Alabama state intelligencer., 1831-08-13

1 tle evil, tne Ntefary WOflu must act as the
 Ieople do, when a crisis occurs in politics. tley must recur to first principles. The
 pets, philosophers, critics, novelists, wits aid so forth who are now parcelled out into sEarate coteries, must call a convention; they
 must agree to be no longer ashamed of each ohers company, and combine all their talents ad exertions for the amusement and edifica- | tim of their country
 FDm MT Everets Essay the importance of Scientfc Knowledge.
 No one can tell us what might have been dne, had every opportunity been faithfully improved; every suggestion sagaciously ycaught uI and followed out. No one can tell how of tel the uneducated or unobservant mind has approached to the very verge of a great dis every, has had some wonderful invention al- most thrust upon it, but without effect. The alcients, as we learn from many passages in the Greek and Latin classics, were acquaint- ed with convex lenses, but did not apply them to magnifying glasses or telescopes. They made use of seal-rings containing inscriptions; and they marked their 1ocks with brands, containing the owners name. In each of these practises, faint rudments of the art of print ine are concealed. C1cero Tn one of his mo- raI works ( De .Natura Deorum J, in con futng the errors of those philosophers who taught that the world was produced by the fortuitous concourse of wandering atoms, uses the following language, as curious in connex ion with the point would illustrate, as it is beautiful in expression, and powerful in argu- ment: "Here," said he, "must l not won der, if there should be a man who can per suade himself that certain solid and separate bodies are borne about by force or weight, and that this most beautiful world was formed by their accidental meeting? Whoever Can think this possible, do not see why he cannot also believe, that if a large number of forms of the one and twenty letters (of gold or any like substance) were thrown any where together, that the annals of Ennius might be made out from them, as they are ast on the ground, so as to be read in order; thing which know not it it be within the power of chance to cf- feet even in single verse" How very near an approach is made, in this remark, to the invention of the art of printing, fifteen hun dred years before it took place.
 How slight and familiar was the occurrence which gave Sir Isaac Newton the first sug- gestion of his system of the universe! This great man had been driven by the plague from London to the country, and had left his library behind him. Obliged to find occupation in the activity of his own mind, he was led in his meditations, to trace the principle which 
 in the garden where he passed his solitary hours. Commencing with this familiar hint, he followed it out to that universal law of gra- vity, which binds the parts of the earth, and ocean together, which draws the moon to the earth, the satellites to the planets, the pla- nets to the sun, and the sun itself, with it's at tendant worlds, towards some grand and ge- neral point of attraction for that infnity of systems, of which the several stars are the centres How many hundreds of thousands of men, since the creation of the world, had seen an apple falling from tree! How many philosophers had speculated profoundly on the system of the universe! But it required the talent of man, placed by general consent at the head of the human race, to deduce from this familiar occurrence, on the surface of the earth, the operation of the primordial law of nature which governs the glorious movements ot the heavens, and holds the uni verse together. Nothing less than his saga city could have made the deduction, and mo- thing less than a mathematical skill and an acquaintance with the previously ascertained principles of science,-such as falls to the lot of very few, would have enabled Newton to demonstrate the truth of his system.
 Let us quote another example, to show that the most obvious and familiar facts may be noticed for ages without effect, till they are observed by a sagacious eye, and scrutinized with patience and perseverance. The ap- | pearance of lightning in the clouds was as old as creation; and certainly no phenomenon for ces itself more directly on the notice of men, | The existence of the electric fluid, as excited by artificial means, was famliarly known to philosophers hundred years before Frank lin and there are few vague hints, prior to his time, that lightning was an electrical ap- pearance. But it was left for Franklin dis | tinctly to perceive that proposition, and to institute an experiment by which it should be demonstrated. The process by which he reached this great conclusion is worth remem- bering. Dr Franklin had seen the most fla miliar electrical experiments performed at | Boston, in 1645, by certain Dr Spence, a Scotch lecturer. His curiosity was excited by witnessing these experiments, and he pur- chased the whole of Dr Spence's apparatus,
 and repeated the experiments at Philadel- | phia. Pursuing his researches with his own instruments, and others which had been libe-
 rally presented to the province of Pennsylva-
 mia, by the proprietor, MT Penn, and by Dr
 Franklin's friend Mir Collinson, our illustr-
 ous countryman rapidly enlarged the bounds of electrical science, and soon arrived at the
 undoubting conclusion that the electrical fluid
 and lightning are identical. But he could not
 rest till he brought this truth to the test of de-
 monstration, and he boldly set about an ex-
 pertinent, upon the most terrific element in
 nature. He at first proposed, by means of a spire, which was erected in Philadelphia, to form a connexion between the region of the clouds and an electrical apparatus but the appearance of 6oy's kite in the air, suggest ed to him readier method. Having prepar-
 ed kite adapted for the purpose, he went out into field, accompanied by his son, to
 whom, alone, he had imparted his design | The kite was raised, having key attached