a portion of water; so that the work of subtraction which no where exists of the successive decompositions and for it, are owing the extraordinary compositions continues by the effect effects of the explosion of thunder, of its alterations, and is kept up of it- and the incalculable means of desti ucself, till all the water diffused through tion, with which we see it act; and the surrounding air by vaporization is that even when it has already arrived condensed there, and resolved into at the ground, where it ought to be rain; or till, by the separation of the able to diffuse itself, it still vaporizes fluid, and its conveyance to the earth, water with great force, splits stones, in consequence of its great condensa- &c. To the same cause is owing, that tion, as well as of the water of the it proceeds so slowly, that it so long cloud being again taken up in solu- retains its state of sparkforming con tion by the air, the storm ceases be- centration, and that it so easily fuses fore this has happened. The water of and inflames substances, staying long clouds being again taken in solution at each point of its course, and transby the air, occasions a cooling of the forming itself easily into light and air, and presages a definitive cessation heat. One portion of the electric of its stormy state; while the heating fluid separated during a thunderof the air, or continuation of its high storm transforms itself into light, aud temperature, denotes the continuation is dissipated in space, at every exploof the decomposition, and is always followed by a recommencement of the

storm.

sion of a spark or of a fulmination of combustion. The sound of the thunder that bursts towards the earth is very different too from that of rolling thunder, and perfectly resembles that of the discharge of our electrical batteries. The common people readily distinguish it, and denote it by the name of falling thunder. The opposite winds that blow during a thunderstorm, and are even contrary to its direction, are the natural effect of a strong condensation of the aqueous part of the atmosphere.

Hail arises from a strong fixation of caloric, which transforms itself into electricity, to gassify the principles of water; and sometimes from a too copious combination of the same caloric converted into electric fluid, to reunite the water with the air; or, from the same conversion of caloric, to reinforce the thunder, which endeavours to explode toward the earth. This explosion of the thunder takes place erther after a considerable recompo- A thunder-storm then does not arise sition of water, or when, the greater from an accumulation of hidrogen part of the water of the storm being gas, extricated from the earth, from dispersed, the electric fluid remaining which none is extricated, and rising no longer finds any thing to which it to the superior regions of the atmoscan adhere, concentrates itself in a phere, whither it does not ascend; point, and acquires elasticity enough this gas never being extricated in its to overcome the opposition of the air, purer state; and that which is extri and rush towards the earth or some cated in combination with a combusprominent points on the globe. As tible substance, whether phosphorus, this passage of the thunder toward the sulphur, or carbon, being burned by earth is not selected by a state of sub- a concurrence of action on the part of traction, opposite, or negative charge, these combustibles as soon as it comes the course it follows is neither direct, into contact with the air, and no exor the shortest possible, nor deter- periment having ever demonstrated mined to a given point; but its course the existence of the least bubble of is uncertain, irregular, and, in some hidrogen gas in the air at any eleva measure, vague, bursting from one tion whatever. Besides, the hidro. substance to another, even striking the ground and separating from it anew, without any other cause than the difficulty of diffusing or decomposing itself.

To this difficulty of resuming an equilibrium, which it finds no where broken, or of diffusing itself in a point

UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XII.

gen gas we set free in the air does not ascend in it in consequence of its greater lightness, or less specific gra Vity, but becomes incorporated with the air with which it is in contact, remains adherent to it by an affinity of penetration; and even does not diffuse itself in it without difficulty, and in

some time, when the air is perfectly the substances that can no longer folat rest. Nay more, there are strong low it, it returns to that which is proreasons for believing, that, at the per to it, and there takes a centripetal time of great assimilations of water, motion, or movement of approximathe affinity of the air for this fluid de- tion to the sun; which, being a pertermines the direct combustion of hi- fectly transparent and elastic subdrogen gas by the air, without the stance, occasions it to take an oppointervention of any other inflamma- site course with the same velocity, ble substance. The rain too is not with which it rushed upon it, which the consequence of the condensation must occasion a perpetual circulation of aqueous vapour by cold, since the of light between the sun and those fall of rain always precedes the cool- globes that make part of its system, ing of the air, while an increase of the temperature of the air always precedes rain; water then is dissolved by the air, or rather associated with the composition of the air by the intervention of caloric in the state of electricity, and this in so large a quantity, that it formis almost a fourth of the weight of the atmosphere. Nothing is more difficult than to obtain, for the purpose of synthetical experiments, air deprived of its water to a certain point; and the method that has succeeded best for this purpose, is the disengagement of muriatic gas from a very dry mu.iate, by means of highly concentrated sulphuric acid, in confined air.

If this were not the true state of things, there would be an incessant accumulation of caloric, that would soon change the face of these globes; while in this hypothesis the equilibrium is scarcely ever interrupted.— These globes then would not be visible but from the extreme limits of their atmospheres, and where the caloric, separated from its combinations, is transformed into light: and the opacity of a globe would not at all prevent this effect, in which the globe itself would not interfere; which would make a wonderful difference in the calculations from which the apparent magnitude of the celestial bodies are determined; as in this case their magIt need not be observed how many nitudes would have been calculated mistakes in determining the propor- from the extent of their atmospheres, tions of oxigen in burned substances and by no means from that of the must have arisen from the great globes or celestial bodies themselves; quantity of water, that makes part of and the light, which renders these the air, which becomes solidly fixed bodies visible to us, would not be rein these substances, and serves as an Alected light, but light extricated from indispensable medium of the combi- them on returning towards the sun. nation of oxigen with the bodies it It is to be understood, that this extriburns. To this large quantity of cation cannot take place, except at water in the air are owing those spon- far as the atmosphere faces the sun, taneous and heavy rains, which fre- and is under the direct influence of quently fall in an atmosphere, that its attractive power; otherwise the was perfectly serene and tranquil a moment before.

