MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. NOTES ON A NEW METHOD OF CHEMISTRY.* Page 43. Note. Bidding him, therefore, take a piece of a leaden spout fastened to the wall of the room, and melt it, the chemist threw in a little yellow powder; then pouring the whole upon the ground, the lead was all gold. What became of this gold? Did the gold weigh six drachms? Was it assayed? It is verily a lame testimony. Had Frederick III. no political design in spreading the belief of the chryso-poietic powers? Ibid., p. 56. Gold. Copper. Iron, &c. &c. Platinum might be marked O♂ Gold + Iron, or rather Gold +(+ Iron); i. e., Iron acting positively, where(Iron) would signify, Iron acting privatively, by diminution of specific gravity. * A New Method of Chemistry; including the Theory and Practice of that Art. By H. Boerhäave. Translated from the printed Edition, collated with the best Manuscript Copies. By P. Shaw, M.D., and E. Chambers, gent. 4to. London. 1727. (se nedy shows good in the middle, or body ČASTI, radice, and a corrosive at bottom; kariner il me deu sy of mercury that it is gold at bar, virtue is harness, the cutside is silver, whence is vite sicur ju tha there is a pernicious corrosive suptur adherai imced by the cross; that if its mes mi is serrate could be taken away, it would sman gil. fat de qumary of sphur is here so great, sumer I vil, rembustible by fre; that the more 'tis jurat de parer i am a be gold; and that were it prezy sinei ani purried, so its colour changed, it VALİ NE FAL Hire de subter at be supposed to mean the **s i lựu ya no neutralised by gravitation, super-exverbal-From this point of view, viz., that the thing gzetemelen frun sire mortuum) was DAM SYT NOUL for the powers, and the materia nenomen tuon med as the magnetic and electrical materne, the slehemists may perhaps be jecipherable in intelligible notions. Trud p. 60 Note. Again, clay Joes not show the least sign of any metal, work is how you will, without mixing; but add linseed oil to it, and by fre you will have a metal, which is no other than real iron The clay of course contained the iron, the linseed oil supplying the carbon for its separation. But with regard to plants and to the blood, it is more doubtful, it would be so very difficult to weigh with sufficient accuracy the various volatile products, with the oxygen used in the burning. Ibid., p. 72. The second character of mercury is to be the most fluid of all bodies, i. e. its parts separate and recede from each other by the smallest force; consequently, of all bodies it is that whose parts cohere the least, or are the least tenacious, and therefore of all others the least ductile and malleable. So I Here is an instance from which we may learn the utility of a just definition. Mercury is è contra the least fluid of all bodies, under an equal specific portion of heat-i. e., equally fused. For the only tenable definition of a fluid is a body the parts of which are not interdistinguishable by figure. Now mercury retains its globoseness ad infinitum. reasoned, but I see the defect of the logic (though I nevertheless retain my objection to the proper fluidity of quicksilver). Globoseness, is the μopon aμoppos, the figure that necessarily results from the indifference or equilibrium of all dimensions. Schelling's definition of fluid is incorrect, because inadequate. An equilibrium of the whole, which prevents its being parts at all, but by accidental force, ab extra, not favoured, but counteracted by the essential character of the proper fluid. In short, melting is not fluidising. Ibid., The parts of water do not divide so readily as those of quicksilver; and the parts of oil much less; there is a certain tenacity even in the parts of spirits of wine, which resists a separation; but there is scarce any cohesion at all in the parts of mercury. It is in vain to reason on these facts, till we have formed distinct conceptions of the difference between |