THE EARTH. 151 



touch. This is the famous dissolvent of the 

 chemists, into which, as they have boasted, they 

 can reduce all bodies ; and which makes up all 

 other substances, only by putting on a different 

 disguise. In some forms, it is fluid, transparent, 

 and evasive of the touch ; in others, hard, firm, 

 and elastic. In some it is stiffened by cold ; in 

 others dissolved by fire. According to them, it 

 only assumes external shapes from accidental 

 causes ; but the mountain is as much a body of 

 water as the cake of ice that melts on its brow ; 

 and even the philosopher himself is composed of 

 the same materials with the cloud or meteor which 

 he contemplates. 



Speculation seldom rests where it begins. 

 Others, disallowing the universality of this sub- 

 stance, will not allow that in a state of nature 

 there is any such thing as water at all. What 

 assumes the appearance, say they, is nothing 

 more than melted ice. Ice is the real element 

 of nature's making ; and when found in a state 

 of fluidity, it is then in a state of violence. All 

 substances are naturally hard ; but some more 

 readily melt with heat than others. It requires a 

 great heat to melt iron ; a smaller heat will melt 

 copper : silver, gold, tin, and lead, melt with 

 smaller still : ice, which is a body like the rest, 

 melts with a very moderate warmth ; and quick- 

 silver melts with the smallest warmth of all. 

 Water, therefore, is but ice kept in continual fu- 

 sion ; and still returning to its former state, when 

 the heat is taken away. Between these opposite 

 opinions, the controversy has been carried on 



