26 . CARBON A COMPOUND. 



of contact of the platina wires (at which alone it is visible), and 

 by which the re-union of the electricities had been effected, the 

 power of sustaining the weights immediately ceases ; I would 

 ask, do not more than analogous probabilities exist, to counte- 

 nance the opinion that the combination of the two electricities 

 (as they are called at present), is the cause of that species of 

 attraction which may be termed GRAVITATION; and it may be 

 presumed to follow, that the electrical forces are produced by 

 the separation of the constituents of LIGHT, and that their re- 

 union produces the phenomena here described ? 



CARBON is denominated and considered in all chemical works 

 as an original undecompounded body or element. 



For the following reasons, I conclude it is a compound. 

 First, that it has never yet been reduced to the state of a homoge- 

 neous gas ; that it is generally procured in the form of char 'coal 

 from organized vegetable bodies, which are known by analysis 

 to be absolute compounds ; that it is the residuum (and in great 

 bulk) of such bodies submitted to ignition, that its colour un- 

 der such circumstances is black, which may be composed of 

 the three primary colored rays already described. Secondly, 

 that carbon in the state of the diamond, accompanied by its 

 water of crystallization, cannot be resolved otherwise than by 

 ignition in oxygen gas into carbonic acid gas. Why not into 

 CARBONIC gas ? if an original element it ought to be so con- 

 verted, but it resists (or as yet has done so,) all the powers ol* 

 analysis we have been able to bring against it. 



The learned President of the Section A,* for mathematics 

 and physics, at the late meeting of the British Association at 

 Liverpool, informed us of his opinion that the diamond was 

 produced from a vegetable jelly, assuming a crystalline form, 

 but appearing to have laminar coats which indicated a confirma- 

 tion of his views as to its vegetable origin. 



I am most ready to accord in the opinion of the learned 



* Sir David Brewster. 



