C44 ON THE ELECTRIC COLUMN. 



atmospheric air, as being a fluid sui generis, and not a mix- 

 ture of two aeriform Jluids differing in their nature, as has 

 been concluded from specious phenomena produced in our 

 experiments ; but these phenomena 1 have explained in my 

 Avorks, without supposing such a mixture, in itself contrary 

 to a number of atmospheric phenomena. This I shall here 

 successively explain, though not with so many particulars 

 as are contained in my works. 

 „ . Rain will be my first object J and indeed it ought to be so 



in every general system of chemistry, since no phenomenon, 

 cither spontaneous ©r artificially produced, is more connected 

 with the manifestation of water in the modifications oi" 

 expansible Jiuids ; and none certainly is attended with greater 

 consequences on our globe. With a view of supporting the 

 new hypothesis of a certain composition of water, from which 

 and its associate hypothesis of two distinct and defined 

 aeriform fluids in the atmosphere, rain, so common a phe- 

 nomenon, cannot be explained, the ancient and already 

 F.taporatian exploded hypothesis of Mr. Le Roy, of evaporation being a 

 ' a*so]'utk>n*of ^ dissolution of water by air, has been revived. This hypo- 

 ■w/'tBt in air : thesis, the only apparent resourceof the modern theory of che- 

 mistry, was plausible at the time of its first publication, about 

 60 years ago, when meteorological observations were very 

 little advanced ; becauseitis certain, thatevaporationrestores, 

 upon the whole, to the atmosphere, the same quantity of wofer 

 as falls from it in rain, dew, and other aqueous meteors : 

 but from a number of well determined phenomena, dis- 

 covered by the progress of observation, this compensation is 

 not immediate : that water, which ascends in the atmosphere 

 . -^ -water ^Y ^^P^^f^^^ont passes through an intermediate State ; under- 

 1* changed inio going a cA^wjica/ transmutation, which makes it disappear 

 2*"* to all our; tests, sometimes for many months, it being then 



tra. ormed ujto an aeriform jiuid', and it must be by some 

 inverse operation, that, all at once, clouds, rain, and the 

 other concomitant phenomena are produced. I shall show 

 hereafter how unfounded, as well as useless, is an hypothesis 

 imagined for evading the consequences, of these phenomena, 

 which I have opposed to the new theory ef chemistry; but 

 llrst, I must proceed farther in the account of the phe- 

 nomena themselves. 



The 



