_ 478 On Galvanic Electricity. 
the chaotic mass in general, the latter to the waters in pare 
ticular; aud these are plainly represented as the materials 
out of which the world was to be formed; the crude and 
undigested matter, the simple and elementary substances 
which were afterwards to be subjected to general laws and 
combined in the various modes which nature now exhibits. 
We accordingly read in the next verse, of the creation of 
light, or as it might more philosophically be translated ca- 
loric, for the word “x3 is derived from the root 1% which 
signifies to flow, and is applied to light on account of its 
extremely subtile and apparently fluid nature ; but how much 
more applicable is it to caloric, the cause of all fluidity. In 
conformity with this interpretation we find that in the book 
of Job (the most ancient probably in existence,) the same 
word is used to signify lightning; and in the second verse 
of the fifth chapter of Ezekiel, it is translated by the English 
word fire. The Greek word ¢w¢ also, by which it is render- 
ed in the Septuagint, frequently means fire ; and of this we 
have a striking instance in the 54th ver. of the 14th chap.of 
St. Mark, where it is said of Peter that he stood Sepucuvone- 
vos mpos To dus, ** warming himself at the jire.” It is there- 
fore plain that the Hebrew word ‘nx, and the Greek transla- 
tion of it dws, mean fire as well as light. If then in con- 
formity with the Mosaic account, we suppose caloric to 
have been the first created substance, ([ mean after the 
formation of the chaotic or e/ementary mass and of water 
which was a part of it, it may easily be understood how all 
the various bodies in nature, would instantly assume their 
own proper forms, as I have endeavoured to prove, by an 
enlargement of Dr. Higgins’s theory, in a paper which Mr, 
Nicholson was so good as to publish in the 142d number 
of the Philosophical Journal. It would be easy to go 
through the whole work of the remaining days of the cre- 
ation in a similar manner, and to demonstrate that it is 
consonant with the most recent and approved discoveries 
in chemical and natural philosophy.—l ought perhaps to 
apologize for this new application of chemistry, but I hope 
that its importance will be deemed sufficient. It certainly 
is highly interesting, and a coincidence few would have 
expected. It should indeed never be forgotten, that the 
God of Nature is also the God of Revelation, and that what 
he has revealed cannot be inconsistent with what he has 
performed. — 
I am, sir, your constant reader, 
L. 0. C. 
P. 3 
