The Reason to be given why a greater Quantity of Fire is produced from Steel-Filings, than from any other Thing, I take to be owing to a larger Share of that Element which is impacted in it from its being made out of Iron long impregnated with Fire. Many other Bodies have actual Fire impacted in them, as Flints, and many other hard Stones and Metals; but whenever you produce Fire from Steel-Filings, you find that Steel melted: So when Fire is produced from Stones, and the like, each Spark is Part of that Stone burnt to a _Calx_. Now, as I am endeavouring to shew to you the natural Cohesion of Fire, and the Propensity there is in it to extend itself, I shall offer to your Consideration a very familiar Instance to prove it; which is that of the Snuff of a Candle just blown out. You cannot but have observ’d at how great a Distance from the Snuff the Flame will descend down the Smoke, and light it. I shall further take the Liberty to observe to you another Proof of this; which, I think, will not only shew a Propensity in Fire to cohere, but will greatly strengthen my Conjecture, that this Fire, produced in Electricity, is extracted from that I have supposed to be universally dispersed. A Person, who liv’d in the Town of _Warham_ in _Dorsetshire_, in the Year 1703, informed me, that in the Night of the great Hurricane and high Wind, in the strongest Part of the Tempest, he saw from his Window, on the neighbouring Hills, great Bodies of Fire, swiftly passing over them on the Ground.—Now whence arose that Fire, if it came not from the Air impelling it into those Flakes? And its subsisting together in that Hurricane shews, I think, very plainly, that if its Cohesion had not been natural, the Wind would then have scatter’d it. Though I apprehend that the Four Elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, may never have been increased or diminished, since the Great GOD of Order created them, yet I can also apprehend each of them unequally dispers’d in the Universe by various Causes and Events: And when this happens, those which were intended, when in their due Order, to make every thing happy and easy, in their disordered State will create nothing but Confusion. For Instance, the chief Use of Water seems intended, when descending in warm and gentle Showers, or flowing in kind and easy Streams, to chear and nourish all Kinds of Vegetation, as well in Trees and Plants, as in Herbs and Flowers: But suppose, by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Accidents of Nature, a large Quantity of it lodged on the Tops of high Hills, if it breaks its Bank, it will never stop, till it finds a natural resting Place; and in its Torrent it will overwhelm and destroy those Trees and Plants, with the Herbs and Flowers, it was intended to nourish.