itself indefinitely over the adjacent country, helps us greatly to conceive the manner in which the coal of the ancient carboniferous rocks may have been formed. The heat, perhaps, may not have been excessive when the coal measures originated, but the entire absence of frost, with a warm and damp atmosphere, may have enabled tropical forms to flourish in latitudes far distant from the line. Huge swamps in a rainy climate, standing above the level of the surrounding firm land, and supporting a dense forest, may have spread far and wide, invading the plains, like some European peat-mosses when they burst, and the frequent submergence of these masses of vegetable matter beneath seas or estuaries, as often as the land sank down during subterranean movements, may have given rise to the deposition of strata of mud, sand, or limestone, immediately upon the vegetable matter. The conversion of successive surfaces into dry land, where other swamps supporting trees may have formed, might give origin to a continued series of coal measures of great thickness. In some kinds of coal the vegetable texture is apparent throughout under the microscope; in others, it has only partially disappeared; but even in this coal, the flattened trunks of trees of the genera Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, and others, converted into pure coal, are occasionally met with, and erect fossil trees are observed in the overlying strata, terminating downwards in seams of coal.

125. THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER.

SIR H. DAVY. The Unknown-PERSONS in general look at the magnificent fabric of civilized society as the result of the accumulated labour, ingenuity, and enterprise of man through a long course of ages, without attempting to define what has been owing to the different branches of human industry and science; and usually attribute to politicians, statesmen, and warriors, a much greater share than really belongs to them in the work ;-what they have done is in reality little. The beginning of civilization is the discovery of some useful arts by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives superiority to particular nations; and the love of power induces them to employ this superiority to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and ultimately adopt their manners; --so that in reality the origin, as well as the progress and improvement of civil society is founded in mechanical and chemical inventions. No people have ever arrived at any degree of perfection in their institutions who have not possessed in a high degree the useful and refined arts. The comparison of savage and civilized man, in fact, demonstrates the triumph of chemical and mechanical philosophy as the causes not only of the physical, but ultimately even of moral improvement. Look at the condition of man in the lowest state in which we are acquainted with him. Take the native of New Holland, advanced only a few steps above the animal creation, and that principally by the use of fire; naked, defending himself against wild beasts, or killing them for food only by weapons made of wood hardened in the fire, or pointed with stones or fish-bones; living only in holes dug out of the earth, or in huts rudely constructed of a few branches of trees covered with grass: having no approach to the enjoyment of luxuries or even comforts; unable to provide for his most pressing wants; having a language scarcely articulate, relating only to the great objects of nature, or to his most pressing necessities or desires, and living solitary or in single families; unacquainted with religion, government or laws, submitted to the mercy of nature or the elements. How different is man in his highest state of cultivation ! every part of his body covered with the products of different chemical and mechanical arts made not only useful in protecting him from the inclemency of the seasons, but combined in forms

of beauty and variety; creating out of the dust of the earth, from the clay under his feet, instruments of use and ornament; extracting metals from the rude ore, and giving to them a hundred different shapes for a thousand different purposes; selecting and improving the vegetable productions with which he covers the earth; not only subduing but taming and domesticating the wildest, the fleetest, and the strongest inhabitants of the wood, the mountain, and the air; making the winds carry him on every part of the immense ocean; and compelling the elements of air, water, and even fire as it were to labour for him; concentrating in small space materials which act as the thunderbolt, and directing their energies so as to destroy at immense distances; blasting the rock, removing the mountain, carrying water from the valley to the hill; perpetuating thought in imperishable words, rendering immortal the exertions of genius and presenting them as common property to all awakening minds-becoming as it were the image of divine intelligence, receiving and bestowing the breath of life in the influence of civilization.

Eubathes.-Really you are in the poetical, not the chemical chair, or rather or the tripod. We claim from you some accuracy of detail, some minute information, some proofs of what you assert. What you attribute to the chemical and mechanical arts, we might with the same propriety attribute to the fine arts, to letters, to political improvement, and to those inventions of which Minerva and Apollo, not Vulcan, are the patrons.

The Unknown.—I will be more minute. You will allow that the rendering skins insoluble in water by combining with them the astringent principle of certain vegetables is a chemical invention, and that without leather our shoes, our carriages, our equipages would be very ill-made; you will permit me to say, that the bleaching and dyeing of wool and silk, cotton and flax, are chemical processes, and that the conversion of them into cloth of different kinds is a mechanical invention; that the working of iron, copper, tin and lead and the other metals, and the combining them in different alloys by which almost all the instruments necessary for the turner, the joiner, the stone-mason, the ship-builder and the smith are made, are chemical inventions; even the press, to the influence of which I am disposed to attribute as much as you can do, could not have existed in any state of perfection without a metallic alloy; the combining of alkali and sand, and certain clays and flints together to form glass and porcelain is a chemical process; the colours which the artist employs to frame resemblances of natural objects, or to create combinations more beautiful than ever existed in nature are derived from chemistry; in short, in every branch of the common and fine arts, in every department of human industry, the influence of this science is felt, and we may find in the fable of Prometheus taking the flame from heaven to animate his man of clay, an emblem of the effects of fire, in its application to chemical purposes, in creating the activity and almost the life of civil society.

