whom I treat. They affumed to themselves divine titles, and were esteemed by their pofterity as a fuperior order of beings They did not preserve their eftate; nor regard the rule and government under which they were placed, but révolted, and forfook their habitation. On this account they were represented as condemned to Tartarus; and there referved in chains and darkness.

Such, fays this Writer, is the history of the first apoftate and his affociates; every circumstance of which we shall find authenticated in the accounts of Gentile writers. It is obfervable, he adds, that St. Peter takes notice of three great apofiacies in the church of God: that which happened in the antediluvian world, when all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth that of the perfons ftiled angels, which fucceeded, and, aly, that of Antichrift, which he faw was approaching. The falling away of thofe called angels being introduced firft, has -made many think that this event was first in order, and prior to the creation, and that the perfons mentioned were celeftial beings. But it will be found that they were really men, and the fame that I have pointed out.'

This is a brief view of Mr. Henley's fcheme, which we have given in his own words. He makes great use of the celebrated analyfis of ancient mythology, part of an extract from whence, as he has felected it from the original, we fhall here infert.

"The place where mankind firft refided, was undoubtedly the region of the Minya, at the bottom of Mount Baris or Ararat.-During their refidence in these parts, we may prefume, that there was a feafon of great happiness. They for a long time lived under the mild rule of the great Patriarch, before laws were enacted, or penalties known. When they multiplied, and were become very numerous, it pleafed God to allot to the various families different regions, to which they were to retire; and they accordingly in the days of Peleg did remove, and betake themfelves to their different departments. But the fons of Chus would not obey. They went off under the conduct of the arch-rebel Nimrod; and feem to have been for a long time in a roving ftate: but at laft they arrived at the plains of Shinar. These they found occupied by Affur and his fons: for he had been placed there by divine appointment. But they ejected him; and feized on his dominions; which they fortified with cities; and laid the foundation of a great monarchy. Their leader is often mentioned by the Gentile writers, who call him Belus and he is univerfally spoken of, as the builder of the Tower, called the Tower of Babel. He was affifted in the building of it by his affociates; and it is exprefsly faid that they erected it to prevent their being fcattered abroad.-According to the Gentile accounts a large body of them were driven weft

8

ward,

ward, as far as Mauritania, to the extremities of the earth, and the fuppofed confines of Tartarus. Here they fettled under the names of Titanians and Atlantians. Oppofite to them another body of them was faid to have taken up their refidence at Tarteffus, under the conduct of Gyges; who was alfo a Titanian from Chaldea. Of thefe later hiftories many traces may be found in the facred writers."

To add ftrength to the above account, and illuftrate at the fame time the words of the apoftles, our Author produces a paffage from a treatife of Philo, who, he fays, relates that the defcendants of Cufh broke through the fubordination in which they had been placed, and deferted their own eftate, that they took up arms and waged open and determined war, against those who were in amity with them; and that Nimrod, to whofe name the appellation of The REVOLTER from hence became fynonimous, was the infigator of this infurrection*.

Thus we find,' it is added, from the concurrent atteftation of different writers, that thefe original apoftates went off in a body, deferting that habitation where they had been first placed; which the apoftle defcribes under the terms-un pATAS THE ἑαυτων αρχην—and confequently declining that to which they were aligned-αλλα απολιποντας το ίδιον οικητηριον. Had they acted as they were bound by every tie of duty and allegiance, they would have waited for the general migration, which they feem to have anticipated; and they would, according to the divine appointment, have departed to thofe regions, which were occupied by the Mizraïm, Lubim, and other of the fons of Ham. But they refufed to fubmit to the divine decree, and neglected, το ίδιον οικητηριον, the place to which they had been deftined.'

Our Author produces a number of quotations to prove that the title Angels does by no means difagree with the hiftory of Nimrod and his affociates: but thefe, together with other authorities and remarks that are introduced to illuftrate and fupport his fubject, it is not in our power to lay before our Readers. We fhall, however, take a little notice of what is obferved conIn the Mofaic account cerning the difperfion of this people. nothing more is faid, than that it pleafed God to confound their lip but other writers, both facred and profane, mention, that there was an uncommon difplay of God's wrath; and that their flight was attended with fearful judgments. The apoftle seems to allude to this in the word TapTapwoas: wherein is implied that force and violence, by which they were hurled down to the regions of darkness. In this manner were they diffipated to the north, and to the fouth: to the caft and to the weft:

Philo de Gigantibus, apud Opera, vol. I. p. 272.

and

and the fevering of this formidable body was alluded to by the Gentile writers under the emblem of Bacchus being difmembered, and having his limbs fcattered abroad: of which a memorial was kept up in the facred rites of the Greeks, and other nations. The like alfo was commemorated by the Egyptians in the rites of Ofiris; who was fuppofed to have been cut to pieces, and to have had his limbs fcattered abroad by Typhon. We have the hiftory of this people pointed out in the accounts given us of the Titans, who warred against Jove; and of the giants, who raised mountains upon mountains in order to affail heaven. Alfo of the gods who fled for fhelter to Egypt and other places. -They are defcribed as being at laft overpowered with storms and whirlwinds; and blafted with lightning: and at the clore it is faid, that they were driven to Tartarus, and there kept in chains of darkness.'

But we fhall only farther obferve, that the attempt of this Writer is very laudable; he appears to have employed great care and affiduity in his enquiries concerning these paffages of fcripture; he manifefts an acquaintance with fubjects of learning, andgives an explication which carries with it an air of probability; though, it must be owned, poffibilities and probabilities fometimes afford but little fatisfaction in the interpretation of the fcriptures.

Hi.

ART. XI. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the Royal Society of London. Vol. LXVIl. For the Year 1777. Part 2. 410.

