dwelling. Unfathomable gulfs are yawning beneath his feet, and he is separated from them only by a single plank. His confidence might make us imagine he knew himself immortal; yet he must die--die never to revive again, except in another state of being.” [77] As it is sometimes necessary to preserve sea water in casks for bathing and other purposes, it is of importance to know how to keep it from putrefaction. Dr. Henry from many experiments made by him for the preservation of sea water from putrefaction, has concluded, that two scruples of quick-lime are sufficient to preserve a quart of sea water. The proportions, however, may vary a little according to the strength of quick-lime employed. [78] “Frosts often occasion a scantiness of water in our fountains and wells. This is sometimes erroneously accounted for by supposing that the water freezes in the bowels of the earth. But this, as Dr. Robison remarks, is a great mistake: the most intense cold of a Siberian winter would not freeze the ground two feet deep; but a very moderate frost will consolidate the whole surface of a country, and make it impervious to the air; especially if the frost have been preceded by rain, which has soaked the surface. When this happens, the water which was flittering through the ground is all arrested, and kept suspended in its capillary tubes by the pressure of the air.” Haüy’s Nat. Phil. p. 198. [79] Dr. Black’s Lectures, vol. i. p. 69. [80] See Ellis’s voyage to Hudson’s Bay. [81] St. Pierre’s Studies, vol. i, pp. 129-132. [82] See 21st volume of the Philosophical Magazine. [83] The specific gravity of water is as follows; a wine-pint measure weighs one pound; consequently a cubic foot of water weighs about 1,000 ounces, or 62½ pounds, avoirdupois. It is 816 times heavier than atmospheric air. [84] Parkes’s Chemical Catechism, p. 108. [85] Haüy’s Natural Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 197, 198. [86] Parkes’s Chemical Catechism, pp. 94, 95. [87] Parkes’s Chemical Catechism, p. 92. [88] Driessen on the Nature of Snow. [89] Thomson’s Chemistry, vol. i, p. 365. [90] “The English word _hail_, in Latin _grando_, in Greek χαλαζα, gives us no information about the nature of the thing: but, if we take the word ברד BeReD in Hebrew, it resolves itself into ב..רד, which signifies _in descensu_, and so describes to us the physiological formation of hail: which, as philosophers agree, is first formed into drops of rain, and, _as it falls_, is frozen into hail.” Jones’s Letter on the Use of the Hebrew Language. [91] Dr. Clarke on Exod. ix, 18. [92] See Dr. Paley’s Natural Theology, p. 407.