re, of Lavoisier to reform the chemical nomenclature, is
premature. One single experiment may destroy the whole filiation of
his terms, and his string of sulfates, sulfiles, and sulfures may have
served no other end, than to have retarded the progress of the science,
by a jargon, from the confusion of which, time will be requisite to
extricate us. Accordingly, it is not likely to be admitted generally.

You are acquainted with the properties of the composition of nitre,
salt of tartar, and sulphur, called _pulvis fulminans_. Of this, the
explosion is produced by heat alone. Monsieur Bertholet, by dissolving
silver in the nitrous acid, precipitating it with lime-water, and drying
the precipitate on ammoniac, has discovered a powder, which fulminates
most powerfully, on coming into contact with any substance whatever.
Once made, it cannot be touched. It cannot be put into a bottle, but
must remain in the capsula, where dried. The property of the spathic
acid, to corrode flinty substances, has been lately applied by a Mr.
Puymaurin, to engrave on glass, as artists engrave on copper, with
aquafortis.

M. de la Place has discovered, that the secular acceleration and
retardation of the moon's motion, is occasioned by the action of the
sun, in proportion as his excentricity changes, or, in other words,
as the orbit of the earth increases or diminishes. So that this
irregularity is now perfectly calculable.

Having seen announced in a gazette, that some person had found, in a
library of Sicily, an Arabic translation of Livy, which was thought to
be complete, I got the _charge des affaires_ of Naples here, to write to
Naples to inquire into the fact. He obtained in answer, that an Arabic
translation was found, and that it would restore to us seventeen of the
books lost, to wit, from the sixtieth to the seventy-seventh, inclusive:
that it was in possession of an Abbe Vella, who, as soon as he shall
have finished a work he has on hand, will give us an Italian, and
perhaps a Latin translation of this Livy. There are persons, however,
who doubt the truth of this discovery, founding their doubts on some
personal circumstances relating to the person who says he has this
translation. I find, nevertheless, that the _charge des affaires_
believes in the discovery, which makes me hope it may be true.

A countryman of ours, a Mr. Ledyard of Connecticut, set out from hence
some time ago for St. Petersburg, to go thence to Kamtschatka, th