Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies;
In iron cells condensed the airy spring,
And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing;
--On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls,
410 And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls;
Steam, smoak, and dust in blended volumes roll,
And Night and Silence repossess the Pole.--


[_Hurl'd in resplendent arches_. l. 406. The addition of an air-cell to
machines for raising water to extinguish fire was first introduced by
Mr. Newsham of London, and is now applied to similar engines for washing
wall-trees in gardens, and to all kinds of forcing pumps, and might be
applied with advantage to lifting pumps where the water is brought from
a great distance horizontally. Another kind of machine was invented by
one Greyl, in which a vessel of water was every way dispersed by the
explosion of gun-powder lodging in the centre of it, and lighted by an
adapted match; from this idea Mr. Godfrey proposed a water-bomb of
similar construction. Dr. Hales to prevent the spreading of fire
proposed to cover the floors and stairs of the adjoining houses with
earth; Mr. Hartley proposed to prevent houses from taking fire by
covering the cieling with thin iron-plates, and Lord Mahon by a bed of
coarse mortar or plaister between the cieling and floor above it. May
not this age of chemical science discover some method of injecting or
soaking timber with lime-water and afterwards with vitriolic acid, and
thus fill its pores with alabaster? or of penetrating it with siliceous
matter, by processes similar to those of Bergman and Achard? See
Cronstadt's Mineral. 2d. edit. Vol. I. p. 222.]