in every
experiment, always evaporating the mixture the salt was recovered
dry. I collected the salt when I had done with it, and put it into
a glass bottle, with a label expressing what it was, and what use
had been made of it.

Subsequently he treated this salt, after many applications of it, with
sulphuric acid, when he remarked--

I was soon surprized to observe that _red vapours_ rose from it.

An examination of another portion of the salt showed--

that when it was thrown upon hot coals ... it burned exactly like
nitre.

So it was a conversion of sodium chloride into sodium nitrate. That this
change must have come from the _snow_ with which it had been dissolved,
could not be doubted, and he further observed--

Now in the upper regions of the atmosphere ... there may be a
redundancy of inflammable air ... and a proportion of
dephlogisticated air. In that region there are many electrical
appearances, as the _aurora borealis_, falling stars &c; in the
lower parts of it thunder and lightening, and by these means the
two kinds of air may be decomposed, and a highly dephlogisticated
nitrous acid, as mine always was, produced. This being formed,
will of course, attach itself to any _snow_ or _hail_ that may be
forming ... confirming in this unexpected manner, the vulgar
opinion of nitre being contained in snow.

This seems to be the last communication of this character which came
from the Doctor's pen.

He was in despair relative to the academy which had ever been his hope
for the College which in his early years in Northumberland he prayed
might arise and in which he would be at liberty to particularly impart
his Unitarian doctrines.

An interesting item relative to the Academy appeared in the _Aurora_ for
April 1st, 1803. It shows that State aid for education was sought in
those early days. It is a report, and reads--

A REPORT of the Committee to whom was referred the Petition of
Thomas Cooper, on behalf of the Northumberland Academy, praying
legislative aid. The report states that Thomas Cooper appeared
before the Committee and stated that upward of $4000 had been
expended on the building appropriated to that institution. That
the debts due thereon amounted in the whole to near $2000. That
Dr. Joseph Priestley had the power of disposing of a very valuable
librar