Philalethes. It appears to me that you attribute to science what in many cases has been the result of accident. The processes of most of the useful arts, which you call chemical, have been invented and improved without any refined views, without any general system of knowledge. Lucretius attributes to accident the discovery of the fusion of the metals; a person in touching a shell-fish observes that it emits a purple liquid as a dye, hence the Tyrian purple; clay is observed to harden in the fire, and hence the invention of bricks, which could hardly fail ultimately to lead to the discovery of porcelain; even glass, the most perfect and beautiful of those manufactures you call chemical, is said to have been discovered by accident; Theophrastus states, that some merchants who were cooking on some lumps of soda or natron, near the mouth of the river Belus, observed that a hard and vitreous substance was formed where the fused natron ran into sand.

The Unknown.--I will readily allow that accident has had much to do with the origin of the arts as with the progress of the sciences. But it has been by scientific processes and experiments that these accidental results have been rendered really applicable to the purposes of common life. Besides, it requires a certain degree of knowledge and scientific combination to understand and seize upon the facts which have originated in accident. It is certain, that in all fires alkaline substances and sand are fused together and clay hardened; yet for ages after the discovery of fire glass and porcelain were unknown, till some men of genius profited by scientific combination often observed but never applied. It suits the indolence of those minds which never attempt any thing, and which probably, if they did attempt any thing, would not succeed, to refer to accident that which belongs to genius. It is sometimes said by such persons, that the discovery of the law of gravitation was owing to accident; and a ridiculous story is told of the falling of an apple, as the cause of this discovery. As well might the invention of fluxions or the architectural wonders of the dome of St. Peter's, or the miracles of art, the St. John of Raphael, or the Apollo Belvidere, be supposed to be owing to accidental combinations. In the progress of an art, from its rudest to its most perfect state, the whole process depends upon experiments. Science is, in fact, nothing more than the refinement of common sense making use of facts already known to acquire new facts. Clays, which are yellow, are known to burn red; calcareous earth renders flint fusible—the persons who have improved earthenware made their selections accordingly. Iron was discovered at least one thousand years before it was rendered malleable; and from what Herodotus says of this discovery, there can be little doubt that it was developed by a scientific worker in metals. Vitruvius tells

us, that the ceruleum, a colour made of copper, which exists in perfection in all the old paintings of the Greeks and Romans and on the mummies of the Egyptians, was discovered by an Egyptian king; there is, therefore, every reason to believe that it was not the result of accidental combination, but of experiments made for producing or improving colours. Amongst the ancient philosophers many discoveries were attributed to Democritus and Anaxagoras; and, connected with chemical arts, the narrative of the inventions of Archimedes alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show how great is the effect of science in creating power. In modern times the refining of sugar, the preparation of nitre, the manufacturing of acids, salts, &c., are all results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a specimen; no person but a man infinitely diversifying his processes and guided by analogy could have made such a discovery. Look into the books of the alchemists, and some idea may be formed of the effects of experiments. It is true, these persons were guided by false views, yet they made most useful researches; and Lord Bacon has justly compared them to the husbandman, who, searching for an imaginary treasure, fertilized the soil. They might likewise be compared to persons who, looking for gold, discover the fragments of beautiful statues, which separately are of no value, and which appear of little value to the persons who found them; but which, when selected and put together by artists, and their defective parts supplied, are found to be wonderfully perfect and worthy of conservation. Look to the progress of the arts since they have been enlightened by a system of science, and observe with what rapidity they have advanced. Again, the steam engine in its rudest form was the result of a chemical experiment; in its refined state, it required the combinations of all the most recondite principles of chemistry and mechanics, and that excellent philosopher who has given this wonderful instrument of power to civil society, was led to the groat improvements he made, by the discoveries of a kindred genius on the heat absorbed when water becomes steam, and of the heat evolved when the steam becomes water. Even the most superficial observer must allow in this case

