stability, was added merely to prevent all quibbling and cavil; for, in reality, every body knows, that the general proposition includes the particular. 2. That to assert, that "a plant, notoriously dead," is capable of bestowing life on a new and beautiful successor, is to apply the word dead in a sense unknown to correct language. 3. That ifany ungentlemanly expression has escaped me, I beg to apologise for it; but that, on reading over again the letter in question, I see nothing in it that should justly incur that. censure. 4. That when a man appears, in a publication like this, as the declared advocate of a particular opinion, his antagonist is not justly chargeable with inaccuracy, though he should denominate the matter respecting which they differ, the point at issue. The inaccuracy is on the side of Mr. Teulon. 5. That I disclaim the notion, that the world is eternal; and contend only for the undisturbed and regular operation of its laws, from their first establishment to our own times. 6. That when Mr. Teulon says, "if the laws of nature are stable, he must believe that the past and future order of things have been, and will be, essentially different from the present,' there must, I presume, be an error of the press; for the sentence, as it now stands, is at cross-purposes with itself. 7. That if it will contribute in any measure to gratify Mr. Teulon, I readily confess, that the articles he refers to, are mine as are likewise two others; the one signed A. B. on Particular Providence, p. 409 the other, bearing the same initials, on Superstition, p. 471. Your's, &c. Pentonville, January, 1812. A DEIST. To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, AFTER the very able lucubrations of " the Reflector," and more particularly that part of them contained in his sixth number, there will be, I believe, few of your readers who do not most fully assent to the truth of his assertion, that man is “ the slave of his passions.' 66 Impressed with the idea that example must be infinitely more efficacious than argument, however supported by reason or precept-however derived from observation-he appears to have determined on affording your readers an instance in his own person of the correctness of his position, by exhibiting to them the perhaps no very novel spectacle of a man, who set out by inviting discussion, becoming enraged at the first shew of opposition, and difference of opinion on the part of those, who ought silently to have submitted to the dogmas, and to have quietly acquiesced in the decisions of one, recommended to their favour by so respectable and dignified an appellation as that of a" Reflector !" To the uninformed and unenlightened part of your readers a Reflector in a passion, or a Reflector "hurried away by the warmth of his feelings into intemperate language," may appear a solecism in terms, the more particularly when he sets out with affirming that one of the ends proposed by his reflections is the teaching us "effectually to check the impetuosity of our unruly passions."* This circumstance however, when properly considered, will only tend to strengthen the maxims and confirm the assertions of our practical philosopher; for if the tutelary genius of reflection himself has proved the slave of passion, can the more humble votaries of his shrine expect to arrive at superior excellence? Ifthe very man who (like the mad astronomer of Cairo) claims dominion over the contending elements, if he be himself the victim of their fury, can we poor mortals, "crawling between heaven and earth," expect to escape from their destructive influence?-surely not. The Venus! the Apollo !! and "the Reflector" !!! were last month left by your readers enjoying a horse laugh—a noble trio most excellently and appropriately employed! As the reign of Momus was thus established, and merriment was the order of the day, a dance was perhaps as natural as a laugh ; and who knows but such might have actually taken place, after the Reflector had wiped the gall from his "grey-goose-quill," which might then have formed an admirable and characteristic ornament to his person, while hopping through a reel with his marble companions?-or had the muse of pantomime been present, she might perhaps have found in the beauty of the Venus, and the grace of the Apollo, admirable materials for the formation of the motley hero, and his fair companion; whilst "the Reflector," tricked out in the characteristic habiliments of their intrusive and mimicking pursuer, would still have formed one in a trio, of which himself was the most prominent object, and might have continued to enjoy the satis-faction of laughing till his sides shook-at his own jokes. Some of your readers may perhaps have been surprised at the Reflector's associating himself with the two master-pieces of human art; there are however many points of contact which at once justify and account for the assumption--they are all originals-they are all unequalled in their way; and "the Reflector" Vol. i. page 210. would probably cut no bad figure in the niche of either the Venus or the Apollo. Placed in the former, he surely, "devoid of sense, Would stand a statue to enchant the world;" while, from his dogmatical spirit and assuming pretensions to infallibility, few would be found perhaps more worthy to succeed the latter-on the Belvidere of the VATICAN. I remain, Sir, your's and the noble triumvirate's very humble servant, Paddington, Jan. 4, 1812., ASMODEUS. IT ON WATER BALLOONS. pursue, "Led by the sage,* lo! Britain's sons shall guide To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, Tis but very lately that I met with Darwin's beautiful Poems, called the Botanic Garden, and among them with the above extract and notes on it. I was much pleased with it, as I have not met with the same thought concerning Water Balloons in any other writer. It reminded me of a conversa *Led by the sage.