100 Official 'Report of a Fall of AcroUles near Grenade. 



of nature, and in the processes of the arts, huA'e necessarily 

 caused it to occupy a great portion of the attention of cheinisti^ j 

 and being of such importance, and in constant operation, it is 

 not extraordinary, that a greater number of phsenoniena should 

 be attributed to it, than it reallv produces. 



In the views that I have ventured to develop, neither oxygen, 

 chlorine, or fluorine, are asserted to be elements; it is only as- 

 serted that, as yet, they have not been decomposed. 



As the investigation of nature proceeds, it is not improbable, 

 that other more subtile bodies belonging to this class will be 

 discovered ; and, perhaps, some of the characteristic differences 

 of those substances, which ajjparentlv give the same products 

 by analysis, may depend upon this circ\imstanoe. 



The conjecture appears worth hazarding, whether the car- 

 bonaceous matter in the diamond may not i)e united to an ex- 

 tremely light and subtile principle of this kind, which has hi- 

 therto escaped detection, but which may be expelled, or newly 

 combined, during its combustion in oxygen. That some che- 

 mical difference must exist between the hardest and most beau- 

 tiful of the gems and charcoal, between a non-conductor and a 

 conductor of electricity, it is scarcely pof sii)le, notwithstanding 

 the elaborate experiments that have been made on the subject, 

 to doubt : and it seems reasonable to expect, that a very refined 

 or perfect chemistry will confirm the analogies of nature, and 

 show that bodies cannot be exactly the same in composition or 

 chemical nature, and yet totally diiferent in all their physical 

 properties. 



XVII. Official Rtport of a Fall of J'ern/iles vear Grenade, 

 seven Leagues to the N.N.U^. rf Tovhuse, on the 10/ A of 

 j^pril 1812. By M, D'Aubuisson, Chief Engineer of 

 Mines in France*. 



L/N the lOtli of April 1812, the air was colder than it had been 

 for a few days ; the thermometer marked only 5" about eight in 

 the evening, when the phenomenon took place : it had rained 

 a great part of the day, and the sky was almost entirely covered 

 with thick clouds 



At the above hour a brilliant light was seen in the atmo- 

 sphere at Toulouse, and for several leagues around : this was fol- 

 lowed by a very loud detonation. It was thought at first that the 

 powder magazine of Toulouse had been blown up; and when it 



• Journal des Mines, vol. xxxi. p. 419. — The interruption of our com- 

 Biimications with France prevented our lajiug tliis paper sooner before our 

 readers.— Edit. 



