In contemplating Nature, we fhall often find the fame fubftances poffeffed of contrary qualities, and producing oppofite effects. Air, which liquifies one fubstance, dries up another. That fire which is feen to burn up the defert, is often found, in other places) to affift the luxuriance of vegetation; and Water, which, next to fire, is the moft fluid fubftance upon earth, gives to all other bodies their firmnefs and durability fo that every element feems to be a powerful fervant, capable of either good or ill, and only awaiting external direction, to become the friend or enemy of mankind. These oppofite qualities, in Water in particular, have not failed to excite the admiration and inquiry of the curious.

That Water is the moft penetrating body next to fire, and the moft difficult to confine, has been proved by various experiments. A veffel through which water cannot pass, may retain any thing. Nor is it any objection, that fyrups and oils will fometimes pass through bodies which hold Water; this not being owing to the greater fubtility and penetrability of their particles, but to the refin with which the wood of fuch veffels abounds, and to which oils and fyrups are as menftruums; fo that, diffolving the refin, they make their way through the spaces left thereby. But Water, on the contrary, not acting on refins, is retained in the fame veffels. And yet it gradually makes its way, even through all woods, and is

retainable only in glafs and metals. It was found, moreover, by an experiment at Florence, that when shut up in a fpherical veffel of gold, and then preffed with great force, it made its way through the pores even of the gold: fo that the most solid body in nature is permeable to Water, under certain circumftances. It is even found more fluid than air; a body being reputed more fluid than anothe when its parts will find way through fmaller pores. Now air, it is well known, will not pass through leather; as is evident in the cafe of an exhaufted receiver covered therewith; but Water will pass through leather with ease. Air, likewife, may be retained in a bladder, which Water oozes through. It is found, indeed, that Water will pafs through pores ten times fmaller than air will.

-But here it must be observed, that M. Homberg accounts for this passage of Water through the narrow pores of animal fubftances, which will not admit the air, on the principle of its moistening and diffolving the glutinous matter of the fine fibres of the membranes, and rendering them more pliable and distractile; which is what the air, for want of a wetting quality, cannot do. As a proof of this doctrine, he filled a bladder, compreffed it with a stone, and found no air to come out; but placing the bladder, thus compreffed, in water, the air easily escaped.

Hence Water, from its penetrative power, may be fuppofed to enter intą

the

is the more common, we conclude it to be the proper one, and afcribe the other to the extraneous action of cold. Boerhaave, however, afferts the contrary, and maintains Water to be naturally of the cryftalline kind; fince, wherever a certain degree of fire is wanting to keep it in fufion, it readily grows into a hard fubftance, under the denomination of ice. Boyle is much of the fame opinion. Ice, he obferves, is commonly reputed to be Water brought into a preternatural ftate by cold; but with regard to the nature of things, and, fetting afide our arbitrary ideas, it might be as justly faid, that Water is ice preternaturally thawed by heat. If it be urged, that ice left to itfelf, will, upon the removal of the freezing agents, return to Water, it may be anfwered, that, not to mention the fnow and ice which lie, during the whole fummer, on the Alps, and other high mountains, even in the torrid zone, we have been affured, that, in fome parts of Siberia, the furface of the ground continues more months in the year frozen by the natural temperature of the climate, than thawed by the heat of the fun; and, a little below the furface of the ground, the water that may happen to be lodged in the cavities there, continues in a state of ice all the year round: fo that, in the heat of summer, when the fields are covered with corn, if you dig a foot or two deep, you will find ice, and a frozen foil.

Water, if it could be had clear and pure, Boerhaave obferves, would have all the requifites of an element, and be as fimple as fire; but no expedient has hitherto been difcovered, for proQuring it fo pure. Rain-water, which feems the pureft of all thofe we know of, is replete with numberlefs exhalations of all kinds, which it imbibes from the air fo that, if filtered and distilled a thousand times, fæces ftill remain. The rain water, moreover, gathered from the roofs of houfes, is a lixivium of the falt of tiles, flate, and the like, impregnated with the

dungs and fæces of the animals, birds, &c. depofited thereon, and the exhalations of numerous other things. It may be added, that all the rainwater, gathered in cities, must at least be faturated with the smoke of a thoufand chimnies, and the various effluvia of a number of perfons, &c. Befide this, fire is contained in all water; as appears from its fluidity, which is owing to fire alone...

As what is in the air neceffarily mixes itfelf with Water, it hence appears impoffible to have fuch a thing as pure Water. If you percolate it through fand, or fqueeze it through pumice; or pafs it through any other body of the fame kind, you will always have falt remaining. Even diftillation cannot render it pure; for it leaves air therein, which neceffarily abounds in corpuscles of all forts.

The Water that flows within, or upon the furface of the earth, contains various earthy, faline, metallic, vegetable, or animal particles, according to the fubftances over or through which they pafs.

The pureft of all waters we can any way obtain, is that distilled from fnow, gathered in a clear, fill, pinching night, in fome very high place; taking none but the outer or fuperficial part of it. By a number of repeated diftillations, the greatest part of the earth, and other fæces, may be feparated from this: and this is what we must be contented to call pure Water. In a word, it is the opinion of Boerhaave, that no perfon ever faw a drop of pure water; that the utmost of its purity known, amounts only to its being free from this or that fort of matter; that it can never, for inftance, be quite deprived of falt; fince air will always accompany it, and air always contains falts.

