OF SOLIDS AND LIQUIDS. 227 



exhausted one. Air, therefore,, confined in 

 close vessels, whose solid sides fraye the power 

 to restrain, and to subdue its expansive force, 

 weighed in ai> exhausted medium, will be 

 found more ponderable, than the same bulfe pf 

 air rarified ; and air rarified, more poiiderar 

 ble than the subtile and residuary matter, left 

 in the exhausted receiver ; for, however com- 

 plete the exhaustion of the air in the receiver 

 may appear, it, nevertheless, continues always 

 to he a plenum a plenum of air, dilated to the 

 extreme., which no instrument whatever can 

 exhaust. 



The best air-pump that has ever been 

 constructed, can only exhaust the air it conr 

 tains, twelve hundred times its original bulk,-r- 

 an4 the Torrcellian tube, which is consi- 

 dered the most perfect mode we possess of 

 abstracting air out of space, can never abstract 

 rays of light, more than of color, or of fire r out 

 of it; or prevent them from flowing into it; 

 and by filling space, effectually prevent tjie 

 existence of a void, 



I will not pretend to say, what might have 

 been the condition of things, at the beginning, 

 when the earth was without form, and void 5 

 or, as it probably might be better rendered, 

 when the earth was without form, when void, 

 and when darkness were on the face pf the 

 (Jeep. Certain, however, it is, that after Gad 



Q2 



