132 MEMOIR OF THE LATE DR. HENRY. 
he passes unheeded by. What a wide field of 
phenomena, for instance, admit of explanation 
by the laws respecting heat;—the effects of its 
expansive power both on bodies themselves, and 
in rendering them its vehicles to distant regions, 
borne on the waters and the air, which envelope 
our globe—the influence of the provision of 
latent heat in retaining it in great storehouses, 
where it is felt only for good and from whence 
it issues in continued and vivifying abundance 
when the sun withdraws his warmer beams—all 
that relates to the radiation of caloric through 
infinite space, and its reception by the subjects 
of the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal 
kingdoms;—the admirable contrivances espe- 
cially, by which the latter are cheered and 
animated, without injury even to the most deli- 
cately organized. Surely these are topics (and 
they are but avery small portion of the whole) 
on which no man can expatiate without that 
pure delight, which truth first breaking through 
ignorance or error, sheds over the mind, refining 
and exalting both our moral and intellectual 
natures.” 
The other literary project, for which Dr. 
Henry had also collected some materials, was a 
histcry of chemical discovery from the middle 