Many of the most eminent chemists have made experiments, in order to afcertain the converfion of Water into 'earth. Boyle relates, that an ounce of Water, diftilled carefully in glass veffels two hundred times, yielded fix drams of a white, light, infipid earth,

fixed in the air, and indiffoluble in Water. Hence he concludes, that the whole Water, by farther profecuting the operation, might be converted into earth. Godfrey, and others, concur in this opinion; but Boerhaave (who attributes the earth obtained by Boyle to the duft floating in the air, and to the inftruments employed in the operation) is fupported by Macquer, and others, in maintaining, that pure Water is unalterable, and incapable of being decomposed; fo that whatever be the fubitances with which it is combined, when feparated from thefe and fufficiently purified (and alio when diftilled fingly, or mixed with other fubftances) its nature and effential properties ftill remain unchanged.

Water feems to be diffuted every where and to be present in all space, where there is matter. There are few bodies in nature that will not yield Water; and it is even afferted, that fire itself is not without it. Among other remarkable circumftances, it has been obferved, that bones dead and dried twenty-five years, and thus become almost as hard as iron, have yet, by diftillation, afforded half their weight of water.

Water is a very volatile body: it is entirely reduced into vapour, and diffipated, when expofed to the fire and unconfined. Heated in an open veffel, it has been obferved to acquire no more than a certain determinate degree of heat, how intense foever the fire to which it is expofed; which greatest degree of heat is that which it has when it boils quickly.

It was formerly imagined, that water was incompreffible, and, therefore, non-elastic; an opinion, founded on the famous Florentine experiment already mentioned, as proving its penetrative power. But the validity of the inferences drawn from this experiment have been justly queftioned; Mr. Canton having proved, by very

accurate experiments, that Water is actually compreffed by the weight of the atmosphere.

But not to be too diffusive on this fubject, I fhall endeavour to late concifely the nature of the component particles of Water, and then its various ufes.

First: the particles of Water are, as to our fenfes, infinitely fmall, whence their penetrative power. 2. Very fmooth and flippery, or void of any fenfible afperities. 3. Extremely folid. 4. Perfectly transparent, and as fuch invisible *. 5. If Water be confidered as confifting of spherical, or cubical particles, hollow within-fide, and of a firm texture, here will be enough to account for the difficulty of comprefling it, and alfo for its being light, fluid, and volatile; its firmnels and fimilarity will make it refist sufficiently; and its vacuity renders it light enough, &c. And the little contact between fpherules (if, indeed, they touch at all) will account for the weakness of its cohesion. 6. Water is the most infipid of all bodies; the tafte we fometimes obferve therein, not arifing from the mere water, but from falt, vitriol, or other bodies mixed with it. And, laftly, it is perfectly inodorous, and void of the leaft fmell.

The uses of Water are infinite; in food, medicine, agriculture, navigation, and divers of the arts. As a food it is one of the most univerfal drinks in the world; and, if we may credit many of our latest and most judicious phyficians, it is alfo one of the beft. As a medicine, it is found internally a powerful febrifuge; and excellent against colds, coughs, the ftone, fcurvy, &c. Externally, its effects are not lefs confiderable. In agriculture and gardening, Water is allowed abfolutely neceflary to vegetation. Many naturalifts have even maintained it to be the vegetable

matter,

I

THERE is nothing at which am more offended, than the unpardonable vein of ignorance and brutality fo generally introduced in our drinking fongs; nor any thing, in my opinion, which throws a greater reflection on the understanding of a fenfible fociety. If we examine the principal number of these pretty compofitions, we fhall find that abfolute intoxication is recommended as the highest felicity in the world; and we receive the most pofitive affurances of being upon an equality with angels, the very moment we fink ourselves into a fituation confiderably lower than men. To look back to the original defign of all poetical compofition is needlefs, fince every body knows that it was to praise and honour the Supreme Being, with a fervency of devotion, which could not be found in the common form of words. The glorification of the Deity, and the inftruction of his creatures, appearing therefore to be the grand view of poetry, how much is it to be lamented, that an art of fo fublime a nature fhould be profituted to fuch infamous ends, and, inftead of being applied to the purposes of religion and virtue, be directed to the fupport of a vice productive of innumerable ills!

It has been justly observed, that every nation, in proportion as it is civilized, has abolished intemperance in wine, and confequently muft be barbarous in proportion as it is addicted to excefs. The remark, I am apprehenfive, will be found no very great compliment to the people of this kingdom; we are apt to place good

not itself make any addition to them *. Water is of the utmost use in chemiftry; being one of the great inftruments by which all its operations are performed, and it is of the greatest fervice in divers of the mechanical arts, and ordinary occafions of life.

SONGS: An Effay.

fellowship in riot, and have but too natural a promptitude to imagine, that the happiness of an evening is promoted by an extravagant circulation of the glafs: hence, are our fongs of feftivity (as I have already obferved) fraught with continual encomiums on the pleasures of intoxication; and the whole tribe of Bacchanalian lyrics are perpetually telling us, how wonderfully fenfible it is to deftroy our fenfes, and that nothing can be more rational in a human creature, than to drink till he has not left himself a fingle glimmer of reafon. But if, abftracted from the brutal intention of our drinking fongs in general, we should come to confider their merit as literary performances, how very few of them would be found worth a station on a cobler's ftall, or deferving the attention of an auditory at Billingsgate! The beft are but fo many defpicable ftrings of unmeaning puns and ill-imagined conceits, and betray not more the ignorance of their encouragers, than the barrennefs of their authors. Let me only ak the warmeft advocate for this fpecies of compofition, what, upon, cool reflection, he thinks of the following fong:

By the gayly-circling glass,
We can fee how minutes pass:
By the hollow cask we're told,
How the waning night grows
old
Soon, too foon, the busy day,
Calls us from our sports away:
What have we with day to do?
Sons of care, 'twas made for you.

The foreging little fong, though one of the leaft offenfive in the whole round of a bon vivant collection, has

3 A

neither