Kneel with parch'd lip, and bending from it's brink
From dripping palm the scanty river drink;
NYMPHS! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect,
And high in air the electric flame collect.
555 Soon shall dark mists with self-attraction shroud
The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud;
Each silvery Flower the streams aerial quaff,
Bow her sweet head, and infant Harvest laugh.


[_Ten thousand points erect_. l. 553. The solution of water in air or in
calorique, seems to acquire electric matter at the same time, as appears
from an experiment of Mr. Bennet. He put some live coals into an
insulated funnel of metal, and throwing on them a little water observed
that the ascending steam was electrised plus, and the water which
descended through the funnel was electrised minus. Hence it appears that
though clouds by their change of form may sometimes become electrised
minus yet they have in general an accumulation of electricity. This
accumulation of electric matter also evidently contributes to support
the atmospheric vapour when it is condensed into the form of clouds,
because it is seen to descend rapidly after the flashes of lightning
have diminished its quantity; whence there is reason to conclude that
very numerous metallic rods with fine points erected high in the air
might induce it at any time to part with some of its water.

If we may trust the theory of Mr. Lavoisier concerning the composition
and decomposition of water, there would seem another source of thunder-
showers; and that is, that the two gasses termed oxygene gas or vital
air, and hydrogene gas or inflammable air, may exist in the summer
atmosphere in a state of mixture but not of combination, and that the