The zeolite subjected to the following experiments, possesses some of the distinguishing properties common to other stones of the same class, but differs in certain respects from any variety with which I am acquainted. I found it, more than three years ago, in the basaltic rock on which the Castle of Edinburgh is built; and it was inclosed within a mass of prehnite.

Etymological researches have often been branded as trifling, occupying the mind in useless labour, and contributing little to the progress of science, taste, or beneficial knowledge. The justice of this treatment may well be questioned. That this species of study, like many others, has frequently been directed to unimportant objects, cannot be denied; but it by no means follows, that this is the fault of the subject, or that from such researches, however pursued, nothing valuable can be the result. If by etymological investigations, even in their most limited form, essential aids are obtained for facilitating our acquaintance with the writings of antiquity,—if such inquiries have often proved one of the most certain means for attaining accuracy of language and precision of ideas,—if by following them out on an extensive scale, assistance might probably be gained for elucidating some of the obscurities of early history, —and is from this source valuable materials may at all times be drawn for tracing the progress of the intellectual powers, and unfolding the laws of thought through the phenomena of its expressions,—if these, and perhaps other merits, must be allowed to etymological and grammatical disquisitions, they are surely sufficient to rescue from contempt this class of inquiries. If to all this we can add, what I believe will pretty generally be found to hold true, that those who affect most to despite this branch of study, have seldom any thing better to substitute in its place, a sufficient vindication will, I hope, be afforded, for employing a little literary leisure in the culture even of this apparently unpromising field.

Dr James Hutton was the son of Mr William Hutton, merchant in Edinburgh, and was born in that city on the 3d of June 1726. His father, a man highly respected for his good sense and integrity, and who for some years held the office of City Treasurer, died while James was very young. The care of her son's education devolved of course on Mrs Hutton, who appears to have been well qualified for discharging this double portion of parental duty. She resolved to bestow on him a liberal education, and sent him first to the High School of Edinburgh, and afterwards to the University, where he entered as a student of humanity in November, 1740.

In the outset of the Inquiry, it was observed, that the Greek language is a language of regular structure, forming its roots within itself. Following out this idea, I have, in different parts of the investigation, had recourse to the line of cognates and derivatives, as the surest aids for conducting us to the radical sense of a word, where the immediate root appeared to have fallen into difuse, or the signification had diverged considerably from the primitive idea. The grounds upon which I have thus proceeded, may require elucidation.

To the general law, that bodies are expanded by heat, and contracted by cold, water at the point of congelation, and for some degrees of temperature above it, seems to afford a very singular and curious exception.

The circumstances of this remarkable anomaly have been for some time believed to be the following:

When heat is applied to water ice cold, or at a temperature not far distant, it causes a diminution in the bulk of the fluid. The water contracts, and continues to contract, with the augmentation of temperature, till it reaches the 40th or 41st degree. Between this point and the 42d or 43d, it suffers scarcely any perceptible change; but when heated beyond the last-mentioned degree, it begins to expand, and increases in volume with every subsequent rise of temperature.

The merits of studious men are to be estimated by the aids they have given to the advancement of science, or the literary monuments they have left with posterity; but if the public be gratified by their labours in these respects, readers are generally willing also to be told, who and whence they were.