cles. The necessary arts of life he allowed to be practised only by slaves. It became, as we shall hereafter learn, very power ful, and under Philip overturned the liberties of the other states of Greece. ASSYRIA. Pul, He then commanded that all persons, even the first kingdom of Assyria, we find a few particulars The children were taught in large publick schools, and were made brave and hardy. All the people were accustomed to speak in short pithy sentences, so that this style of speaking is even now called after them, laconick; Laconia being one of the names of Lacedemon. When Lycurgus had firmly established his new laws, he ensured their observance by the following contrivance. He left Sparta, after having made the people swear, that they would abide by his laws, until he should return. As he intended not to return at all, this was to swear that they would keep his laws forever. the Divine judgments against this people on account The object of Jonah's preaching was to denounce of their wickedness. The prophet after great reluctance to obey the cominand of God, and a signal chastisement for his disobedience, repaired at length selves before Jehovah, in consequence of which The Ninevites took the alarm, and humbled themthey were delivered at that time from destruction. The Assyrian empire, of which Nineveh was the capital, ended, however, soon afterwards, as we shall now learn. the Assyrian monarchs. In his reign a conspiracy Sardanapalus was the last and the most vicious of broke out, by which the kingdom was destroyed, 767 viz., Nineveh, which preserved the name of Assyria, years B. C. Three monarchies rose from its ruins, Babylon, and the kingdom of the Medes. palace, and consumed himself, with his women, ernour of the Medes, he at length set fire to his Sardanapalus was the most effeminate of mankind. Lycurgus died in a foreign land. By some it is his women and his eunuchs. He imitated them in He never left his palace, but spent all his time with asserted, that he starved himself to death. His laws dress and painting, and spun with them at the discontinued in force 500 years, during which time the taff. Being besieged in his city, by Arbaces, gov Spartans became a powerful and conquering people. The institutions of this legislator were impaired by many blemishes. The manners of the Lacedemonian women were suffered to be shamefully loose. The youth were taught to subdue the feelings of humanity. The slaves were treated with the greatest barbarity. Even theft was a part of Spartan education. The object of this was to prepare their minds for the stratagems of war. Detection exposed them to punishment. Plutarch tells us of a boy, who had stolen a fox and hidden it under his coat, and who rather chose to let the animal tear out his bowels, than to discover the theft. The first of the Olympiads, an era by which the events in Grecian history are reckoned, occurred 776 years B. C. The Olympick games were first instituted about 1450 years B. C., but having fallen into disuse, were restored at different times, and from the period above mentioned, form a certain epoch in history. MACEDON. eunuchs, and treasures. CHYMISTRY. HYDROGEN. If, into a bottle, containing filings or turnings of iron, or zinc, we pour sulphurick acid, diluted with six or seven times its weight of water, a strong action will take place, and a gas will be given off, which may be collected in the manner described in our article on oxygen, by means of a bent tube, fitted to the mouth of the bottle with a cork. This is hydrogen gas. It is colourless, and without taste; but, as commonly prepared, has a faint disagreeable smell; which, however, is supposed to depend upon some slight impurity. It is speedily fatal to animal life when taken into the lungs. It is not absorbed by water except in very minute quantities. It is lighter than atmospherick air; and, indeed, the lightest of all Macedon, a kingdom in Greece, and sometimes bodies which are known to possess weight; 100 cuconsidered distinct from it in its history, was founded bick inches only weigh 2.1 grains. If a bladder be by Caranus, an Argive and descendant of Hercules, filled with it, and attached, by means of a stopcock, about 795 years B. C. The government continued to a tobacco pipe, upon dipping the bowl into a strong in his line 647 years, i. e. till the death of Alexander lather of soap, bubbles may be blown with it which Ægus, the posthumous son of Alexander the Great. will rise rapidly into the air; and it is upon this The history of Macedon under its first kings is principle that it is used for filling airballoons. It is obscure, and presents only some wars with the Il-inflammable, but it extinguishes flame. lyrians, Thracians, and other neighbouring nations. Fill an inverted stoppered bottle with the gas, and