310 TRANSFORMATION^ OF CALORIC. 



But I have shewn, from the observations of De 

 Luc on the Alps, and from my own atN. York, that 

 lightning is disengaged rapidly from transparent 

 vapour, by which the latter is condensed into rain. 

 The observations and experiments of De Saus- 

 sure are highly valuable ; while his theoretical 

 views are often inconsistent. He supposed that 

 electricity was destroyed by explosions of thunder ; 

 that is to say, it is generated by evaporation, and 

 destroyed by condensation. But I have already 

 shewn, that such phenomena result from changes 

 of state : and it will be seen hereafter, that there 

 are no assignable limits to the metamorphoses of 

 this subtile agent. They are as diversified as the 

 multitudinous forms of external nature. Though 

 invisible per se, it is everywhere busy in all the 

 transmutations of matter. The fabled Proteus 

 of old, is but a feeble representation of the rapid 

 changes through which it passes now silently 

 bearing the waters of the ocean aloft into the 

 atmosphere in a state of transparent aetherial 

 vapour now darting in vivid corruscations from 

 its aerial palaces on high leaping upon the 

 mountains, and cleaving rocks asunder resound- 

 ing through the heavens with its great music, 

 and sprinkling the earth- with genial showers of 

 fruitful rain. Though constantly changing, it is 

 never destroyed, but is always the same powerful 

 agent by which Infinite Wisdom seems to direct 

 and govern the stupendous frame of the universe. 



