Volume I Part 17 (1/2)

Acids from vegetable recrements. Flint has its acid from the new world.

Its base in part from the old world, and in part from the new. Precious stones 215

Diamond. Its great refraction of light. Its volatibility by heat. If an inflammable body. 228

Fires of the new world from fermentation. Whence sulphur and bitumen by sublimation, the clay, coal, and flint remaining 275

Colours not distinguishable in the enamel-kiln, till a bit of dry wood is introduced 283

Etrurian pottery prior to the foundations of Rome. Excelled in fine forms, and in a non-vitreous encaustic painting, which was lost till restored by Mr. Wedgwood. Still influences the taste of the inhabitants 291

Mr. Wedgwood's cameo of a slave in chains, and of Hope 315

Ba.s.so-relievos of two or more colours not made by the antients. Invented by Mr. Wedgwood 342

Petroleum and naptha have been sublimed. Whence jet and amber. They absorb air. Attract straws when rubbed. Electricity from electron the greek name for amber 353

Clefts in granite rocks in which metals are found. Iron and manganese found in all vegetables. Manganese in limestone. Warm springs from steam rising up the clefts of granite and limestone. Ponderous earth in limestone clefts and in granite. Copper, lead, iron, from descending materials. High mountains of granite contain no ores near their summits.

Trans.m.u.tation of metals. Of lead into calamy. Into silver 398

Armies of Cambytes destroyed by famine, and by sand-storms 435

Whirling turrets of sand described and explained 478

Granite shews iron as it decomposes. Marble decomposes. Immense quant.i.ty of charcoal exists in limestone. Volcanic slags decompose, and become clay 523

Millstones raised by wooden pegs 524

Hannibal made a pa.s.sage by fire over the Alps 534

Pa.s.sed tense of many words twofold, as driven or drove, spoken or spoke.

A poetic licence 609

CANTO III.

Clouds consist of aqueous spheres, which do not easily unite, like globules of quicksilver, as may be seen in riding through water. Owing to electricity. Snow. Hailstones rounded by attrition and dissolution of their angles. Not from frozen drops of water 15

Dew on points and edges of gra.s.s, or hangs over cabbage-leaves, needle floats on water 18

Mists over rivers and on mountains. Halo round the moon. Shadow of a church-steeple upon a mist. Dry mist, or want of transparency of the air, a sign of fair-weather 20

Tides on both sides of the earth. Moon's tides should be much greater than the earth's tides. The ocean of the moon is frozen 61

Spiral form of sh.e.l.ls saves calcareous matter. Serves them as an organ of hearing. Calcareous matter produced from inflamed membranes. Colours of sh.e.l.ls, labradore-stone from mother-pearl. Fossil sh.e.l.ls not now found recent 66

Sea-insects like flowers. Actinia 82