equivalents; it is of the greatest importance to impress them strongly upon the memory, and they will thus be perpetually presented to the eye in a prominent manner. Where the body is compound, we shall also affix the proportions of the elements of which it is compound. close it with a stopper. Fix a small piece of wax- the sections, its simple number upon this scale of taper upon a wire, and ignite it; turn the bottle up, remove the stopper, and carefully introduce the taper. The gas will immediately inflame at the mouth of the bottle; but the flame of the taper immersed in the gas will be extinguished. Upon withdrawing the taper it may be rekindled as it passes through the flame of the gas, and again extinguished by returning it. If a mixture of two parts of common air, and one of hydrogen, be made in a strong vial, capable of containing about four ounces of water, it will inflame upon presenting a candle to it, not silently, as in the last experiment, but suddenly, and with a loud explosion. The bottle should be wrapped round with a cloth to prevent accidents, in case it should burst in the experiment. Oxygen and hydrogen gases may be mixed together in any proportions; and their disposition to become equally diffused in any given volumes, as with all gases, is so great, that even the vast difference in their specifick gravities will not keep them separate. Fit two glass vials with corks, into which a glass tube may be inserted ten or twelve inches long, and about one twentieth of an inch bore. Fill one of the vials with oxygen, and the other with hydrogen. Place the former with its mouth upwards upon a table, and insert the cork with the tube; fit the cork into the latter, and fix it upon the other end of the tube with its mouth downwards. The hydrogen will descend and the oxygen ascend, notwithstanding the former is sixteen times lighter than the latter; and if they be permitted to remain two or three hours in the perpendicular position described, upon applying a light to either vial an explosion will take place. This explosion, which in the above experiment testifies the mixture of the two gases, is produced by the sudden exertion of that higher degree of affinity between the two gases, which gives rise to composition, and which is brought into action by the high temperature of flame. The compound in this instance is water. The composition of water may be demonstrated by synthesis (which means the formation of any body from its elements), and by analysis (the resolution of a body into its component parts). Eight parts by weight of oxygen combine with one part of hydrogen to form water. Now, as hydrogen is the lightest known body in nature, and combines in the smallest proportion by weight, with the other simple substances, it is convenient to assume it as the standard of comparison for the combining proportions, or equivalent numbers of all other bodies; which, moreover, it is highly probable, are simple multiples of its number. Hydrogen, therefore, thus standing at the head of the scale, and being represented by 1, the equivalent of oxygen will be 8, and that of water 9. Oxygen, however, is sometimes assumed as the standard of comparison, and represented by the number 10, in which case the equivalent for hydrogen is 1.25; the result is of course the same, the proportion of 1.25 to 10 being the same as that of 1 to 8. The choice is one of convenience, and on this account we prefer the former. We shall, in the course of this treatise, attach to the name of each substance, placed at the heads of The composition of elastick fluids develops a still more simple law of combination in this class of bodies, than that of definite weights; it is that of definite volumes. The union of gases is always effected in simple proportions of their volumes; and a volume of one gas combines with an equal volume, or twice or three times the volume of another gas, and in no intermediate proportion The experiment is one of some nicety, but may be performed in the following way : Provide a very strong glass tube, closed at one end, and fitted at the other with a brass cap and stopcock, strongly fixed with cement. Two small holes must be drilled in the upper part of this tube, into which two wires must be cemented, the points of which must nearly touch one another on the inside. Let a mixture of very pure oxygen and hydrogen gases be very accurately made, in the proportions named above in a jar fitted with a stopcock, to which the cock of the tube may be connected. Extract the air from the tube by means of an exhausting syringe, screw it on to the jar, and upon opening the cocks a portion of the mixture will rush in. Again exhaust he tube to secure the extraction of any remaining air. Replace it upon the jar, fill it again with the mixture, and carefully