170 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
Early in the morning of the 25th of September last, while on the 
coach upon the high ground about a mile and a half west of Truro, I 
observed towards the south-east, in a valley ,the appearance of a beau- 
tiful lake, or inlet of the sea, winding round a distant point, and then 
branching off into several little creeks or sheets of water, which soon 
lost themselves among the windings of the contiguous vales. The 
nearest part of this imaginary water was about half a mile from the 
coach, and so much did it resemble an inlet of the sea, that a fellow 
passenger, who was a stranger to the locality, could not be per- 
suaded for some time but that it was really such. 
The sun had been up about an hour, and the morning was calm 
and unusually cold. The thick fog which had risen from the valleys, 
had not quite reached the tops of the hills, and its surface seemed 
as level as the ocean ; so that while reflecting the unclouded beams 
of the sun, it couid not possibly be distinguished from an inlet of 
the sea. I am, Gentlemen, 
Your very humble Servant, 
Redruth, 9th December, 1835. R. Epmonps, Jun. 
SUBSIDIARY HYPOTHESIS TO THE ELECTRO-CHEMICAL THEORY 
OF SIR H. DAVY. 
The beautiful theory advanced by Sir H. Davy to account for che- 
mical affinity, by ascribing it to electrical agency, has many suppor- 
ters, because it is a theory founded on extensive observation and nu- 
merous facts. It supplies chemists with a principle capable of ac-— 
counting for the phenomena ascribed to affinity, and affords a con- 
sistent explanation of the chemical agencies of the Voltaic apparatus. 
Dr. Turner briefly embodies the substance of the theory as follows: 
**What chemists term chemical attraction or affinity is under this 
point of view an electrical force arising from particles of a different 
kind attracting each other in consequence of being in opposite states 
of electrical excitement. Substances which have a disposition to 
unite, assume opposite electrical conditions when brought into con- 
tact, and the very existence of the compound depends on its elements 
retaining their state of excitement.” 
Now granting the validity of this opinion, still there is a residual 
phenomenon to account for, viz. the reason why substances of dif- 
ferent kinds assume opposite electrical states when brought into con- 
tact. Judging from analogy, we think a reasonable explanation can 
be found by supposing particles of different substances to possess 
different capacities for electricity, or a different specific electricity. 
We know that bodies have different capacities for heat,—thus, we 
know that mercury at the temperature of 212° contains a very dif- 
ferent quantity of heat to that of an equal weight of water at a simi- 
lar temperature,—and it is a legitimate inference, in perfect confor- 
mity with the laws of induction, to assume that bodies also have dif- 
ferent specific electricities; that two substances of different kinds, 
placed under such circumstances that each has an equal opportunity 
of parting with or retaining its electricity, will contain, when an equi- 
librium is established between each of them and the atmosphere or 
