226] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



mineralogy, and zoology. Under 

 the head of zoology there are some 

 who take the Kberty of classing 

 theories of physic: though they 

 admit that medicine, in its just 

 extent, embraces the state of 

 the mind as well as that of the 

 body. 



Electricity, magnetism, and chy- 

 mistry, are arranged under the first 

 head: although these studies, as 

 far as they are collections of facts, 

 belong to the second; and to the 

 first, only as far as they are theo- 

 retical. In different respects, it 

 is evident, they belong to both. 



Out of the first and second 

 classes, particularly the heads of 

 mechanics, botany, mineralogy, and 

 chymistry, spring the three grand 

 pursuits of the industrious or busy 

 world. — 1. Agriculture, 2. Arts, 3. 

 Commerce. 



The third class, mind, com- 

 prehends metaphysics, logic, and 

 ethics. 



This division of the sciences will 

 aid the mind in recollecting the 

 great and manifold discoveries of 



the century just passed in each 



Wonderful improvements in opti- 

 cal glasses, opened a vast and un- 

 bounded theatre to our perceptions, 

 and promised to carry our views 

 still farther and farther into the 

 universe. The discovery of dif- 

 ferent kinds and properties of airs 

 and gales at once enlarged the 

 power of man over nature to a 

 prodigious extent, seemed to draw- 

 aside a veil, and to exhibit the 

 whole material creation under a 

 new aspect. The most solid sub- 

 stances appeared to be fluids, not 

 in an aeriform, but a fixed state. 

 A constant transition was discovered 

 from solidity to fluidity, and from 

 fluidity again to solidity. The 



world seemed, in some sort, to be 

 an illusion. Electricity, by an ac- 

 quaintance with which, miracles 

 were wrought, began to be con- 

 sidered as the great agent through- 

 out all nature. There appeared 

 to be a striking affinity and analogy 

 between this power and magnetism, 

 yet, as if to check our propensity 

 to simplification, and draw in our 

 net of investigation too soon, proofs 

 were exhibited, that these two asto- 

 nishing powers were very different. 

 As the power of men was, by know- 

 ledge, extended over the material 

 world, their enterprize and industry 

 were also increased. Steam-engines, 

 looms wrought without hands, and 

 other mechanical inventions per- 

 formed the labour of hundreds of 

 thousands, and even millions of 

 men. Yet these hands quickly 

 found other employment in the mul- 

 tiplied projects of manufacturers 

 and merchants. But there was no 

 object on which the extended sway 

 of science was so visible as on the 

 most useful and necessary of all 

 human pursuits, agriculture. Agri- 

 cultural machinery was greatly im- 

 proved; the nature of the juices, 

 designed for the nourishment of ve- 

 getables, was explored ; and the 

 manner in which they were trans- 

 mitted to their organs. It is not 

 foreign to the present point, the 

 application of science to practical 

 purposes, to observe farther, that 

 the genius of the age, was strongly 

 exemplified in numberless improve- 

 ments in cookery, both for men and 

 cattle, and other branches of econo- 

 my, domestic, pastoral, and rural. 



As the advancement of science 

 influenced the arts of peace, so it 

 also influenced, in some degree, 

 the miserable art of war, it 

 is sufficient, on this head, just 



