Subjects:

Mechanics, Electricity, Magnetism, Matter Theory, Gravity, Zoology, Botany

    Outlines theories of mechanics, the nature and properties of matter, and gravity. Observes: 'Gold-beaters afford us the means of demonstrating the minute diversibility [sic] of matter; they can spread a grain of gold into a leaf containing fifty square inches; which leaf may be readily divided into 500,000 parts, each of which is visible to the naked eye. The natural divisions of matter are, however, far more suprizingly [sic] minute: there are more animals in the melt of a single cod-fish than men on the whole earth' (432). A footnote explains: 'It is said that a single grain of sand is larger than four million of these animals; yet each of them possesses a heart, stomach, bowels, muscles, tendons, nerves, glands, veins, &c. It has been calculated that a particle of blood of one of these animalcula, is as much smaller than a globe one-tenth of an inch in diameter, as that globe is smaller than the whole earth' (432). Also states: 'The attraction of matter has been exemplified in five different ways, which philosophers have called the attraction of cohesion, of gravitation, of combination, of electricity, and the magnetic attraction' (432). Provides an account of gravitation and cohesion, including a footnote on 'capillary attraction' in plants and animals.