50 



powers because it possesses a peculiar 

 apparatus. 



Sir Humphrey Davy's experiments 

 also lead us to believe, that it is electri- 

 city, extricated and accumulated in ways 

 not clearly understood, which causes those 

 sudden and powerful motions in masses 

 of inert matter, which we occasionally 

 witness with wonder and dismay; that 

 it is electricity which causes the whirl- 

 wind, and the water spout, and which 

 ** with its sharp and sulphurous bolt splits 

 the unwedgeable and gnarled oak/' and de- 

 stroys our most stabile edifices ; that it 

 is electricity which by its consequences 

 makes the firm earth tremble, and throws 

 up subterraneous matter from volcanos. 



When therefore we perceive in the 

 universe at large, a cause of rapid and 



