Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 3

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American Philosophical Society, 1793 - Electronic journals
Held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge.
 

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Page 11 - Our ancient correspondence used to have something philosophical in it. As you are now more free from public cares, and I expect to be so in a few months, why may we not resume that kind of correspondence ? Our much regretted friend Winthrop once made me the compliment, that I was good at starting game for philosophers : let me try if I can start a little for you.
Page 3 - ... specific gravity with themselves, where they would rest; while other matter, mixed with the lighter air would descend, and the two meeting would form the shell of the first earth, leaving the upper atmosphere nearly clear.
Page 299 - The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Page 65 - Springs of the purest water abound in their neighbourhood. They are, when fully grown, as tall as the white and black oaks, and from two to three feet in diameter.* They put forth a beautiful white blossom in the Spring before they show a single leaf.
Page 12 - ... poles have been changed? Is not the supposition that the poles have been changed the easiest way of accounting for the deluge by getting rid of the old difficulty how to dispose of its waters after it was over?
Page 2 - ... be an agent sufficiently strong for that purpose, when acting between the incumbent earth and the fluid on which it rests. If one might indulge imagination, in supposing how such a globe was formed, I should conceive, that, all the elements in separate particles being originally mixed in confusion, and occupying a great space, they would (as soon as...
Page 65 - Its afhes afford a great quantity of pot afh exceeded by few or perhaps by none of the trees that grow in the woods of the United States. The tree is fuppofed to arrive at its full growth in the woods in twenty years. It is not injured by tapping; on the contrary, the oftencr it is tapped, the more fyrup is obtained from it. In this refpeft it follows the law of animal fecretion.
Page 9 - China, if they would make fheets, fuppofe of four and an half ells long and one and an half ell wide, they have two large vats, each five ells long and two...
Page 342 - I have had no reference to his political character, or to his reputation for general science, and for literature. My business was with his knowledge of natural history. In the various departments of this science, but especially in botany and in zoology, the information of this gentleman is equalled by that of few persons in the United-States.
Page 325 - ... of the bellows, and the other end was thrown into the well, reaching ^within one foot of the bottom. At this time the well 'was...

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