10 s. 6d. Davis. 1778.

PNEUMATOLOGICAL and BAROMETRICAL Obfervations. Article 32. An Account of fome Experiments made with an Air Pump on Mr. Smeaton's Principle; together with fome Experiments with a common Pump. By Mr. Edward Nairne, F. R. S. N this paper a very confiderable degree of light is thrown on the air-pump, and on the nature of exhaustion, by an extensive feries of accurate and well imagined experiments; to which the Author was led by obferving, and particularly attending to, the very remarkable differences, with refpect to the degree of exhauftion as indicated by the common barometer gage, and the pear gage invented by Mr. Smeaton, for the purpofe of meafuring the very great degrees of rarefaction which he ascribed to the air pump as improved by him.

For the particular defcription of this last mentioned gage, we muft refer our readers to the 47th volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions, page 420. It will, however, be proper here to obferve that it confifts of a glafs tube, of a small bore, fealed at its upper end, and terminating towards its lower extremity, which is open, in a hollow bulb or sphere. During the time of exhauftion, this inftrument is kept fufpended over a bason of

mercury

mercury within the receiver. When the exhaustion is completed, its lower end is dipped in the mercury; and on letting air into the receiver, the mercury rifes into the bulb and the tube, till the air remaining within it becomes of the fame denThe ratio fity, nearly, with the atmosphere or external air.

between the space occupied by this remaining air, and the space in the rest of the tube and the bulb which is occupied by the quickfilver, is confidered as furnishing a measure of the degree to which the air has been rarefied within the receiver.

If no other elaftic fluid than atmospherical or permanent air were contained within an exhaufted receiver, we can fee no reason why this and the common barometer gage fhould not pretty nearly agree in their teftimonies with refpect to the degree of rarefaction. Mr. Nairne however repeatedly found the moft enormous differences in their indications. When the mercury in the barometer gage, for inftance, was brought down only to about one tenth of an inch of the furface of the mercury in the cistern, and accordingly indicated that the air had been rarefied only about 300 times; Mr. Smeaton's, or the pear gage above mentioned, on letting the air enter into the receiver, nad the whole of its cavity, except a fix thousandth part, filled by the quickfilver; and accordingly indicated a degree of exhauftion equal to fix thou fand times.-In other experiments, as will foon be fhewn, the differences in the indications of thefe two gages were still more enormous.

On repeating fome of thefe experiments in the prefence of the honourable Henry Cavendish, Mr. Smeaton, and feveral other gentlemen of the Royal Society, in April 1776, when the two gages thus violently contradicted each other; Mr. Caven difh endeavoured to account for thefe differences, by referring to fome observations made by his father, Lord Charles Caven difh. From thefe it appeared that water, moisture, contained within a receiver, is converted into an elastic fluid, whenever the air in the receiver is rarefied to a certain cegree, or ceases to prefs it with a certain degree of force; and that this elaftic vapour is condensed, or reduced to water again, whenever the preffure of the air is reftored.

Thus, in the inftance above given, where the pear gage indicated a degree of exhauftion equal to 60co, it is fuppofed,

• This vapour is faid to be generated from water, when the tem perature is 72 degrees of Fahrenheit's fcale, as foon as the preffure is no greater than that of three quarters of an inch of quickfilver, or about one fortieth of the usual peffure of the atmosphere but in the cooler temperature of 41 degrees, the preffure must be reduced to that of a quarter of an inch of quickfilver, or abou, a one hundred and twentieth of the ufual preffure, before the water will turn into vapour.

according

according to this theory, that only a 6000th part of real or permanent air had been left in the receiver, or that the true air contained in it had been actually rarefied 6000 times; the aforefaid elaftic vapour (proceeding from the leather on which the receiver was placed) having been fucceffively mixed with the true air remaining in the receiver, and having, by its elafticity, promoted its extraction from thence. Accordingly, when the air is admitted into the receiver, the void fpace at the top of the pear gage is fuppofed to give the true measure of the real air that remained in the receiver previous to the admiffion of the external air into it: the claftic vapour not affecting the obfervation made with this inftrument; as it is now deftroyed or reduced to the state of water.

But the cafe is very different with refpect to the barometer gage; as its indications are very materially affected by this vapour. Before the air was admitted into the receiver, the mercury in this gage was observed to ftand so high as 1-10th of an inch above that in the ciftern, and it accordingly indicated a rarefaction only of 300. Here the mercury is fuppofed to be fuftained at this height principally by the elaftic force of the vapour above mentioned; which prevents the quickfilver from defcending fo low as it would have done, had no other fluid except real air preffed on the mercury in the cistern. This gage, accordingly, only afcertains the remaining quantity of air and vapour mixed, or, in other words, the quantity of elaftic fluid -be its nature what it may contained within the receiver.

The greater part of the numerous experiments contained in this article were made with a view to inquire into the truth of this hypothefis; or, in other words, to fettle the functions and characters of these two difcordant inftruments. We fhall give the fubftance of fuch of them as may be related in the feweft words, or which appear to us the moft fimple and conclufive.

If the difference in the teftimony given by the two gages were caufed by an elaftic vapour generated from moisture, the Author concluded that the two inftruments would agree, if moisture were carefully excluded from every part of the apparatus. Having therefore made every member belonging to the pump as clean and dry as poffible, inftead of placing the receiver on leather dreffed in allum and foaked in oil and tallow, as uful, he put it on the bare pump plate, and made it air-tight by means of a cement applied round its edge. The pump, in this as well as all the following experiments, was worked ten minutes. At the end of that time, the barometer gage indicated a degree of exhauftion nearly equal to 600; and, on letting the air into the receiver, the pear gage agreed with it in indicating a rarefaction of 600 likewife.