THE EARTH. 143 



of gold. This has been proved by the famous 

 Florentine experiment, in which a quantity "of 

 water was shut up in a hollow ball of gold, and 

 then pressed with a huge force by screws, during 

 which the fluid was seen to ooze out through the 

 pores of the metal, and to stand like a dew upon 

 its surface. 



As water is thus penetrating, a*nd its parts thus 

 minute, it may easily be supposed that they enter 

 into the composition of all bodies, vegetable, ani- 

 mal, and fossil. This every chemist's experience 

 convinces him of; and the mixture is the more 

 obvious, as it can always be separated, by a gen- 

 tle heat, from those substances with which it had 

 been united. Fire, as was said, will penetrate 

 where water cannot pass ; but then it is not so 

 easily to be separated. But there is scarce any 

 substance from which its water cannot be divorc- 

 ed. The parings or filings of lead, tin, and anti- 

 mony, by distillation, yield water plentifully : the 

 hardest stones, sea-salt, nitre, vitriol, and sulphur, 

 are found to consist chiefly of water ; into which 

 they resolve by force of fire. " All birds, beasts, 

 and fishes," says Newton, " insects, trees, and 

 vegetables, with their parts, grow from water ; 

 and, by putrefaction, return to water again." In 

 short, almost every substance that we see, owes 

 its texture and firmness to the parts of water that 

 mix with its earth ; and, deprived of this fluid, 

 it becomes a mass of shapeless dust and ashes. 



From hence we see, as was above hinted, that 

 this most fluid body, when mixed with others, 

 gives them consistence and form. Water/ by 



