n
your list of simple bodies?

MRS. B.

They are the metals of the earths which became next the object of Sir H.
Davy's researches; these bodies had never yet been decomposed, though
they were strongly suspected not only of being compounds, but of being
metallic oxyds. From the circumstance of their incombustibility it was
conjectured, with some plausibility, that they might possibly be bodies
that had been already burnt.

CAROLINE.

And metals, when oxydated, become, to all appearance, a kind of earthy
substance.

MRS. B.

They have, besides, several features of resemblance with metallic oxyds;
Sir H. Davy had therefore great reason to be sanguine in his
expectations of decomposing them, and he was not disappointed. He could
not, however, succeed in obtaining the basis of the earths in a pure
separate state; but metallic alloys were formed with other metals, which
sufficiently proved the existence of the metallic basis of the earths.

The last class of new metallic bodies which Sir H. Davy discovered was
obtained from the three undecompounded acids, the boracic, the fluoric,
and the muriatic acids; but as you are entirely unacquainted with these
bodies, I shall reserve the account of their decomposition till we come
to treat of their properties as acids.

Thus in the course of two years, by the unparalleled exertions of a
single individual, chemical science has assumed a new aspect. Bodies
have been brought to light which the human eye never before beheld, and
which might have remained eternally concealed under their impenetrable
disguise.

It is impossible at the present period to appreciate to their full
extent the consequences which science or the arts may derive from these
discoveries; we may, however, anticipate the most important results.

In chemical analysis we are now in possession of more energetic agents
of decomposition than were ever before known.

In geology new views are opened, which will probably operate a
revolution in that obscure and difficult science. It is already proved
that all the earths, and, in fact, the solid surface of this globe, are
metallic bodies mineralized by oxygen, and as our planet has been
calculated to be considerably more dense upon the whole than on the
surface, it is reasonable to suppose that the interior part is composed
of a metallic mass, the surface of which only has been mineralized by
the atmosphere.

The eruptions of volcanos, those stupendous problems