Remarks on the Atomic Constitution of Elastic Fluids. S3 



over the countries through which they flow; the plain of 

 Shinar is the scene in which the history of mankind recom- 

 mences when the Deluge is over. Unless we could suppose 

 the Pentateuch to have been written after the captivity, and 

 the Jews to have begun their history with the borrowed tra- 

 ditions of their oppressors, we must admit that these things 

 were subjects of belief in the family of Abraham from the 

 time when he left his original abode in Ur of the Chaldees*. 



IV. Remarks on the Atomic Constitution of Elastic Fluids. By 

 William Charles Henry, M.D., F.li.S.f 



T^HE following remarks, suggested by that portion of Dr. 

 ■f- Prout's Bridgewater Treatise which is devoted to the 

 most comprehensive generalizations of chemical philosophy, 

 are proposed with considerable hesitation, from their not ac- 

 cording with the views of that profound writer. But it must 

 also be borne in mind, that the theory of atomic combina- 

 tion adopted by Dr. Prout differs itself, most materially, from 

 that originally framed by the author of the atomic philosophy, 

 and still held by him, as well as by the majority of British che- 

 mists. These differences, as far as they respect first principles, 

 may be comprehended in the two following propositions : 



1st, That equal volumes of all gaseous bodies contain, 

 under the same temperature and pressure, the same number 

 of self- repulsive molecules. 



2nd, " That the self-repulsive molecule, as it exists in the 

 gaseous form, does not represent the ultimate molecule, but is 

 composed of many of them.' , 



1st, The idea that the particles of all gaseous fluids are 

 placed at the same distances from one another, and conse- 

 quently that a given space contains in all the same number of 

 molecules, seems to have occurred about the same time to 

 MM. Ampere and Avogadro. It was published by the former, 

 so early as the year 18 14-, in a letter addressed to Count Ber- 

 thollet, but merely as the most probable hypothesis of the 

 constitution of elastic matter J. It was subsequently revived 

 by Dumas, and has been recently maintained and illustrated 

 by his pupil M. Gaudin§. Dr. Prout had arrived at the same 



• [Our correspondent Mr. Beke, in the Appendix to his recently pub- 

 lished work, entitled Origbws Biblicce, has shown reasons for the belief that 

 the Flood, though universal with respect to mankind, was merely local 

 with respect to the globe itself; a view of the subject which, if fully sub- 

 stantiated, would tend to relieve it from much of the difficulty in which it 

 is at present involved. — Edit.] 



f Communicated by the Author. \ Ann. de Chimie, torn. xc. p. 47. 



§ Ann. de Chimie et de Phys., torn. Hi. p. 113. 



Third Series. Vol. 5. No. 25. July 1834. F 



