ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



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 Florence gallery,* which, though they have continued in existence for 

 at least 2200 years, do not appear to have lost any thing of their weight 

 Barthelemi, making a trivial mistake in the weight of the drachma, which 

 he calculated at 66.65 grains Enghsh, suspected that these had sustained 

 upon 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 ex- 

 traordinary instances of indestructibility or resistance to decomposition ; 

 and it should be especially rert»arked, that its indestructibility or indecom- 

 posable power appears to hold a direct proportion to its subtilty, its levity, 

 its activity, its refined ethereal or spiritualized modification of being. 



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 vapour : 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 precipitation. 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 which 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 feetf 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, in- 

 deed, of decomposition ; 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 prin- 

 ■ciples of one or two of them, as nitrogene and hydrogene, have been guessed 

 at, but nothing more ; for the boldest experiments of chemistry have hi- 

 therto been exerted in vain to eflfect 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 depend, as caloric, and the electric and voltaic fluids, the last 



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



t See Thomson's Chera. vol. iv. §4., as also Phil. Mag. xxu 22S. 



