156 HISTORY OF 



bounds from the water several times ; which shows 

 it to be elastic also. But the trials of Mr Canton 

 have put this past all doubt ; which being some- 

 what similar to those of the great Boyle, who 

 pressed it with weights properly applied, carried 

 sufficient conviction. 



What has been hitherto related, is chiefly ap- 

 plicable to the elements of water alone ; but its 

 fluidity is a property that it possesses in common 

 with several other substances, in other respects 

 greatly differing from it. That quality which 

 gives rise to the definition of a fluid, namely, 

 that its parts are in a continual intestine motion, 

 seems extremely applicable to water. What the 

 shapes of those parts are, it would be vain to at- 

 tempt to discover; every trial only shows the 

 futility of the attempt : all we find is, that they 

 are extremely minute ; and that they roll over 

 each other with the greatest ease. Some, indeed, 

 from this property alone, have not hesitated to 

 pronounce them globular; and we have in all 

 our hydrostatical books, pictures of these little 

 globes in a state of sliding and rolling over each 

 other. But all this is merely the work of ima- 

 gination ; we know that substances of any kind, 

 reduced very small, assume a fluid appearance, 

 somewhat resembling that of water. Mr Boyle, 

 after finely powdering and sifting a little dry 

 powder of plaster of Paris, put it in a vessel 

 over the fire, where it soon began to boil like 

 water, exhibiting all the motions and appearance 

 of a boiling liquor. Although but a powder, the 

 parts of which we know are very different from 



