Confine with folds of air the lingering fires;
O'er Eve's pale forms diffuse phosphoric light,
And deck with lambent flames the shrine of Night.
So, warm'd and kindled by meridian skies,
180 And view'd in darkness with dilated eyes,
BOLOGNA'S chalks with faint ignition blaze,
BECCARI'S shells emit prismatic rays.
So to the sacred Sun in MEMNON's fane,
Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain;
185 --Touch'd by his orient beam, responsive rings
The living lyre, and vibrates all it's strings;
Accordant ailes the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song.


[_Confine with folds of air_. l. 176. The air, like all other bad
conductors of electricity, is known to be a bad conductor of heat; and
thence prevents the heat acquired from the sun's rays by the earth's
surface from being so soon dissipated, in the same manner as a blanket,
which may be considered as a sponge filled with air, prevents the escape
of heat from the person wrapped in it. This seems to be one cause of the
great degree of cold on the tops of mountains, where the rarity of the
air is greater, and it therefore becomes a better conductor both of heat
and electricity. See note on Barometz, Vol. II. of this work.

There is however another cause to which the great coldness of mountains
and of the higher regions of the atmosphere is more immediately to be
ascribed, explained by Dr. Darwin in the Philos. Trans. Vol. LXXVIII.
who has there proved by experiments with the air-gun and air-pump, that
when any portion of the atmosphere becomes mechanically expanded, it