226 METEORIC STONES. 



vations, and a greater variety of specimens, shall enable us to 

 reconcile the discrepancy, and to push still farther our 

 inquiries into the nature of the new substance, a knowledge 

 of the internal structure of the moon may be the splendid 

 reward of our investigations. And, while the labours of the 

 astronomer and optician are introducing new worlds to our 

 notice, Chemistry may, during the nineteenth century, as 

 wonderfully augment our acquaintance with their produc- 

 tions and arrangement, as she has already, within a much 

 shorter period,' enlarged our ideas of the planet which we 

 inhabit.* 



* This Tract is a paper contributed to the Edinburgh Eeview, and 

 printed in the number for January, 1804. The subject has since undergone 

 much further investigation ; and opinions are greatly changed upon it. 

 This Tract was designed as a sifting of the evidence by which the facts are 

 proved, and those facts resting on that evidence have formed the ground 

 of all the subsequent investigations. Note V. 



