272 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
vention of the electric conductors, by our own Franklin, by 
which the destroying bolt was arrested in its course, and di- 
verted through a channel in which its energies became con- 
fined, and were rendered powerless. 
These facts, when dwelt upon, are calculated to arrest the 
mind of the observer, and to induce him to regard with inte- 
rest, subjects which he may have previously considered as 
entirely abstract and unconnected with himself; but let him 
proceed from these, and follow in his mind the various trades- 
men and artificers, in the pursuit of their daily toil, and he 
will scarce fail to discover in each some application of chemi- 
cal science, by which their labours are accomplished, or the 
product of their hands improved. 
In extracting and reducing the metals from their natural 
combinations, or ores, so that they may resume their individual 
properties of malleability, ductility, and tenacity, chemistry 
has rendered an aid to mechanical science, without which it 
could scarcely have had an existence. The agriculturist who 
improves his lands, and is enabled to renew their vigor when 
exhausted by repeated cultivation, is equally indebted to 
chemistry, for a knowledge of the materials of which his soil 
is composed, — in what it is deficient, and how that deficiency 
may be supplied. The navigator has been taught, by the 
inductions of chemical philosophy, how the copper sheathing 
with which his vessel is protected may be rendered and pre- 
served bright ; and a powerful mechanical agency has recently 
been put in motion, which, from the representation of those 
who have witnessed its operations, bids fair to rival the ex- 
pansive force of steam itself,' — owing its development and 
even existence to the investigations and experiments of che- 
mists. Chemistry has shown that the simple immersion of 
two metallic surfaces in a weak acid solution, generates a heat 
that has been found capable of fusing the hardest substances, 
and of causing the combustion of platina itself, one of the 
most fixed of all the metals; that the same simple combi- 
nation, reduced in size, and immersed in a weaker solution, 
gives out an energy, that when properly applied, creates a 
magnetic force requiring a powerful exertion to overcome 
