36 ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



every instance considerably attenuated and wasted away admits, indeed, of 

 no doubt ; but to have borne the brunt of so long and incessant a warfare, 

 without actually being worn down to the level of the circumjacent plains, 

 affords no feeble proof of an almost imperishable nature, and a proof open 

 to the contemplation of the most common capacities. 



There are various examples of the Macedonian stater or gold coin, struck 

 in the reign of Philip, at this time preserved in the rich cabinet of the Flo- 

 rence gallery,* which, though they have continued in existence for at least 

 2200 years, do not not appear to have lost any thing of their weight. Bar 

 thelemi, making a trivial mistake in the weight of the drachma, which he 

 calculated at 66.55 grains English, suspected that these had sustained upoR 

 the average a loss of about seven-eighths of a grain during this long period; 

 but as M. Fabbroni has since satisfactorily proved that the drachma was not 

 more than 66.8 grains, and as this is the actual weight of several staters in 

 this cabinet, we have a demonstration that they have sustained no diminution 

 whatever. 



Yet, in its liquid and gaseous state, matter often exhibits still more extra- 

 traordinary instances of indestructibility or resistance to decomposition; and 

 it should be especially remarked, that its indestructibility or indecomposable 

 power appears to hold a direct proportion to its subtility, its levity, its activity, 

 its refined ethereal or spiritualized modification of bemg. 



Water is as much a compound as any of the earths, yet we have strong 

 reason for believing that for the most part it exists unchangeably from age to 

 age ; and that its integrity has been not essentially interfered with from the 

 commencement of the world. Its constituent parts are by no means broken 

 into, but continue the same, whether under a solid form, as that of ice ; under 

 its usual form, as that of a liquid ; or under an elastic form, as that of va^ 

 pour : it is the same in the atmosphere as on the earth ; it falls down of the 

 very same nature as it ascends, and the electric flash itself appears, generally 

 speaking, to have no other influence upon it than that of hastening its precipi- 

 tation. It is only to be decomposed, that we know of, by a very concentrated 

 action of the most powerful chemical agents ; and even this, whether by 

 art or by nature, upon a very limited scale. 



A similar identity appears to exist in atmospheric air, which is, probably, 

 at least as indestructible as water ; for its composition, when purged of the 

 heterogeneous substances whicti are often combined with it, is the same in 

 the deepest valleys as on the highest cliffs ; at the equator, and at the poles ; 

 the earth's surface, and the height of 21,000 feet* above it : in many of which 

 situations, and especially the more elevated, it is impossible for it ever to be 

 generated ; since the constituent parts of which it is composed are not found 

 to exist in a separate state for its production. It is capable, indeed, of de- 

 composition ; but, like water, becomes decomposed with great difficulty, and 

 probably consists at this moment, as to its general mass, of the very identic 

 particles that formed it on its first emerging from a state of chaos. 



Of the composition of the subtler gases we know nothing. The specific 

 weight of several of them has been ascertained, and the constituent principles 

 of one or two of them, as nitrogen and hydrogen, have been guessed at, 

 but nothing more ; for the boldest experiments of chemistry have hitherto 

 been exerted in vain to effect their decomposition. While as to those which 

 are more immediately connected with the principle of animal life, and upon 

 which many schools of modern philosophy have supposed it altogether to de- 

 pend, as caloric, and the electric and voltaic fluids, the last of which seems 

 in truth to be only a peculiar modification of the second, together with other 

 substances or qualities which in subtilty and activity have a considerable 

 resemblance to them, as light and the magnetic aura, we are not only wholly 

 incapable of decomposing them by any process whatever, but even of deter- 

 mining them to be ponderable, or to possess any of the other common pro- 

 perties of matter, as extent and solidity. Whence we are, in fact, incapable 



» See Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 25. 



t See Thomson's Chem. vol. iv. 64, as also Phil. Mag. xxi. 225. 



