442 CAVENDISH. 



horizontal oscillation took place. This was measured ; 

 and the oscillation caused by the earth on a pendulum 

 being known, as well as the relative specific gravities 

 of lead and water, it was found, upon the medium of 

 his observations, that the earth's density is to that of 

 water as eleven to two, or five-and-a-half times greater. 

 Dr. Hutton, who repeated his calculations, made the 

 result five three-tenths, or as fifty-three to ten. Maske- 

 lyne's experiments at Schehallion made the proportion 

 as five to one. Zach's experiment on a smaller hill near 

 Marseilles did not give a result materially different. 



A paper on the civil year of the Hindus, connected, 

 like Newton's chronological works, with astronomical 

 researches, an account of a new eudiometer, and some 

 papers on electricity, form the rest of this great philo- 

 sopher's works ; and altogether they shrink into a very 

 inconsiderable bulk compared with the voluminous 

 works of inferior men. In this, as in other respects, 

 we trace his resemblance to Black. Indeed the admi- 

 rable contrivance of their experiments their circum- 

 spect preparation of the ground by previous discussion 

 of principles the cautious following of facts, and yet 

 the resolute adoption of legitimate consequences in their 

 generalizations the elegance of their processes, and the 

 conciseness of their descriptions and remarks, with an 

 unsparing rejection of every thing superfluous forms the 

 characteristic of both those illustrious students of nature. 

 While, as regards Cavendish's writings, it has been, and 

 as regards Black's it might have been, justly said by one 

 that every sentence will bear the microscope ; another 

 writer, the most eminent of his successors, has, with equal 

 truth, described his processes as of so finished a nature, 



