On tfie Identity of Silex and Oxygen, 279 



most horrid causticity, and other qualities, which charac-' 

 terize these alkalis, are totally suppressed and softened into 

 perfect inactivity. 



Here, the same agency continues its operations ; for, not 

 merely the earths, the lime, or alumine, and metals, when 

 they occur, but a considerable portion of alkali, amounting 

 in some instances to more than one fifth of the whole, arc 

 all reduced into one mass of tasteless inoffensive stone. The 

 leucite, which was analysed by M. Klaproth, contains about 

 0*22 of potash. 0*23 of alumine, and, 54 of silex ; and from 

 this, I confess, I can draw no other inference than, — 

 that the two salifiable bases are deprived of their primitive 

 characters, entirely by the other ingredient. 



The pro-ximity of ali the earths to silex, and the constant 

 association of this with one or more of the former, is a cir- 

 cumstance too notorious to dwell upon ; and, considering 

 the public utility of your pages, it were intrusive to multi- 

 ply these examples, by bringing forward every case that may 

 be suitable. We might really confide in almost a random 

 selection; for all scientific books are fraught with proofs, 

 and analyses, in which silex, oxidized metals, neutral salts, 

 or saturated substances, or, in short, where some modifica- 

 tion of oxygen is indelibly impressed. 



Even substances that apparently are independent of our 

 globe are chiefly formed of Siilcx ; and the meteoric stones, 

 which, m a highly ignited state, have occasionally been 

 projected from the atmosphere upon various and distant 

 places in the world, particularly in Yorkshire, and at Be-, 

 nares in ihe East Indies, even these contain about half their 

 weight of silex 5 it has aJso been universally remarked, that 

 these wonderful productions are always made up of the same 

 elements — of silex, iron, nickel, magnesia, and a small' 

 quantity of sulpliur; and nearly in the same uniform pro- 

 portions in all the specimens that have been analysed hv 

 other chemists since Mr. Howard, who first published the 

 exact history of the composition. 



These stones are, by mai^y very intelligent men, sup- 

 posed to have been ejected from some volcano in the moon; 

 ajnd though iio one has positively asserted it, still the idea 



S 4 has 



