Cursory remarks on some parts of a work, entitled Studies of nature ; originally written by M. de Saint Pierre, and translated into English by ... Henry Hunter / [William Cole].

  • Cole, William, active 1807.
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cursory remarks on some parts of a work, entitled Studies of nature ; originally written by M. de Saint Pierre, and translated into English by ... Henry Hunter / [William Cole]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/80 (page 51)
    to an equal degree of ridicule. Nor should we have carried our remarks thus far, but merely to shew the “pertinacity of man in favor of pre- “conceived opinions, in the very face oj evidence Our author’s theory of the tides has led him into an error of another kind. To account, in some measure, for the spring tides, he ascribes to the moon the power of exciting a sensible de¬ gree of heat, by reflecting the rays of the sun. Speaking of the moon [Page 6. Voh I.] he says, “ I make her to act on the frozen seas of the poles “ by the reflected heat of the sun.” And he farther observes [Page 488. Vol. I.] “ The moon when “ full has an effective and evaporating warmth <c she must act, therefore, on the polar ices, espe- <c daily when at the full. The academy of sciences “formerly maintained that her light did not warm, “ after experiments made on her rays, and on the “ball of a thermometer, with a burning mirror.— £‘ This error,” he adds, “ has been completely re- “ futed, first at Rome, and afterwards at Paris, by “ a very simple experiment Some one,” be tells us, “ took a fancy to expose a vessel full of wa- “ ter to the light of the moon, and to place one si- * See Postcrip. H 2