Can we behold the blessings He bestows, 
From the proud cedar to the modest rose, 
Wor instant feel our rebel hearts subdu’d 
By that first duty humble pratitude ? 
Tho” short ourken, yet e’en on earth we 
find 
Sorrow oft proves a med’cine to the mind : 
And when this mortal veil, which clouds our 
sight, 
Is pierc’d by immortality’s clear light, 
‘Then, shall we learn the cause of every woe 
Which blighted our unstable joys below: 
Then, causes and effects alike will shine 
The emanations ofa love divine. 
But man, too fond of earth, ne’er looks on 
_ high, 
To read the mystic wonders of the sky ; 
Or, if he read, no steady credénce gives, 
Because he hears, and oft, alas! believes 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
439 
Those fiends accurst, who fain, with sceptig 
leav’n, Beda bay GRA 
Would poison all his confidence in Heav’n. . 
And tho’ calm Reason proves this world dee 
sign’d 
To try, but not to recompence, mankind, 
Still he repines at ev’ry stroke of Fate, 
Nor trusts to blessings in aa after-state. 
Insensate wretch! still suffer, still core 
plain, 
Still seek, with earthly balms, to ease thy 
pain; 
Too late thou’lt learn, his conflicts ne’er can 
cease, 
Who madly slights the only mean of peace 5 _ 
Too late thou’lt find, thy ev’ry hope will 
fades’; 
If plac’d on human, not celestial, aid. 
M.STARKE. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, 
\ E are now to give some account 
. of the experiments made and 
‘described by Mr, Davy, to this learn- 
ed body, on nitrogen, ammonia, and the 
amalgam from ammonia. In reasoning 
on the phenomena produced by the ac- 
tion of potassium upon ammonia, the 
professor suggested, that nitrogen might 
possibly consist of oxygen and hydrogen, 
or, that it might be composed from 
water. 
He has now made a great number of 
laborious experiments, in the hope of solv- 
ing this problem, the results of which, 
though for the most part negative, he has 
fully stated, with the hope of elucidating 
some points of the discussion. ‘The 
formation of nitrogen has been often 
asserted to take place in many processes, 
an which none of its known combina- 
tions were concerned ; and the discovery 
of Priestley, on the passage of gases 
through red-hot tubes of earthen-ware; 
the accurate researches of Bertholiet, 
and the experiments of Bouillon la 
Grange, have afforded a complete solu- 
tion of the problem. One of the most 
striking cases in which nitrogen has been 
suppused to appear, without the pre- 
sence of any other matter but water, 
which can be conceived to supply its 
elements, is in the decomposition and 
recomposition of water by electricity. 
To ascertain if nitrogen could be gene- 
rated in this manner, Mr. Davy had an 
apparatus made, by which a quantity of 
- water could be acted upon by Voltaic 
electricity, so as to produce oxygen and 
hydrogen with great rapidity, and in 
which these gases.could he detonated, 
without the exposure of the water to 
the atmosphere. The water used had 
been most carefully purged of air, and 
after the first detonation of the oxygen 
and hydrozen, there was a residuum ot 
about Ath of the volume of gases, 
and after every succeeding detonation 
this residuum was found to increase, 
till at length, after about fifty detonations 
had been made, it equalled more than 
sth of the volume of the water. This 
being examined by the test of nitrous 
gas, was found to contain no oxygen, 
wut that it consisted of 2°6 of hydrogen, 
and 34 of agas having the characters 
of nitrogen, The experiment seemed 
i favour of the idea of the production 
of nitrogen from pure water, in these 
electrical processes. Another experiment 
was instituted on still more accurate 
principles, the result of which seemed 
to shew. that nitrogen is not formed 
durmg the electrical decomposition and 
recomposition of water, and that the 
residual gas is hydrogen, and that the 
hydrogen should be in excess, was re= 
ferred to a slight oxidation of the pla 
tina. The experiments of Mr, Caven- 
dish on the deflagration of mixtures of 
oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, lead 
directly to the conclusion, that the 
nitrous acid, sométimes generated in 
experiments on the production of water, 
owes its origia to nitrogen, mixed with 
the oxygen and hydrogen, and is never 
produced from these two gases alone; 
and Mr. Davy refers to facts gate 
€ 
* 
