260 Biographical Account of [ApPRiL, 
totally devoted to physical science. I may notice merely a few of 
bis most prominent opinions, In 1783, immediately after his pro- 
motion to the Bishopric of Landaff, he published a letter to Archi- 
bishop Cornwallis on the church revenues, recommending a new 
disposition, by which the bishoprics should be rendered equal to 
each other in value, and the smaller livings be so far increased in 
income, by a proportionate deduction from the richer endowments, 
as to render them a decent competency.—From the commence- 
ment of the discussion respecting the slave-trade he was always a 
strenuous advocate for its abolition. He also exerted himself 
strongly in endeavours to repeal the Corporation and ‘T'est Acts.— His 
scheme for the abolition of the national debt, by every individual 
giving up a certain portion of his property, indicated less refined 
notions respecting pulitical economy than might have been expected 
from a writer possessed of so much general knowledge upon so 
many subjects, and so conversant with the best writers of his time. 
His chemical writings will claim a greater share of our attention. 
Indeed, it was to give an account of them that the present article 
was drawn up. In 1769 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Society ; and five papers by him were published in the subsequent 
volumes of the Philosophical Transactions. These papers were as 
follows :— 
I. Experiments and Observations on various Phenomena attending 
the Solution of the Salts. (Phil. Trans. 1770, p. 325.) 
This is a very elegant paper, and may serve as a model for the 
method of drawing up experimental investigations. It first made 
chemists acquainted with four sets of facts of considerable import- 
ance. 1. That, when salts are dissolved in water, they are not 
merely received into the pores of that liquid, but enter into che- 
mical union with its particles. 2. The specific gravity of different 
salts. His mode of ascertaining that specific gravity was very 
simple, and yet susceptible of considerable accuracy. He took a 
globular glass vessel with a long narrow cylindrical neck. ‘The neck 
was exactly graduated; so that the proportion which it bore to 
the capacity of the whole vessel was accurately known. ‘The vessel 
being filled with distilled water up to a given mark in the neck, a 
certain weight of the salt whose specific gravity was to be deter- 
mined was thrown into it. The water immediately rose in the neck 
of the vessel. From this rise it was easy to infer the specific gravity 
of thesalt. The following table exhibits the results which he ob- 
tained in this way :— 
Salts. Specific Gravity, 
Sulphate of soda .......seeeessseee 1°380 
fSrpstalcio€ help acc. awndates Died ae 
Carbonate of ammonia.............. 1450 
Saleammoniac .....ccceveececcevee 1450 
