$6% Obfervations and Rejle&ions on Storms, &c. 



the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the 

 mountains in fcales ?' 



" Although they difcerned this magnificent apparatus, and 

 faw its effects, yet were they reftrained by a religious awe 

 from attempting its inveftigation, becaufe ftorms, lightning 

 and hail, were conceived to be the precurfors of the chariot 

 of the Deity ! ( who maketh the clouds his chariot* — * who 

 walketh on the wings of the wind* — accompanied with 

 * hailjlones &\\&jire ! ' Or, if you choofe to have the fpirit of 

 thefe paflages expreffed in Englifh metre— 



* On cherubs, and on cherubims, 



* Full royally he rode, 



* And on the wings of all the winds 



' Came flying all abroad.' 



For this reafon, probably, the origin and courfe of the 

 winds, £ whence they come and whither they go/ were deemed 

 myfterious. Hence, inftead of investigating the caufe, their 

 pious minds, overwhelmed with awe, funk into undifcerning 

 amazement ! Under fuch impreflions, I ceafe to wonder 

 that he who wrote that ancient drama, the book of Job, 

 puts among the moil difficult of his queftions that which 

 demands an explanation of the c balancing of the clouds/ 

 But (hall not we, who are happily free from the terrors of 

 the Mofaic as well as Pagan fyftems, and who enjoy the 

 encouraging intellectual fcheme of Chriftianity, which, ne- 

 rer forgetting Deity, poflpones every thing corporeal to the, 

 primary mental caufe * — I fay, mall not we unite our efforts 

 to fill up that dreary blank left in fcience by the ancients ? 

 And e as man, who is the fcrvant and interpreter of nature, 

 can acl: and underftand no further than he has, either in ope- 

 ration or in contemplation, obferved of the method and order 

 of nature f,' let us commence a patient- obfervation of the 

 ordinary and extraordinary phaenomena that occur in this 

 fcene of wonders, the atmofphere ; and then collecl: thofe 

 fragments of knowledge, widely fcattered through the world, 

 on' the fame fubjeel:. 



" Although much of the operations going forward in the 

 atmofphere may have fome links that have hitherto efcaped 

 the mod inquifitive eye, and others, though feen, may not 

 be fully underflood, (till we ought not to be difcouraged. 

 Thefe detached links will one day be united, and form a part 

 of the great chain of natural caufes, adding ftill itronger 



* Harris. 



f Novum Organ. Scicnt« 



proofs 



