58 



LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 



ON THE COMBINATIONS OP OXYGEN, WITH THE NON-METALLIC 

 COMBUSTIBLES. 



The following is an analysis of the lecture on this subject, delivered at 

 the Athenaeum,^ on the 22nd of December, by W. Addison, Esq. of Great 

 Malvern : — 



" In all the varied productions of Nature man may contemplate instances of 

 the profoundest skill and wisdom, every object displayinff a power and an 

 intelligence superior to his own, and adequate to the production and main- 

 tenance of all he sees. Above him is a vast etherial expanse, traversed by a 

 refulgent sun, and canopied with cloud or illumined by the moon, and studded 

 with a thousand stars — beneath him is the earth on which he treads, with all 

 its tribes of plants and animals, its rocks and water. A desire to obtain some 

 knowledge of these objects is congenial to the intellectual character of man. 

 Hence Natural Philosophy, which in its extended sense embraces every inquiry 

 or investigation into the phenomena of Nature, whether Astronomy, Geology, 

 Natural History, or Chemistry. In the study of Astronomy the imagination 

 wanders through infinite realms of space, occupied by masses of matter 

 in magnitude, and in the rapidity of their motions, beyond the feeble powers of 

 our finite comprehension — yet all obedient to certain fixed laws, moving noise- 

 less — in harmony — without Confusion. The rapidity of the real movements of 

 the planets, (measured by the scale of our experience,) exceeds conjecture ; yet 

 such is their boundless distance, and so wide the circles in which they range, 

 that their apparent motion is hardly to be noticed. The foundations of 

 Astronomy are laid in the highest departments of mathematical study, which 

 few only can understand, yet the verification of the statements which these 

 mathematical investigations evolve, comes home to every one, when we find the 

 orbits of the earth, the moon, and all the planets pointed out with such certainty 

 and precision that the particular station or place of either of them, in any period 

 of time to come, may be foretold ; and any partial or total obscuration of any 

 one of them may be predicted, and all the circumstances which shall attend it 

 be detailed as if describing an objec* of present observation. Such results as 

 these shew the truth of astronomical reasoning — give the stamp of superiority 

 to mathematical calculation — fix the high endowments of the mind of man, and 

 indicate that the operations of the intellectual faculties can no more be estimated 

 by the powers of his corporeal frame than the diameter of the earth can be 

 measured by an outstretched arm." 



From Astronomy Mr. Addison proceeded to similar and highly interesting 

 general observations upon Geology and Natural History. 



** But if the student of Nature," he observed, *' passing by all these objects, 

 is anxious to discover the materials employed in the several structures around 

 him, then Chemistry teaches him to unravel their complexity, exhibits the 

 nature and properties of the elements composing them, and makes him ac- 

 quainted with the laws which govern their combinations. The wonderful and 

 sudden transformations with which this science is conversant, the violent 

 activity often assumed by bodies usually considered as the most inert ; and, 

 above all, the insight it gives into the nature of innumerable operations daily 

 carried on in the arts of civilized life, have contributed to render it the most 

 popular, as it is one of the most useful, of the sciences." 



"A solid body," said the lecturer, ** may be chemically regarded as a fabric 

 more or less regularly constructed, in which the material's and the workmanship 

 may be separately considered, although the latter maybe broken up or destroy- 

 ed, the former remain unchanged, though, perhaps, very differently arranged." 



Instances of this were adduced in the burning of wood, the solution of chrys- 

 tallized salts, and the explosion of gunpowder — in all these cases, Mr. Addison 