close the stopcocks. Pass an electrick spark through the wires, and the gases in the tube will explode. Allow the tube to cool, and upon opening the cocks, a fresh portion of the gases will rush in, which will be equal to the first quantity, provided the mixture has been accurately made, and the common air perfectly extracted. This portion may be again inflamed, and the progress continued, till a strong dew is seen upon the interiour of the tube. This, upon examination, will be found to be pure water. If the mixture be made in any other proportion than that of one of oxygen to two of hydrogen, the excess of either gas will be left, for they will combine in no other. Those who have not the means of repeating this experiment, may convince themselves that the product of the combustion of hydrogen gas in oxygen is water, by burning a small stream of hydrogen from a bladder, under a bell-glass, with atmospherick air. As the combustion, i. e. the combination of oxygen and hydrogen, proceeds, water will condense upon the cold surface of the glass, and trickle down its sides. We have already adverted to the analysis of water by means of the voltaick pile; it is in perfect accordance with its synthesis, and when both these processes agree in their results, the demonstration is the most perfect of which chymical philosophy is capable. The hydrogen given off at the negative pole is exactly the double in volume of the oxygen given off at the positive pole. Water may also be decomposed, by means of heat and elective affinity, in the following way :-Take a gunbarrel, the breech of which has been removed, and fill it with iron wire coiled up. Place it across a common chafingdish, and connect to one end of it a small glass retort containing some water; and to the other a bent tube, opening under the shelf of the water bath. Heat the barrel redhot, by means of charcoal, and apply a lamp under the fetort. The steam of water, in passing over the redhot iron, will be decomposed, the oxygen will unite with the iron, and the hydrogen may be collected in the form of gas. This is the most economical way of making hydrogen in large quantities. Those who have an opportunity of visiting an iron foundry, may see this process constantly going on; for when the melted metal is poured into the damp moulds, the water which they contain is decomposed, and the hydrogen which is given off is ignited; and generally, from its mixture with the air, produces a slight explosion. If this experiment be made very carefully, by placing the iron wire, previously weighed, in a glass, or very compact earthen tube, instead of the gunbarrel, the weight which the iron will have acquired, added to the weight of the volume of gas produced, will be found exactly to make up the weight of the water decomposed; and they will be to one another in the proportion of eight to one. It is needless to dwell upon the more obvious properties of the well-known fluid water, which is so abundantly diffused over the face of the earth. The purest state in which it is offered to us by nature, is as it descends from the clouds in the form of rain. 1 is colourless, inodorous and insipid; and these negative characters confer upon it its greatest value. To enumerate its uses would be to transcribe a long chapter indeed from the book of nature, and is quite incompatible with our present limits. We must confine ourselves to marking a few of its characteristicks in the three states in which it is presented to our observation, viz., as a liquid, a solid or ice, and an aeriform fluid or steam. It has been an object of the greatest importance to ascertain with precision the weight of a given volume of pure water, as it is the standard with which all other liquids and solids are compared; as the weights of acriform fluids are with atmospherick air. Moreover, the standard measure of capacity is the gallon, containing 10 lbs. avoirdupois weight (7000 grains=1 lb.) of distilled water, weighed in the air at the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit's thermometer; the barometer being at 30 inches. The capacity of this gallon is 277.274 cubick inches. From the most careful experiments, it appears that a cubick inch of water, at the temperature of 60°, weighs 252.52 grains, and consists of 28.06 grains of hydrogen, and 224.46 grains of oxygen. The volume of the former gas is 1325 cubick inches, and of the latter 662, making together 1987 cubick inches; so that the condensation is very nearly 2000 volumes into one. The effect of temperature upon liquid water is distinguished by a peculiarity of a very striking nature, and exhibits a departure from a general law of nature, for a purpose so obviously wise and beneficent, as to afford one of the strongest and most impressive of those endless proofs of design