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their sides, are comprehended within the square ABCD; but when they touch with their angles, they cannot be contained but in the square EHLM, which is twice ABCD, A mathematician will see how this may be carried on farther; and he will likewise observe, that the particles may be relaxed from their lateral disposition, or contracted from their angular, to all the intermediate dimen sions. Cubes may be composed of pyramids, and they again may be composed of similar or dissimilar figures; and as these partake more of the lateral or the angular disposition, the dimensions of the mass may be changed almost to any degree, and the contact of the parts still preserved. As the parts of bodies can touch each other only at their surfaces; and as surfaces are so very much increased when the parts are farther decomposed, many unexpected phænomena may arise from such decompositions. When any substance is analyzed by a dissolving menstruum, the saturation may be sooner effected on this account. It may follow likewise, that when the solvent is rarefied by heat, it will hold more of the dissolved parts in suspension, and that when it is contracted in its dimensions by cold, a precipitation may follow mechanically.

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construction, when each is compared with itself under different circumstances, or when bodies differing in kind are compared with one another, is a question of much importance, but hard to be resolved. If the different figures, constructions, and combinations of the primary elements of bodies were subjected to our inspection, such an unli mited field would be opened, that the human imagination, being for ever engaged with the minutia of matter, would be too busy to consider what is of much more consequence to us, the qualities and uses of formed masses. Atoms are the elements of bodies, as letters are the elements of words and sentences; and that would be a poor fruitless sort of learning, which should bestow all its attention upon the figures and inflexions of all the alphabets in the known world.

As all matter is capable by some means or other of being expanded and contracted to different dimensions, some have thence argued, that the constituent parts of bodies are out of contact. But there are certain laws by which matter may be extended and contracted, without losing its continuity. The particles aaaa*, when they touch with

See Plate I. Fig. 1.

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a

i

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their sides, are comprehended within the square ABCD; but when they touch with their angles, they cannot be contained but in the square EHLM, which is twice ABCD, A mathematician will see how this may be carried on farther; and he will likewise observe, that the particles may be relaxed from their lateral disposition, or contracted from their angular, to all the intermediate dimensions. Cubes may be composed of pyramids, and they again may be composed of similar or dissimilar figures; and as these partake more of the lateral or the angular disposition, the dimensions of the mass may be changed almost to any degree, and the contact of the parts still preserved. As the parts of bodies can touch each other only at their surfaces; and as surfaces are so very much increased when the parts are farther decomposed, many unexpected phænomena may arise from such decompositions. When any substance is analyzed by a dissolving menstruum, the saturation may be sooner effected on this account. It may follow likewise, that when the solvent is rarefied by heat, it will hold more of the dissolved parts in suspension, and that when it is contracted in its dimensions by cold, a precipitation may follow mechanically.

3

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