It was a pleasant beverage, he said, compounded of an acid and an alkali. He had discovered by close observation, that all diseases had their origin in acid, and that alkali of course was the grand panacea; even poisons were acids, and he had no doubt that he should be able to form a concrete mass, by means of beef gall and alkali, which would resemble and equal in virtue the mad stone. If I felt the slightest acidity of stomach, I would find myself much relieved by one of his powders. He had written to Dr. Rush on the subject, and he shewed me a letter from that gentleman, at which he laughed heartily, and in which the Doctor protested he might as well attempt to batter the rock of Gibraltar with mustard seed shot as to attack the yellow fever with alkali. I could not help smiling at the earnestness of my dear uncle, and assured him that I had no doubt of the virtues of his medicine, but as I was quite well, I would rather try the anti-fogmatic; and if I should feel indisposed, would resort to his panacea; although I secretly resolved to have as little to do with it as Gil Blas had with water. Having dressed myself and descended to the breakfast room, I there met my aunt and cousin, who soon made me acquainted with the present condition of the family. Every thing was fast declining, in consequence of the total absorption of the mind of my uncle in his visionary schemes; and I saw abundant evidence of the wreck of his fortune, in the absence of a thousand comforts and elegancies which I had been accustomed to behold. He soon joined us, and such was his excellence of character, that we most carefully avoided casting the smallest damp upon his ardor. Indeed, he was a man of great natural talent and much acquired information, and was far above the ridicule which was sometimes played off upon him by his more ignorant neighbors. I almost begin to think that _we_ were the mistaken ones, when I look around and see the perfection of many of his schemes, which I then thought wholly impracticable. When old Simon thought that a carriage could never go without _animel nater_, he certainty never dreamed of a railroad car, nor of the steam carriages of England; and when my uncle gravely told me that he should fill up his icehouse, and manufacture ice as he wanted it in Summer, by letting out air highly condensed in a tight copper vessel, upon water, I did not dream of the execution of the plan by some French projector. I must not be thus diffuse, or I shall weary the patience of my reader. A ride was proposed after breakfast, and my uncle immediately invited me to try his newly invented vehicle which could not be overset. I have constructed, said he, a carriage with a moveable perch; by means of which the body swings out horizontally, whenever the wheels on one side pass over any high obstacle or ground more elevated than the other wheels rest upon; and I shall be glad to exhibit it to a young man who is fresh from college,