[40] Dr. Rees’s New Cyclopædia, Art. Light; and Dr. O. Gregory’s Lessons, Astronomical and Philosophical p. 157. [41] Gregory’s Economy of Nature, vol. i, p. 173. [42] See Relig. Philos. vol. iii, pp. 869, 870, Fourth Edition. [43] Sturm’s Reflections, vol. iii, p. 184. [44] Dr. Rees’s Cyclopædia, Art. Light. [45] Parkes’s Rudiments of Chemistry, chap. xii. [46] Sermon on 1 Pet. ii, 21. [47] Dr. Adam Clarke on Gen. i, 31. [48] When Zeno, the Prince of the Stoics, was endeavoring to prove, by a sophistical argument, that there was no motion, Diogenes, the cynic, who had come into his school to hear him, quickly started up and walked: which was an ocular demonstration of motion, and sufficient to refute all his sophisms adduced to the contrary. [49] See Gurdon’s Sixth Sermon at Boyle’s Lecture. [50] Plato in Epinom. [51] Aristot. Physic. lib. vii, c. 5. [52] Dr A. Clarke on Eph. v, 15. * * * * * CHAPTER III. SECOND DAY. ON THE ATMOSPHERE. Composition of Atmospheric Air -- Atmosphere divided into three regions -- Air a fluid -- Its compressibility and elasticity -- Weight and pressure -- Equilibrium -- Transparency -- Wind -- Causes of Wind -- Variety of Winds -- Velocity of Winds -- Destructive Winds -- Wind under the control of God -- Wind a similitude of the Holy Spirit’s operations. On the _second day_ God made a space or _expansion_, surrounding the solid earth to a certain height, called the _atmosphere_. This word is derived from ἀτμός and σφαῖρα, and signifies a body of vapor in a spherical form. By this name we understand the “entire mass of air which encircles all parts of the terrestrial globe, which moves with it round the sun, which touches it in all parts, ascending to the tops of its mountains, penetrating into its cavities, and incessantly floating on its waters. It is a fluid which we inhale from the first to the last moment of our existence.” The Hebrew word רקיע _rakiâ_, from רקע _rakâ_, used by Moses, (and which our translators, by following the _firmamentum_ of the Vulgate, which is a translation of the στερεωμα, of the Septuagint, have improperly rendered _firmament_,) signifies to _spread out as the curtains of a tent or pavilion_.[53] It corresponds with those beautiful words of Isaiah, “It is he that STRETCHETH OUT the heavens as a curtain, and SPREADETH THEM out as a tent to dwell in.” “Thus,” as a learned and pious author justly observes, “the second great production of the Almighty was the element which is next in simplicity, purity, activity, and power, to the light, (or, rather _fire_,) and no doubt was also used by him as an agent in producing some subsequent effects.”[54]