. Each
will yet be resolved, and as our faculties multiply and become more subtle,
other colors will be developed, possessed of a delicacy and richness
indescribable now, for as yet man can not comprehend the possibilities of
education beyond the limits of his present condition."
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