and omniscience in the frame of creation, which it is the most exalted pleasure of the chymist, no less than of the naturalist, to trace and admire. All liquids, except water, contract in volume as they cool down to their points of congelation; but the point of greatest density in water is about 40°; its freezing point being 320. As its temperature deviates from this point, either upwards or downwards, its density diminishes; or, in other words, its volume increases. This peculiar law is of much greater consequence in the economy of nature, than might at first be supposed. The water which covers so large a portion of the surface of the globe, is one of the most efficient means of equalizing its temperature, and rendering those parts habitable, which would otherwise be bound up in perpetual frost, or scorched with intolerable heat. The cold air which rushes from the polar regions progressively abstracts the heat from the great natural basins of water or lakes, till the whole mass is reduced to 40°; but at this point, by a wise providence, the refrigerating influence of the atmosphere becomes nearly null: for the superficial stratum, by further cooling, becomes specifically lighter; and instead of sinking to the bottom as before, and displacing the warmer water, it now remains at the surface, becomes converted into a cake of ice, and preserves the subjacent water from the further influence of the cold. If, like mercury, it continued to increase in density to its freezing point, the cold air would continue to rob the mass of water of its heat, till the whole sunk to 32°, when it would immediately set into a solid stratum of ice, and every living animal in it would perish and in these latitudes, a deep lake so frozen would never again be liquefied. may be observed when the water boils and the tube is filled with it, or as it at first issues from the spout of a tea-kettle. It is only when it is beginning to be condensed that it puts on that cloudy appearance which many people suppose to be essential to it. But steam is not only formed from water at its Water, at the moment that it assumes the solid form of ice, experiences a sudden expansion of still greater amount than the preceding. Its bulk is enlarged in the proportion of nine to eight; and in the act of freezing, if confined, it is capable of bursting the strongest vessels. The common experience in hard frosts of the cracking of water pipes or of ves-boiling point, but rises slowly and quietly from it at sels in which water is suffered to freeze without room for this expansion, bears testimony to the fact, In consequence of its being specifically lighter, ice always swims upon the surface of water. A cubick inch of water at 40° is expanded by heat into 1694 inches, or nearly a cubick foot of steam, at the temperature of 212° at which point its elasticity is equal to the mean elasticity of the atmosphere, or 30 inches of mercury; and when given off in this state it occasions the phenomena of boiling. The principal properties of steam may be exhibited in the following way. Procure a glass tube, as in next figure, about inch bore and 7 or 8 inches in length, closed at one end, and a little enlarged at the same extremity, by blowing into it when softened by heat. Wrap a piece of thin wash leather round one end of a rod of wood 10 inches long, till it just fits into the tube and forms a piston, which will move freely in it. Pass the glass tube through a perforated cork, so as to form an exteriour collar at its upper end. Stick a fork into this to form a handle, by which it may be held over the flame of a lamp. Put a little water into the bottom and heat it. When it boils briskly the air will be expelled by the steam, and the piston is then to be introduced a little way. Plunge the tube into cold water, and the steam will be instantly condensed, and the piston will be driven down by the pressure of the atmosphere upon the vacuum thus formed under it. Cause the water again to boil, by holding it over the flame, and the elastick force of the steam will drive the piston upwards; which motions may be alternately produced by repeatedly heating and cooling the water in the bulb of the tube. It is the production and sudden annihilation of this elastick force which is the source of the prodigious power of the steam-engine. Steam is perfectly transparent and invisible, as all temperatures, even below the freezing point. It is always found mixed with the permanent gases of the atmosphere, even in the driest weather; as may be seen by the dew which is deposited upon cold bodies, such as a glass of water fresh drawn from a well in summer. Its elasticity at the freezing point is equal to 0.200 inches of mercury, and its force increases in a geometrical progression for equal incre-i ments of