﻿352 Mr. Whelpley on the Idea of an Atom. 



The fore and hind feet follow each other very closely, there 

 being an interval of about one inch between them. Between 

 each pair of tracks the distance is six to eight inches, and be- 

 tween the two lines of tracks there is about the same distance. 

 The shortness of the animal in proportion to its size, (for it must 

 probably have weighed several hundred pounds,) the apparent 

 sluggishness of its movements, and the difference in the number 

 of toes on the hind and fore feet, seem to indicate an alliance 

 with the Batrachians. 



These tracks were all in relief (casts;) I found but one that 

 was a depression. The slab on which they were found was 

 about five feet long, and three to three and a half wide. 



Art. XIII. — Idea of an Atom, suggested by the phenomena of 



weight and temperature ; by James D. Whelpley. 



" I know not but the investigation we are now handling of the primary charac- 

 ter of seminal and atomic panicles is of a utility greatly superior to all others, as 

 forming the sovereign rule of action and of power, and the true criterion of hope 

 and operation. " — Lord Bacon : Thoughts on the nature of things. Th. 11. 



If there is any essential difference, between time, space, and 

 force, and those perceptions from which they are abstracted, 

 science must be concerned with the latter only, and in no instance 

 with the abstract notion. Space cannot exist without matter; 

 for we cannot perceive a space, in which matter is not present, 

 more than a time, in which there is no change: Science being 

 a theory of perceptions, it follows, that a scientific idea must be 

 founded in the coexistence of time, number, substance, and form ; 

 its objects must have form, and its changes, a certain necessary 

 order : it supposes that space is the form of substance, and mo- 

 tion the measure of time. " Matter stripped and passive, 7 ' 1 * being 

 a notion of little use, " the ancients therefore endowed the primi- 

 tive matter with a form and properties." Democritus held, that 

 "the atoms, or seeds, were like nothing that falls under the ob- 

 servation of sense, but that they were of a dark and secret nature ; 

 for he says, they are neither like fire, nor any other thing, the 

 body of which is perceptible to sense, or open to the touch." 



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