The caloric, that under its different forms is incessantly ascending in the air, without ever returning to the earth, being a substance that belongs to the atmosphere of the sun, and is foreign to ours and those of other planets, at which it arrives only by virtue of the great elasticity it possesses when in the state of light, and where it is retained only by its adhesion to substances that belong to these planets, must resume the state of light, the moment when, having arrived at the utmost limits of these foreign atmospheres, and being disengaged from

light extricated would diffuse itself through space, take a course different from that to the sun, and not reach the atmosphere of that celestial body where alone it can resume its cha racter of light. Nothing prevents the light in this return from travers. ing other atmospheres. It is by the light refracted in this passage, that we see the globes from which it ena nates.

BRITISH MUSEUM.

Fine Arts. While the French nation boasts of having the noblest collection of paintings ever accumulat

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES.

ed, the English exult in possessing fine arts. They present a new world the best sculptures. As well as the of beauty and taste to the eye of the fine statues at Oxford, and Mr. Town- young artist, and awaken a fresh and ley's, now the nation's, at the British glowing impulse in the mind of the Museum, the unrivalled remains of professor. Grecian art, from the chissel of the renowned Phidias, are now in London, the property of Lord Elgin. His lord. ship deservedly possesses the gratitude A curious paper was read at their of the nation for having, when in Tur- first meeting, for this seasou, by Dr. key and Greece, expended an im Willan, on the "New Fire," detailmense portion of time, trouble, and ing the process of igniting wood by money, in obtaining them, and con- friction, and the superstitious cusveying them to our shores. Most of toms of the northern nations in prethem occupied the temple of Miner serving such fire unextinguished; va at Athens, consisting chiefly of with many incidental particulars of relievos, with a few colossal statues. ancient manners and customs connectNo single figure is entire, being cru- ed with this ceremony. Some letters elly amputated by barbarous hands, from Sir C. Cornwallis, when at the and gnawed by the tooth of time; but court of Spain as minister to James I. what have been spared are sufficient were also read, but they contained to justify the unbounded praises be- very little matter which could be prostowed on them by the historians of perly deemed novel or interesting, antiquity. The introduction of these particularly the ceremony of the bull grand productions of ancient genius feasts. into England is a glorious era in the

VARIETIES, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL; With Notices respecting Men of Letters, Artists, and IVorks in Hand, &c. &c.

Beauties of on of heart, Dr. Dearly University A new edition of the late Dodd's ready for delivery.

THE Ecclesiastical and the vesty year, will be published on the first of next month.

In the first week of the present year, will be published, a new edition, be ing the Seventh, of the “ Laboratory, or School of Arts," containing a much larger and more extensive collection of valuable secrets, experiments, and manual operations in the arts and manufactures, than is to be met with in any other work in the English language. The whole is adapted to the present improved state of the arts and sciences, and illustrated with about forty copper plates, some of which are entirely new.

A new edition of Mr.Headley's "Select Beauties of Ancient English Poe try," with a biographical sketch, by the Rev. Mr. Kett, of Oxford, will appear in the course of this month.

The Favourite Village, with an additional poem never before published, by the late Poetry Professor of Oxford, Dr. Hurdis, will be published in a few weeks.

Mr. James Savage proposes publishing an Essay on the Varieties observable in the structure of Parish Churches, from their erection in this island to the end of the fifteenth cen tury, by which a common observer may be able to distinguish the age of nearly every ecclesiastical building now standing.

Major Moor's Hindu Pantheon,nearly ready for publication, will be illustrated by one hundred and five plates, containing more than a thousand mythological figures and subjects, from original images, pictures, excavations, statues, coins, medals, &c. never before published.

English comedy, in six volumes; a Collection of Classical Dramas, separated from the licentious productions In the press, the interesting Letters of Congreve, Farquhar, Centlice, of Madame la Marquise du Dessand &c. &c. will be published in January. to the Ilon. Horace Walpole, from the

Travels through the States of the A Catalogue of Books published in Empire of Morocco, in the year 1806, London, between the First of June, by Dr. Buffa, Physician to the Forces, 1808, and the First of January, 1810, will be published very shortly, in one will be published in the course of this volume octavo. His correspondence month. This catalogue will be di- with that court relative to the interests gested in alphabetical order, accord-Great Britain, including a letter ing to the names of the authors and from the Emperor of Morocco himself

A new Process for preserving Pencil and Chalk Drawings.-1st. Get a pan, or tub, sufficiently spacious to admit Mr. Jephson Oddy, the author of the diawing horizontally; fill it with "European Commerce," is engaged clean water, and run the drawing thro in a work on the political, commercial, in that direction; then lay it on someand local interests of the country; thing flat to dry. This will take off particularly as they will be promoted the loose lead.-2dly. Fill the same by "The intended Stamford Navi- vessel a second time, with rather more gation," of which he was the projector.