84 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO irr. 



Or mark how Oxygen with Azote-Gas 



Plays round the globe in one aerial mass, 



Or fused with Hydrogen in ceaseless flow 



Forms the wide waves, which foam and roll below. 



Next with illumined hands through prisms bright 

 Pleased they untwist the sevenfold threads of light ; 

 Or, bent in pencils by the lens, convey 

 To one bright point the silver hairs of Day. 20 



Then mark how two electric streams conspire 

 To form the resinous and vitreous fire; 



How Oaygen, I. 13. The atmosphere which surrounds us, is com- 

 posed of twenty-seven parts of oxygen gas and seventy-three of azote 

 or nitrogen gas, which are simply diffused together, but which, when, 

 combined, become nitrous acid. Water consists of eighty-six parts 

 oxygen, and fourteen parts of hydrogen or inflammable air, in a state 

 of combination. It is also probable, that much oxygen enters the 

 composition of glass; as those materials which promote vitrification, 

 contain so much of it, as minium and manganese; and that glass is 

 hence a solid acid in the temperature of our atmosphere, as water is 

 a fluid one. 



Two electric streams, 1. 21. It is the opinion of some philosophers, 

 that the electric ether consists of two kinds of fluids diffused together 

 or combined; which are commonly known by the terms of positive 

 and negative electricity, but are by these electricians called vitreous 

 and resinous electricity. The electric shocks given by the torpedo 



