THt EAaTH. 125 



This water, as thus described, tlierefore, is a very different 

 fluid from that simple elementary substance upon which philo- 

 Bophical theories have been founded ; and concerning the nature 

 of which there have been so many disputes. Elementary water 

 is no way compounded ; but is without taste, smell, or colour ; 

 and incapable of being discerned by any of the senses, except 

 the touch. This is the famous dissolvent of the chymists, into 

 which, as they have boasted, they can reduce all bodies; and 

 which makes up all other substances, only by putting on a dif- 

 ferent disguise. In some forms, i*- is fluid, transparent, and 

 evasive of the touch ; in others, hard, firm, and elastic. In 

 some, it is stiffened by cold ; in others, dissolved by fire. Ao- 

 rording to them, it only assumes external shapes from acciden- 

 tal causes ; but the mountain is as much a body of water, as the 

 9ake of ice that melts on its brow ; and even the philosopher 

 himself is composed of the same materials with the cloud or 

 meteor which he contemplates. 



Speculation seldom rests when it begins. Others, disallow- 

 ing the universality of this substance, will not allow that in a 

 state of nature there is any such thing as water at all. " What 

 assumes the appearance," say they, " is nothing more than melt- 

 ed ice. Ice is the real element of Nature's making ; and when 

 found in a state of fluidity, it is then in a state of violence. All 

 substances are naturally hard ; but some more readily melt with 

 heat than others. It requires a great heat to melt iron •, a 

 smaller heat will melt copper ; silver, gold, tin, and lead, mell 

 with smaller still-, ice, which is a body like the rest, melts 

 with a very moderate warmth ; and quicksilver melts with the 

 smallest warmth of all. Water, therefore, is but ice kept in 

 :;ontinual fusion ; and still returning to its former state, when 

 the heat is taken away." Between these opposite opinions, the 

 controversy has been carried on v\ith great ardour, and much 

 has been written on both sides ; and yet when we come to ex- 

 amine the debate, it will probably terminate in this question, 

 whether cold or heat first began their operations upon water' 

 This is a fact of very little importance, if known ; and, what is 

 more, it is a fact we can never know. 



Indeed, if we examine into the operations of cold and heat 

 upon water, we shall find that they produce somewhat similar 

 effects. Water dilates in its bulk, by heat, to a very consider. 



I, -S 



