' 
96 Mr. Genet’s Vindication. 
opinion, to be due to the action of another fluid, which draws 
upward towards the etherial regions, certain particles of mat- 
ter and aerial fluids, in proportion to their degree of afiinity 
with the unknown cause of that ascensive and centrifugal force. 
I apprehend, however, that the feigned embarrass of my Bos- 
ton reviewers on the interpretation of that mystical title was 
simply a pretext to introduce a paragraph of my Memorial, 
_ containing a series of facts, on the existence of the new force 
which they humorously depict ‘as a grotesque assemblage, 
containing the intellectual germ of the whole volume, leaving 
out the theory on the pendulum as an extraneous bee in the 
author's bonnet.” If that bee is under my bonnet, I can as- 
sure them that it has not stung me, and that, until they refute, 
in a more philosophical manner, my conjecture on the con- 
current influence of caloric on the variations of the pendu- 
. i. fr 
lum, such an insect, extracted from their hive, will prove to 
na 
bee, that I will dismiss without any further chastisement. 
agree, notwithstanding, Sir, with Dr. Pascalis, that it 
was a bold undertaking not to coincide implicitly in the New- 
tonian solution of the retardation of the pendulum ander the 
equator, by the compression of the poles, and by the centri- 
fugal force augmented by the diurnal rotation of our planet, 
though the doctor himself admits, that “ should there be one 
single element in the universe-which cannot be controled by 
gravity—(and certainly caloric is one)—gravity cannot be 
said to be an universal law.” 
I have, Sir, more attentively reflected on that interesting 
subject, since the publication of my Memorial, and I am cun- 
firmed in the opinion that there is indeed a fluid which exerts 
its action on the pendulum, varying according to the latitudes, 
and increasing from the equator to the poles, very much like 
the magnetic fluid, the minimum of which is under the mag- 
netic equator, and the maximum towards the poles, as it has 
been observed by Humboldt, who has found that the vibra- 
tions of a good and well suspended magnetic needle were, in 
te space of ten minutes, in Peru, 211, and in Paris, 245. 
But what is that fluid? Is it, as I have supposed it, the calo-- 
ric, which exerts its influence on the rarefaction and conde=*** 
tion of the air, as well as on the contraction or expansion, 
even in the vacuum of any of the substances vsed to con- 
struct the pendulum? Or is it the galyanic #1d of our stra- 
+ 
