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Show [ 72 ] " Thus, cavern' d round in CRACow's tnighty n1ines, With cryfial walls a gorgeous city {hines ; Scoop' d in the briny rock long fireets extend Their hoary courfc, and glittering don1cs afcend; Down the bright ficcps, etnerging into day, In1petuous fountains burfl: their headlong way, 130 0' er tnilk-w hite vales in ivory channels fpread, And wondering feck their fubtcrraneous bed. Fonn'd in pellucid falt with chiffel nice, The pale la1np gli1nn1cring through the fculptured ICe, With wild reverted eyes fair LoTTA fiands, And fprcads to Heaven, in vain, her glaffy hands ; Cold dews condenfe upon her pearly brea.fi-, And the big tear rolls lucid down her vefl:. Far gleaming o'er the town tranfparent fanes 1 35 Rear their white towers, and wave their golden vanes; Long lines of lufires pour their trembling rays, I 41 And the bright vault returns the mingled blaze. [ 73 ] 2. "HENCE orient NITRE owes it's fparkling birth, And with prifmatic cryftals gems the earth, 0' er tottering dotnes in fihny foliage crawls, 145 Or frofl:s with branching plun1es the tnoulderino- \valls, . b Hence orient Nitre. I. 14 3· Nitre is found in Bengal naturally cryfl:allized, and is fwept by brooms from earths and fiones, and thence called fweepings of nitre. It has lately been found in large quantities in a natural bafon of calcareous earth at Molfetta in It::tly, both in thin fl:rata between the c:.~lcareous beds, and in cffiorefcences of various be:.~utiful leafy and hairy forms. An accom1t of this nitre-bed is given by Mr. Zimmerman and abridged in Rozier's Journal de Phyfique, Fcvrier, 1790. This acid appears to be produced in all fituations where animal and \l"egetab!e matters are compleatly decompofcd, and which are expofed to the action of the air, as on the walls of i!ables, and £laughter-houfes; the cryfl:als are prifms furrowed by longitudinal grooves. Dr. Prieflley difcovered that nitrous air or gas which he obtained bydiffolving metals in nitrous acid, would combine rapidly with vital air, and produce with it a true nitrous acid ; forming red clouds during the 'combin:ttion ; the two airs occupy only the fpace before occupied by one of them, and at the fame time heat is given out from the new combination. This diminution of the bulk of a mixture of nitrous g::ts and vital air, Dr. Priel11ey ingeniouny ufed as a teft of the purity of the latter; a difcovery of the greateft importance in the analyfis of airs. Mr. Cavendifh has fince demonfirated that two parts of vital air or oxygene, and one part of phlogifiic air or azote, being long expofed to electric lhocks, unite, and produce nitrous acid. l?hilof. Tranf. Vols. LXXV. and LXXVIII. Azote is one of the moll: abundant elements in nature, and combined with calorique or heat, it forms azotic gas or phlogifl:ic air, and compofes two thirds of the ~tmofphere; <~nd is one of the principal component parts of animal bodies, and when united to vital :1ir or oxygene produces the nitrous acid. Mr. Lavoifier found that 21 t parts by weight of azote, and 4-3i parts of oxygene pr.oduced 64 parts of nitrous gas, and by the further addition of Jb parts of oxygene nitrous acid was produced. Traite de Chimie. When two airs become united fo as to produce an unelafl:ic liquid much c:.~lorique or heat is of neceflity expelled from the new combination, though perh::tps nitrous acid and oxygenated marine acid admit more heat into their combinations than other acids. PART I. L |