temperature. OXYGENIZED WATER. It was long supposed that there was only one compound of oxygen and hydrogen; but another has lately been discovered, in which hydrogen is united with a double proportion of oxygen, the numbers being, hydrogen 1, oxygen 16, or equal volumes of the two. The only process at present known, by which it can be produced, is difficult, and complicated, and expensive so much so, that it is doubtful whether it has been ever tried in this country or even in England. We shall therefore pass it over, at present, and merely mention, that this oxygenized water is possessed of new and very remarkable properties. It is necessary to keep it surrounded by ice; for at a temperature of 58° it is decomposed, and oxygen gas is given off in abundance. It is liquid and colourless, like water: but produces upon the tongue a metallick taste. It attacks the skin with rapidity bleaches it, and occasions a smarting sensation. By throwing some metals into it, in a state of fine division, such as silver or platinum, explosions are produced without effecting any change upon them in a way which is not easily understood. In the systematick language of chymistry (which has greatly conduced, by its simplicity and its ready adaptation to new facts, to the advancement of the science; and the principles of which we shall endeavour to explain as we proceed,) the combinations of oxygen with other bodies, which are not acid, are termed oxydes; and if more than one such compound with the same body should be known, they are distinguished as first, second, or third oxyde, by the appellations, derived from the Greek numerals, of protoxyde, deutoxyde, tritoxyde, or the furthest degree of oxydation is denoted by the term peroxyde. In the language, therefore, water is the protoxyde of hydrogen; and the compound to which we have just referred is the deutoxyde, or peroxyde of hydrogen. NATURAL HISTORY. THE CACHEMIRE GOAT. The following representation of the Cachemire Goat is taken from the fine work of F. Cuvier and G. St. Hilaire, on Mammiferous Animals. The specimen, in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, of which that work contains a portrait, was sent from Calcutta having been obtained from the menagerie of the governour-general of India, where it was born of a couple that came direct from Cachemire to Bengal. The wool of this goat appears, by a scrupulous comparison, to be quite as delicate as the finest brought from Thibet. Cachemire, however, contains several breeds of goats with fine wool; a specimen was recently sent to England, which differed from that in France by having longer cars. But they all yield apparently, the same produce; for the fineness of the wool is occasioned by the influence of the climate. There are two sorts of hair which nature seems to have furnished, more or less to every quadruped: the one, fine, curly, generally gray, and imparting to the skin a down more or less thick, as if to guard it against cold and damp; the other, coarse, flat, giving a general colour to the animal, and appearing in numerous instances to be an organ of sensation. These two sorts of hair generally become thicker, according to the degree of cold to which they are exposed; and the frizzled hair becomes gradually finer as the cold increases in dryness. It is this frizzled hair of the Cachemire goat which renders these animals so valuable; for to this we owe those delicate shawls which are so deservedly esteemed for a variety of qualities found in no other article of clothing. The French have attempted to introduce this breed of goats into their own country; but the success of Vol. III. 7 the experiment seems somewhat doubtful. It is however, singular, as observed by Messrs. Cuvier and Hilaire, that no European has yet availed himself of the wool produced by most of our domestick goats, which, though less delicate than the Thibet, would undoubtedly have yielded a web far more fine anl even than the most admired merino sheep. The male goat, in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, is admired for his symmetry, his graceful motion, and his quiet temper. But he has a much greater distinction-he is free from smell; whereas nearly all European goats are known to emit a strong unpleasant odour. The Cachemire goat is of middling size; two feet high at the neck joint, and two feet ten inches from the snout to the root of the tail; his head from the snout between the horns is nine inches, and his tail five. His horns are erect and spiral, diverging off towards the points. His silky hair is long, flat, and fine, instead of gathering up in bunches like that of the Angora goats. is black about the head and neck, and white about the other parts of the body. The woolly hair is always of a grayish white, whatever be the colour of the rest. It 1 |