78 Of Gold and Silver WIRE-DRAWING. all other officers and ministers attending the fame, fhall be chofe at the feffions at Hicks's-Hall, by the majority of the juftices there prefent, by ballot. 57. That all fines and forfeitures to be impofed or to accrue by virtue of this act, not otherwife difpofed of, shall be paid to the treasurer of the county- A houfe, and be applied to the use of the faid house. 58. The governor may make by-laws with the confent of the juftices, the fame to approved by the lord chancellor. 59. Perfons tried, &c. fhall plead this act, &c. The INSPECTOR, Feb. 6. Of Gold and Silver WIRE-DRAWING. (See p. 71.) W feared of the filver in the bar, as will now suppose ourselves pof the French have it; and it is then to be delivered to the wire-drawer. That the French have excelled us in this art is certain; and it is not much a wonder; the men of greatest genius in that country have employed their talents in its fervice: They have examined the works, and they have inftructed the workmen. In Paris there is a Royal Society: All the men of abilities are of it, and scarce any others. The most confiderable of these are paid by the fovereign for directing their talents to useful purposes; and what he has given in pensions, they have repaid in the improvement of his commerce. It is to thefe France owes its fuperiority in many articles of the manufactures; and in none more than this. The chemist alone could improve an art, the whole foundation of which is in chemistry. One of the academicians invented the metal, of which they were to make their engines: Another difcovered the true temper and condition of filver, for fhewing of gold on its furface; and a third proportioned even the degree of heat, neceffary to be employed in the working. There, every the minutest branch of the work was under the inspection of fuch as had talents, and could not only difcover a fault, but fee and remedy the occafion of it: With us, all is in the hands of ignorant perfons, who go on mechanically; and having no knowledge of the principles of their business, can never alter any thing that is amifs. The matter of which thofe plates are made, with holes that fhape the wire, is a mixt metal. The compofition is kept a fecret in the country where it was invented; and we, with whom thofe Feb. who have power to improve the arts are not called in to do it, are obliged to procure thofe engines from them. The exporting them from France is wifely made capital; but as we can draw no wire without them, we find means to procure them. When we have thefe, the difficulty is to imitate the ufe their inventors make of them. The French foon found that filver, which had fome degree of hardness, was the brightest: They found this rendered it liable to inconveniences in the working and they applied to their supervifors: the objection was plain, and the difficulty was eafily removed. They were B directed to give the bars the neceffary heat in a particular manner; and they fucceeded: The filver only altered its temper as it paffed thro' the hole of the engine; and recovered it immediately after. To this is owing the excellency of the filver wire of Lions. With us, if an amendment in the quality of the filver be attempted, and this neceffary confequence attend it, the wire-drawer throws it down: It will not do: He knows not how to remedy the fault: And there is an end of the improvement. D E F G Thus much as to the filver, for in the wire this is all the difference: The gold wire of Paris does not at the first look fo bright as ours, but it continues what it was, and ours in twice wearing in the lace, is inferior. The French use pure filver, viz. filver without any alloy, for the bars that are to be gilded; we put into it a little of the copper, and that is the fource of all the difference. It is not that this small portion of copper fhews itfelf thro' the gold; that were idle to imagine: But it alters the quality of the filver. The circumstance is this: Gold laid upon filver in ever fo small a quantity in the bar, will cover it equally when drawn into the finest wire: But the purer the filver is, the more closely it will cover it; the evener the surface of that metal, the more smooth it will lie upon it: And on this smoothness depends in a great measure the glofs and lustre. Pure filver is, next to gold, the most even on its furface of all metals; but the addition of copper renders it unequal: Ever fo fmall a portion of that mixture will have this effect in fome degree; and every degree of it will be perceived in this nice manufacture; the French made many experiments of filver, with different degrees of alloy, to know which fuc ceeded beft in the wire for gilding. Thofe perfons of judgment and knowledge I have already named, were at their head: They were ready not only to propofe the best 1753. Dr. STUKELY, of the Caufes of Earthquakes. 79 best methods, but to remedy inconveni- we lofe fight of the theological purpofs of thefe amazing alarms, whilft we endeavour to find out the philosophy of them. Permit me, then, to throw in my thoughts on the caufe of Earthquakes. I did not enter into the common notion of struggles between fubterraneous winds, or fires, vapours, or waters, that heaved up the ground, like animal convulsions; but I always thought it was an electrical fhock. When we reflect on the unusual winter now paft, beyond what occurs to any one's memory, that it has been dry and warm to an extraordinary degree, the B wind generally S. and S. W. and that without rain, we may, with much reason imagine, that the earth has been in a ftate of electricity, ready for that particular vibration wherein electricity confifts. There are ways of decompofing all mixed metals; there will be no difficulty C in finding what is the compofition of the French wire-plates; and they may be made here. As to the filver wire of Lions, all that is wanting to our equalling it, is the drawing a proper filver; filver obtained from the Potofi ores, or refined with nitre, or by diffolution, and hardened properly by the alloy. To equal the gold of Paris, there needs only to ufe D pure filver for the wire, and to lay on a All that reproper quantity of gold. mains is with the workman; he must be taught to apply his fire in proper man ner to the filver, and to use a smaller degree of it than ordinarily is done to the gold. E N°. 