[ 838 ] 
manufactured into linen, or paper. In fhort, upon a 
progrefs in this inquiry, he finds, that both this, 
which he obtained from his forge, and the native 
albeftos, is nothing more, as he terms it, than cal- 
cined iron, deprived of the phlogiftic j and that, by 
uniting the phlogiftic, either with this, or the foftile 
amianthus, he can reftore it, at any time, to its pri- 
mitive ftate of iron. Does not this, with the dis- 
covery of lava, pummice-ftones, iron in a perfect 
ftate, and, in fine, many other maces of fire obferved 
in moft of the mountains, particularly in all the great 
chains, and remarkably in all thofe under the equator, 
which are the higheft upon the globe, feem to indi- 
cate, that the dry land, with all its eminencies, was 
originally raifed out of the waters, by the force of 
fubterraneous fire ? 
I am. 
With great refpeCl and efteem* 
Reverend Sir, 
Your moft obedient, 
humble fervant, 
Paris, May 17, 1760. x. Needham. 
LXXIII. An 
