[2] Whenever the degree of heat occurs in this work, it is stated by the author according to Reaumur's scale. The degrees within brackets are the correspondent degrees of Fahrenheit's scale, added by the translator. E. [3] Collections of the French Academy of Sciences for that year, p. 420. [4] Chemical Nomenclature. [5] As I shall afterwards give a definition, and explain the properties of the liquor called _ether_, I shall only premise here, that it is a very volatile inflammable liquor, having a considerably smaller specific gravity than water, or even spirit of wine.--A. [6] It would have been more satisfactory if the Author had specified the degrees of the thermometer at which these heights of the mercury in the barometer are produced. [7] Vide Memoirs of the French Academy, anno 1780, p. 335.--A. CHAP. II. _General Views relative to the Formation and Composition of our Atmosphere._ These views which I have taken of the formation of elastic aeriform fluids or gasses, throw great light upon the original formation of the atmospheres of the planets, and particularly that of our earth. We readily conceive, that it must necessarily consist of a mixture of the following substances: _First_, Of all bodies that are susceptible of evaporation, or, more strictly speaking, which are capable of retaining the state of aeriform elasticity in the temperature of our atmosphere, and under a pressure equal to that of a column of twenty-eight inches of quicksilver in the barometer; and, _secondly_, Of all substances, whether liquid or solid, which are capable of being dissolved by this mixture of different gasses.