[ 240 ] 



Now it is a well known chymical fad that lefs of any mcnftruum 

 IS requifite to keep a folid fubftance in folution, at leaft for a 

 fhort time, than originally to diffolve it. 



Yet if the quantity of aqueous fluid requifite even to keep 

 the mafs of folids in folution were too fmall, as poffibly it may 

 have been, this would only haften the >o«^ general fad to which 

 I now proceed, namely, the cryftallization, precipitation and de- 

 pofit.on of thefe folids. But before I enter on this event it will 

 be neceffary to confider more particularly the ftate of this ori- 

 ginal chaotic fluid. 



The water which conftituted this menftruum being in a liquid 

 ftate muft have been heated at leaft to thirty-three degrees, and 

 poflibly much higher. Secondly, it contained the eight generic 

 earths, all the metallic and femi-metallic fubftances now known, 

 the various fimple faline fubftances, and the whole tribe of inflam- 

 mables, folid and liquid, which are of a fimple nature, varioufly 

 diftributed, forming upon the whole a more complex menftruura 

 than any that has fince exifted, and confequcntly endued with 

 properties very diffbrent from any with which we have been fince 

 acquainted. 



Hence elementary fire or the principle of heat muft have been 

 coeval with the creation of matter, and the general properties of 

 gravitation and eledive attradion may be fuppofed of equal 

 date. 



The 