--Dr. Priestley's discovery of the production of pure air from such variety of substances will probably be soon applied to the improvement of the diving bell, as the substances which contain vital air in immense quantities are of little value, as manganese and minium. In every hundred weight of minium is contained about 12lb. of pure air; as tion, about two years since, with some valuable friends; in the course of which conversation, it was asserted, that as God had given dominion to man over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air; man could not be said to have attained the universal sovereignty for which his great Creator designed him, till such time as he was enabled by the exercise of his mechanical and philosophical knowledge, to travel through the aquatic and aerial regions, with the same certainty as he now can go over the earth. The meeting with the above passage in Darwin has revived with accumulated force my former ideas, and led me to consider the principal hindrances to the perfecting the diving bell, and the formation of Sea Balloons, which might make under-water excursions more certain, profitable, and pleasant, than sailing in ships.. The perfecting the Diving Bell would soon lead to higher exertions of philosophical and mechanical ingenuity; but this can never be accomplished, till such time as the air, which has been satiated with azotic gas in respiration, can be purified and rendered fit for breathing over again. That I may make myself clearly understood, I would notice, that the internal surface of the lungs, or air vessels, "is said to be equal to the external surface of the whole body: it is on this extended surface that the blood is exposed through the medium of a thin pellicle to the influence of the respired air."* Every breath we inhale spreads the atmospheric air over this external surface of air vessels on the lungs, which air vessels imbibe the oxygen and throw off the hydrogen and carbonic acid gas. "The blood, which when it arrived at the lungs was purple, by imbibing the oxygen through the air vessels, changes its dark colour to a brilliant red, rendering it the spur to the action of the heart and arteries, the source of animal heat, and the cause of sensibility, irritability, and motion."+ The blood thus changed, goes through the heart into the arteries, 60lb. of water are about a cubic foot, and as air is 800 times lighter than water, 5cwt. of minium will produce 800 cubic feet of air, or about 6000 gallons. Now as this is at least three times as pure as atmospheric air, a gallon may be supposed to serve for three minutes respiration for one man. At present the air cannot be set at liberty from minium by vitriolic acid without the combination of some heat; this is, however, very likely, to be soon discovered, and will then enable adventurers to journey beneath the ocean in large inverted ships or diving balloons.--Mr, Boyle relates, that Cornelius Debrelle contrived not only a vessel to be rowed under water, but also a liquor to be carried in that vessel which would supply the want of fresh air. The vessel was made by order of James I. and carried twelve rowers besides passengers. It was tried in the river Thames, and one of the persons who was in that submarine voyage told the particulars of the experiment to a person who related them to Mr. Boyle Annual Register for 1774, p. 248. Darwin. Dr. Thornton, veins, &c. till coming to the capillary vessels, the oxygen, enveloped in that part the blood which becomes perspiration, carries it from the bods through them a id the pores. That this is the picoss of nature appears evident, or what becomes of the autody of oxreen air, swallowed by quaphy every human being, in the core of one day ? By the rise of the bres t-bene in man, and the de cent of the diaphragm, room is afforded be 42 maio tutes of atmospheric air at every drawing in of the breath; a dreper inspiration will give roun to more than twice this quantity.” * Lavoisiere calculates that a man consumes 82 ounces troy of oxygen gas in 20 hours. As man emits only azotic and carbonic gases, we have no posible way of accounting for this immense consumption of oxygen, but by supposing that it is this that goes through our pores, carrying with it the aqueous particles of the blood in perspication, and that the retention of this gas (owing to colds, contracted or stopped capillary vessels) in the cuticular pores, is the primary and probably the sole cause of gout, scurvy, rheutismi, &c. If this theory is right, it follows, that it would be a grand desideratum in the art of Water Ballooning, to find out a means, by chemical affinity, to separate the perspirable matter from the oxygen, and render that gas again pure, and fit for respiration. It is evident that all the air originally in the bell, when the diver entered it still continues in it; but then it was atmospheric air; now, having been decomposed, it is azote and oxygen enveloped in perspirable matter, but both probably in a state of separation; to purify then the oxygen, and re-combine it with the azote and carbon into atmospheric air is the desirable object. There seems, to me, to be requisite for an investigation of this kind, some more experiments upon the gases than I believe have yet been made; such as, whether oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen, are capable of uniting in their just proportion, and forming atmospheric air, without undergoing a chemical process? Whether the oxygen that comes through the pores with insensible perspiration, is fitted to burn flame in it? Whether if this oxygen could be purified, it would again re-unite with, the azote and carbon that has been before breathed? or whether there could by any mechanism be made, a van that should by constantly turning round in the diving bell, and dashing about the water at the bottom, occasion the sea water to imbibe the separated gases, and give out in place of them atmospheric air? The account given by Mr. Boyle of M. Debrelle's underwater boat, if correct, would shew that there was some simple Keill's Anatomy. + Parkes. |