ALL SOLIDS COMPOUND. 29 



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While I submit this fact as an example, it must be observed 

 that I afterwards operated on the same mineralized body with 

 the appropriate agents to obtain the metals in a separate and 

 pure state, which proved satisfactory. 



If we reflect for a moment on the necessity for lateral cohe- 

 sion as an indispensable requisite in all solids, and that cohesion, 

 vertical or lateral, must, and can only, be induced and sustained 

 by the union of the poles of the atoms of an original element in 

 opposite states of electricity, one atom must present its positive 

 pole to the negative pole of the next atom, and so on in regular 

 succession ; and consequently, if those poles are the only points 

 of chemical union or adhesion, the lateral surfaces of such 

 atoms cannot exert any attraction whatever on the surfaces of 

 similar atoms whose poles are already united to others verti- 

 cally : therefore the aggregation of molecules of one simple 

 elementary body cannot be expected to constitute a solid, and 

 consequently all solids must be formed of two or three original 

 elements in equal and various proportions, or in conjunction 

 with one, two or three compound molecules formed of the same 

 original elements, by which means the compound molecule of 

 the solid body will display in the first place vertically the posi- 

 tive and negative poles of the compound molecule so formed, 

 and next on the lateral sides will exhibit certain poles of the 

 several atoms which are the opposite poles of those engaged by 

 contact in the centre of the molecule. 



From such arrangement it would be reasonable to conclude 

 that the first compound molecule of a solid is in many instances 

 a nucleus on which the other molecules form by aggregation 

 and that supposing the compound molecule to be ternary, 

 and that the solid assumes the crystalline form, it would natu- 

 rally exhibit the tetrahedron, if composed of the three original 

 elements, the simple prism, if formed of two original elements 

 and one compound molecule, and the cube if a quaternary 

 compound molecule, which being originally spherical submits 

 to compression " like the pristine cylindrical form of the 



