Those who condemn the notion altogether seem to have taken but a very confined view of the subject. What they say about mere matter is right enough; but they seem to forget that there are other active agents in nature which possess wonderful powers, that have nothing to do with either bulk, weight, or form. Such are electricity, magnetic attraction, capillary attraction, and the irregular pressure of the atmosphere. The powers of electricity are great, and, indeed, it seems to be the _primum mobile_ that gives life and motion to the animated part of the creation. Dr. Franklin shows us how to give a circular coated plate, revolving on an axle, sufficient power to roast a chicken, merely by once changing (charging?) it. Could not a plate of this kind be made to turn a small electrical apparatus, so situated as to keep the charge in the plate always at its maximum? The whole might be kept dry by having it enclosed in a glass case. It has often been attempted to give motion to a wheel by the power of a loadstone, but hitherto without effect; no substance in nature being found to have the power, by interposition, of cutting off its attractive property. Still I think it should be further investigated. Is a small piece of steel in the form of a wedge as strongly attracted at the smaller end as at the thicker? And would not twenty or thirty pieces of steel, of that form, placed round the circumference of a circle, the point of one towards the head of the other, cause a magnet placed in the centre, to revolve in the direction in which their points lie? I think, perhaps not; but still such experiments should be tried. In capillary attraction we have a power that at once raises fluids above their level. It is this which carries the oil up the wick of a lamp as fast as the flame consumes it. Water and other fluids rise through cotton even quicker than oil; and he who can contrive to collect them as they arrive at the top will discover perpetual motion. Would not water run constantly through a siphon, one leg of which was made of a collection of capillary tubes, and the other in the usual way? or would the water above and below the tubes neutralize and destroy their power? I now come to the pressure of the atmosphere, a thing easily understood. * * * Make a cast-iron barometrical tube, with a top sufficiently large to contain 2 cwt. of mercury; invert it in a basin large enough to contain 2 or 3 cwt. more, and let a piece of iron of 10 or 12 stones weight float on the mercury in this basin, so as to rise and fall along with it at every change of the weather. We have here both motion and power. The motion, indeed, will sometimes stand still, but then it can easily be regulated, and made a constant quantity in the machine to be attached. I have no doubt but clocks, etc., may be made to derive their chiming principle from a contrivance of this nature.