a triumph of science, for what a wonderful impulse has this invention given to the progress of the arts and manufactures in our country! how much has it diminished labour, how much has it increased the real strength of the country! Acting as it were with a thousand hands, it has multiplied our active population, and receiving its elements of activity from the bowels of the earth, it performs operations which formerly were painful, oppressive, and unhealthy to the labourers, with regularity and constancy, and gives security and precision to the efforts of the manufacturer. And the inventions connected with the steam engine, at the same time that they have greatly diminished labour of body, have tended to increase power of mind and intellectual resources. Adam Smith well observes that manufacturers are always more ingenious than husbandmen; and manufacturers who use machinery will probably always be found more ingenious than handicraft manufacturers. You spoke of porcelain as a result of accident; the improvements invented in this country, as well as those made in Germany and France, have been entirely the result of chemical experiments, the Dresden and the Sèvres manufactories have been the work of men of science, and it was by multiplying his chemical researches that Wedgewood was enabled to produce at so cheap a rate those beautiful imitations, which, while they surpass the ancient vases in solidity and perfection of material, equal them in elegance, variety, and tasteful arrangement of their forms. In another department, the use of the electrical conductor was a pure scientific combination, and the sublimity of the discovery of the American philosopher was only equalled by the happy application he immediately made of it. In our own times it would be easy to point out numerous instances in which great improvements and beneficial results connected with the comforts, the happiness, and even life of our fellow-creatures, have been the results of scientific combinations; but I cannot do this without constituting myself a judge of the works of philosophers who are still alive, whose researches are known, whose labours are respected, and who will receive from posterity praises that their contemporaries hardly dare to bestow upon them.

But, waving all common utility, all vulgar applications, there is something in knowing and understanding the operation of nature, some pleasure in contemplating the order and harmony of the arrangements belonging to the terrestrial system of things. There is no absolute utility in poetry; but it gives pleasure, refines and exalts the mind. Philosophic pursuits have likewise a noble and independent use of this kind; and there is a double reason offered for pursuing them, for, whilst in their sublime speculations they reach to the heavens, in their application they belong to the earth; whilst they exalt the intellect, they provide food for our common wants, and likewise minister to the noblest appetites and most exalted views belonging to our nature. The results of this science are not like the temples of the ancients, in which statues of the Gods were placed, where incense was offered and sacrifices were performed, and which were presented to the adoration of the multitude, founded upon superstitious feelings; but they are rather like the palaces of the moderns to be admired and used, and where the statues, which in the ancients raised feelings of adoration and awe, now produce only feelings of pleasure and gratify a refined taste. It is surely a pure delight to know how and by what processes this earth is clothed with verdure and life, how the clouds, mists, and rain are formed, what causes all the changes of this terrestrial system of things, and by what divine laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the tempest and the volcano, and to point out their use in the economy of things, to bring the lightning from the clouds and make it subservient to our experiments,-to produce as it were a microcosm in the

laboratory of art, and to measure and weigh those invisible atoms, which, by their motions and changes, according to laws impressed upon them by the divine intelligence, constitute the universe of things. The true chemical philosopher sees good in all the diversified forms of the external world. Whilst he investigates the operations of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom, all low prejudices, all mear superstitions, disappear from his mind. He sees man an atom amidst atoms fixed upon a point in space, and yet modifying the laws that are around him by understanding them; and gaining, as it were, a kind of dominion over time, and an empire in material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a power seeming a sort of shadow cr reflection of a creative energy, and which entitles him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by a spark of the divine mind. Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feelings; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy, by obliging it to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies, and, though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the great and magnificent objects of nature. They regard the formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of a clay or earth; and they apply to the causes of the diversity of our mountain chains, the appearances of the winds, thunderstorms, meteors, the earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which offer the most striking images to the poet and the painter. They keep alive that inextinguishable thirst after knowledge, which is one of the greatest characteristics of our nature; for every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded. This strictly applies to chemical inquiries; and, hence they are wonderfully suited to the progressive nature of the human intellect, which by its increasing efforts to acquire a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which truth is fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it were, to demonstrate its birthright to immortality.

126.-CONVERSION OF KING ETHELBERT.

BEDE.

[BEDE or Beda, distinguished by the name of the Venerable, was one of the most learned churchmen of the eighth century. He was educated in the monastery of St. Peter, one of the two united abbeys of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the bishopric of Durham, and subsequently became a monk of Jarrow. His most important work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, which is brought up to the year 731. This most interesting record was originally written in Latin, was translated by King Alfred into Saxon, and was first translated into English in 1565. Our extract is given from a more careful translation, published in 1723. Bede died in his monastery, according to the best accounts, in the year 735. He has left the following account of himself at the end of the Ecclesiastical History. "Thus much of Ecclesiastical History of the Britons, and more especially of the English Nation, as far as I could learn either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradition of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, with the help of God, been digested by me, Bede, the servant of God, and priest of the monastery of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, which is at Wiremuth and Gyrwum; who being born in the territory of that same monastery, at seven years of age was given to be educated by the most Reverend Abbot Benedict, and after. wards by Ceolfrid, and spending all the remaining time of my life in that monastery, wholly applied myself to the meditation of Scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, always took delight in either learning, or teaching, or writing. In the nineteenth year of my age I received the degree of a deacon, in the thirtieth that of priesthood, both of them by the ministry of the most Reverend Bishop John, and by order of the Abbot Ceolfrid. From the which time of my being made priest till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my business, for the use of me and mine, briefly to note down out of the works of the venerable Fathers, or to add according to their