\20 0P *AIN. 



*' 76. A way that againft feveral advances to a fort or caf- 

 tle one man may charge fifty cannons, and flopping when he 

 pleafeth, though out of fight of the cannon. 



" 77. A rare way likewife for mufquetoons, fattened to 

 the pummel of the faddle, fo that a common trooper cannot 

 mifs to charge them with twenty or thirty bullets at a time, 

 even in full career. 



" When I firft gave my thoughts to make guns (hoot often, 

 I thought there had been but one only exquifite way invent- 

 able, yet by feveral trials and much charge I have perfectly 

 tried all thefe." 



X. 



Of Bain. By Richard Kirwan, LL.D. F.B.S. Prefi- 

 dcnt of the Royal lrijk Academy, fyc. *. 



Rain is not AJlMINUTION of the temperature of air, replete with 

 frigemion* 6 " moifture, below the degree at which its faturation takes place, 

 whether this refrigeration were caufed by rarefaction, or by 

 the intermixture with colder air, has been generally fuppofed 

 the caufe of rain ; but this hypothefis in both its branches has 

 been fatisfactorily refuted : the firft by Sauflure f and the fe- 

 cond by De Lucj. And in fact refrigeration will indeed 

 feparate moifture from air cooled below the temperature ne- 

 for this produces ceflfary to hold it in folution. But this feparation will termi- 

 dew or clouds. na t e? if gradual, in the production of dew, as already feen, 

 or, if fudden, in the production of a cloud, as in the experi- 

 ment of Tornea mentioned by Maupertuis, but cannot nor has 

 in any inftance produced rain. 

 Rain is caufed Rain is the immediate refult of the union of the particles 



of eleclriclty 0n wn ' cn ^ orm c ^ ou ^ s J ar >d tn » s union is the confequence of the 

 fubtraction of the electric atmofpheres which keep them at a 

 diftance from each other ; and this fubftracYton is itfelf the con- 

 fequence either of the fupcrior attraction of better conductors 

 or of the attraction or repulfion of other clouds through the 

 ctufes mentioned in the firft fection of this chapter. The 



* Irifh Academy, 1802, p. 487. 



f Hygrom. § 2z4. 



% De Luc Idees de Meteorologie, p. 43, &c. 



confequence 



