or whether many which are included may not be further 

 analyzed by increased galvanic force ; for this would not affect 

 the present theory, as they would still show that they belonged 

 to the same series ; as do the different colors when subdivided 

 into lesser shades. 



If oxygen gas is 16 times heavier than hydrogen, we may 

 infer that one atom of the former occupies, under the same tem- 

 perature, (if the size be affected by temperature,) just one 16th 

 of the space occupied by the latter in proportion to its real 

 amount of matter, and that the series depends on the gradation 

 of size in the atoms or original particles of the different elements. 

 Here we have the first series in the secret operations of nature. 

 It depends on the size of atoms. The second stries ranges from 

 transparency to opacity, and depends on the arrangement of 

 atoms in the mass. The third series ranges from the aeriform 

 to the solid state, and depends on the form of atoms. 



We can change a transparent substance into an opake state, 

 merely by increasing its thickness, and without, in the least, 

 changing its composition, and we can also change the solid form 

 to the liquid or aeriform, by an increase of temperature, without 

 apparently changing the chemical composition ; it is evident that 

 these properties depend on calorific motion and mechanical ar- 

 rangement. But the original gases have not, by any agency yet 

 known, been thus transmuted into each other ; we have never 

 seen oxygen expanded by heat into hydrogen, nor have we seen 

 the latter condensed by cold or pressure into oxygen ; and yet it 

 is not certain that such an effect cannot be produced. It may be 

 that their original difference depends on their different degrees of 

 susceptibility to calorific motion. Oxygen, by the application of 

 heat assumes the character of a conductor of electricity, a prop- 

 erty which belongs to hydrogen and not to itself in the normal 

 state. Expand oxygen until its volume equals that of an equal 

 weight of hydrogen, and what are their properties in relation to 

 each other ? How are we to learn ? The moment they are 

 brought in contact, the heat of the former is transferred to the 

 heat of the latter, its volume is expanded as far beyond its ordin- 