497, of the Philofophical Tranfa&tions, 13, 1749-50. N the works of nature and Providence there are no degrees of great and little; nevertheless we ourselves are more affected with what feems great, in our own apprehenfions; but an Omnipotent Power admits of no diftinctions; and whilft prodigious effects are produced from caufes imperceptible, it rightly claims our serious attention, as well as wonder; nor need G And that it has been fo, we may further conclude from the extraordinary forwardness of vegetation, from the frequency of the northern lights, and efpecially of that called Aurora australis, which are with us infrequent, and twice repeated, just before the earthquakes, (being of fuch colours as we had never feen before), and removed fouthward, quite contrary to thofe common with us. Add to this, that fome foreigners among us from Italy, and thofe parts, where earthquakes are frequent, obferving these lights, and the particular temper of the air, did actually forefee the event of an earthquake. All thefe matters concur, in fhewing, that the earth was in a ftate of electricity, beyond what has ever been in our memory. Admitting this, there is nothing wanting, to produce the wonderful effect of an earthquake, but the touch of any non-electrick body; and that must neceffarily be had ab extra, from the region of the air, or atmosphere. We had lately a very pretty difcourfe read here, from Mr. Franklyn of Phiand like meteors. He well folves them ladelphia, concerning thundergufts, lights, by the touch of clouds, raifed from the the fea, (which are non-electricks) and of clouds raised from exhalations of the land (which are electrified): That little fnap, which we hear, in our elec trical experiments, when produced by a thousand miles compafs of clouds, and that re-echoed from cloud to cloud, the extent of the firmament, makes that thunder, which affrightens us. From the fame principle I infer, that, if a non-electrick cloud difcharges its contenta See Lond, Mag. for 1750, p. 91, 138, 80 The LIFE of Bishop BURNET. tents upon any part of the earth, when In a high-electrified state, an earthquake must neceffarily enfoe. As a shock of the electrick tube in the human body, fo the shock of many miles compafs of folid earth, muft needs be an earthquake; and that fnap, from the contact, be the hor rible uncouth noise thereof. The reafon is obvious, why earthquakes are not fo frequent with us, and the northern regions in general, as in Italy, and more fouthern climes: All electricity requires great dryhefs and warmth; and I doubt not but earthquakes, of a small degree, have and do frequently happen. Feb. An Abstract of the LIFE of Bifbep BURNET by Sir THOMAS BURNET, Kut. late one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas (Se the HBAD curiously engraved.), ta R. Gilbert Burnet was born at Ediry D'burgh, Sept. 16. 1643. His father A was the younger brother of a family; vel ry confiderable for its antiquity as well as intereft, in the fhire of Aberdeen; and his mother was fifter to the famous Sir Archibald Johnftoun, called lord Warriftoun. The doctor's father having been bred to the law, was called to the bar in Scotland; but was obliged to give over practice, and even for fome time to live in exile, for not complying with the governing powers during the ufurpation, tho' he might have had any encouragement by means of his brother-in-law, the faid Sir Archibald, who was a chief leader among the Prefbyterians; therefore, upon the restoration he was made a lord of feffion, but died in 1661. C B All that we have faid upon the fubject receives great ftrength from this particular, that water strengthens and conweys the force of electricity. From whence we may account for that obfervation, that the most dreadful effects of earthquakes are always felt in maritime towns; as Port-Royal in Jamaica, Lima in Peru, Meffina in Sicily, &c. And here, we find plainly, that the fhock went along C the river, both upwards and downwards, farther than by land; like the bottle of water held in the hand, in electrical experiments. But from hence it is highly worthy of remark, that the finger of Providence is notoriously difcernible herein; of Him, D Who guides the thunder, and directs the form, We fee and admite the effects of elec1 tricity, and its ftupendous properties. every day; which feems as it were an animating foul to matter. The ancients had a notion that the earth was a great animal, probably from fome obfervations of electricity; but certainly, when in G our days we feel thefe unufual and extraordinary convulfions of nature, it is a leffon to us, to do our duty toward that great Being, who, by a drop of water can produce effects fo prodigious. His fon Gilbert was fo early a proficient in learning, that at ten years old he was mafter of the Latin, and was fent to the college of Aberdeen, where he commenced master of arts at 14, and then applied himself to the law, with a defign to be called to the bar; but after ftudying the civil and feudal law for a twelvemonth, he altered his defign, and refolved to dedicate himself to the church; whereupon he began to study divinity, and with. fuch fuccefs, that before he was 18, he was admitted a probationer or expectantpreacher, after a trial as to his parts and learning, which was ufually at that time very fevere in Scotland. Soon after Mr. Burnet's being thus admitted a preacher, his coufin-german, Sir Alexander Burnet, gave him a prefentation to a very good benefice; but as he thought himself too young for a cure of fouls, he abfolutely refufed to accept of it, and continued his Audy of divinity at Edinburgh, in which he was affifted. by Mr. Nairn, at that time a famous extempore preacher, who put him upon at. tempting the fame method of preaching, which be continued. to practife all the` reft of his life. In 1663, he made a tour to London for about fix months, and during 1664, he made a tour through Holland, Flanders, and France; in all which places he made himfelf acquainted with the most noted learned men of the time. In 1665, Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun gave him a prefentation to that church, which he would not abfolutely accept of, until the parishioners had all unanimously joined in requesting him to do fo; whereupon he |