himself to be, none but an experimental philosopher can well discern. And ’tis not by a slight survey, but by a diligent and skilful scrutiny, of the works of God, that a man must be, by a rational and affective conviction, engaged to acknowledge that the author of nature ‘is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.’” After the mechanical properties of fluids, the laws of the operation of the chemical and physical properties of the elements about us, offer themselves to our notice. The relations of heat and of moisture in particular, which play so important a part, as we have seen, in the economy of our world, have been the subject of various researches; and they have led to views of the operation of such agents, some of which we have endeavoured to present to the reader, and to point out the remarkable arrangements by which their beneficial operation is carried on. That the discoverers of the laws by which such operations are regulated, were not insensible to the persuasion of a Divine care and contrivance which those arrangements suggest, is what we should expect, in agreement with what we have already said, and it is what we find. Among the names of the philosophers to whom we owe our knowledge on these subjects, there are none greater than those of Black, the discoverer of the laws of latent heat, and Dalton, who first gave us a true view of the mode in which watery vapour exists and operates in the atmosphere. With regard to the former of these philosophers, we shall quote Dr. Thomson’s account of the views which the laws of latent heat suggested to the discoverer.[36] “Dr. Black quickly perceived the vast importance of this discovery, and took a pleasure in laying before his students a view of the beneficial effects of this habitude of heat in the economy of nature. During the summer season a vast magazine of heat is accumulated in the water, which by gradually emerging during congelation serves to temper the cold of winter. Were it not for this accumulation of heat in water and other bodies, the sun would no sooner go a few degrees to the south of the equator than we should feel all the horrors of winter.” In the same spirit are Mr. Dalton’s reflections, after pointing out the laws which regulate the balance of evaporation and rain,[37] which he himself first clearly explained. “It is scarcely possible,” says he, “to contemplate without admiration the beautiful system of nature by which the surface of the earth is continually supplied with water, and that unceasing circulation of a fluid so essentially necessary to the very being of the animal and vegetable kingdom takes place.”