difcovered; yet it does not, I think, appear, that we can make any better or greater use of water fince the discovery, than we did before it.

We can never think of the elements without reflecting upon the number of diftinct ufes which are confolidated in the same subftance. The air fupplies the lungs, fupports fire, conveys found, reflects light, diffufes finells, gives rain, wafts fhips, bears up birds. Εξ ύδατος τα παντα: water, befide maintaining its own inhabitants, is the univerfal nourisher of plants, and through them of terreftrial animals; is the basis of their juices and fluids: dilutes their food, quenches their thirst, floats their burthens. Fire warms, diffolves, enlightens; is the great promoter of vegetation and life, if not neceffary to the fupport of both.

We might enlarge, to almoft any length we pleased, upon each of thefe ufes; but it appears to me almoft fufficient to ftate them. The few remarks, which I judge it neceffary to add, are as follow.

I. AIR is effentially different from earth. There appears to be no neceffity for an atmosphere's investing our globe; (the moon has none :)

the

none:) yet it does inveft it; and we see how many, how various, and how important are the purposes which it anfwers to every order of animated, not to fay of organized, beings, which are placed upon the terrestrial surface. I think that every one of thefe ufes will be understood upon the first mention of them, except it be that of reflecting light, which may be explained thus. If I had the power of feeing only by means of rays coming directly from the fun, whenever I turned my back upon luminary, I should find myfelf in darkness. If I had the power of feeing by reflected light, yet by means only of light reflected from folid maffes, thefe maffes would fine, indeed, and gliften, but it would be in the dark. The hemifphere, the fky, the world, could only be illuminated, as it is illuminated, by the light of the fun being from all fides, and in every direction, reflected to the eye, by particles, as numerous, as thickly fcattered, and as widely diffufed, as are thofe of the air.

Another general quality of the atmosphere is, the power of evaporating fluids. The adjustment of this quality to our ufe is seen in its action upon the fea. In the fea, water and falt are mixed together most intimately; yet

the atmosphere raises the water, and leaves the falt. Pure and fresh as drops of rain defcend, they are collected from brine. If evapora tion be folution, (which feems to be probable,) then the air diffolves the water and not the falt. Upon whatever it be founded, the diftinction is critical; fo much fo, that, when we attempt to imitate the process by art, we must regulate our diftillation with great care and nicety, or, together with the water, we get the bitterness, or, at leaft, the diftaftefulnefs of the marine fubftance: and, after all, it is owing to this original elective power in the air, that we can effect the feparation which we wish, by any art or means whatever.

By evaporation water is carried up into the air; by the converfe of evaporation it falls down upon the earth. And how does it fall? Not by the clouds being all at once reconverted into water, and defcending, like a fheet; not in rushing down in columns from a fpout; but in moderate drops, as from a cullender. Our watering-pots are made to imitate fhowers of rain. Yet, a priori, I fhould have thought either of the two former methods more likely to have taken place than the last.

By respiration, flame, putrefaction, air is rendered unfit for the fupport of animal life. By the conftant operation of these corrupting principles, the whole atmosphere, if there were no restoring caufes, would come at length to be deprived of its neceffary degree of purity. Some of thefe caufes feem to have been difcovered; and their efficacy afcertained by experiment, And fo far as the discovery has proceeded, it opens to us a beautiful and a wonderful œconomy. Vegetation proves to be one of them. A fprig of mint, corked up with a small portion of foul air placed in the light, renders it again capable of supporting life or flame. Here therefore is a conftant circulation of benefits maintained between the two great provinces of organized nature. The plant purifies, what the animal had poifoned: in return, the contaminated air is more than ordinarily nutritious to the plant. Agitation with water turns out to be another of these reftoratives. The fouleft air, fhaken in a bottle with water for a fufficient length of time, recovers a great degree of its purity. Here then again, allowing for the fcale upon which nature works, we fee the falutary effects of forms and tempefts. The yefty waves, which confound

confound the heaven and the fea, are doing the very thing which is done in the bottle. Nothing can be of greater importance to the liv ing creation, than the falubrity of their atmosphere. It ought to reconcile us therefore. to thefe agitations of the elements, of which we fometimes deplore the confequences, to know, that they tend powerfully to restore to the air that purity, which fo many causes are conftantly impairing.

II. In WATER, what ought not a little to be admired, are thofe negative qualities which conftitute its purity. Had it been vinous, or oleaginous, or acid; had the fea been filled, or the rivers flowed, with wine or milk; fish, conftituted as they are, must have died; plants, conftituted as they are, would have withered; the lives of animals, which feed upon plants, must have perished. Its very infipidity, which is one of those negative qualities, renders it the beft of all menftrua. Having no tafte of its own, it becomes the fincere vehicle of every" other. Had there been a tafte in water, be it what it might, it would have infected every thing we ate or drank, with an importunate repetition of the same flavor.

Another thing in this element, not lefs to