INTRODUCTION BY THE TRANSLATOR.

XV

Armenian bole, a hard and compact earth, of a bright redcolour, somewhat inclining to yellow. It was employed in dis-tilling sea salt and nitre; in which operation, the sulphuric acidit contains acted on the alkaline bases of those salts, and libe-rated their acids. Other kinds of boles were neutral, or alka-line, and were used as colouring matters.

Entrochi are the fossil remains of some extinct marineanimal of the asterise kind, probably the petrified arms of thesea star fish, (stella arborescens.) They are generally cylindriccolumns, about an inch in length, consisting of a number ofsmall joints, like so many segments of a cylinder. The entro-chus pyramidalis is a common fossil in Sweden .

The papers on the Elementary and Bullular Hypotheses areevidently the first ideas of the theories afterwards so ably deve-loped in the Principia* to which the reader is referred foradditional confirmation. The Principles of Chemistry f likewisethrow considerable light on several of the subjects treated of inthese pages; and in their turn, they also derive support fromthe theories and experiments in these Miscellaneous Observations.So true it is, that the same idea of thought runs through thewhole of the author’s philosophical writings, susceptible of am-plification and expansion; so that as our facts increase, theymay each be arranged in their proper place and order; ofwhich, indeed, several recent discoveries in the higher depart-ments of science are remarkable illustrations.

The question has been asked, but chiefly by those who areunacquainted with any of the writings of Swedenborg , What isthe object of publishing works on science which have been solong buried in the dust ? Is any benefit to be expectedfrom reviving them ? To this we may reply, that the first andprincipal object is, to obtain a complete edition of all the worksof Swedenborg , that by his own merits he may be judged,and either fall or stand, according to the result of the investi-

* The Principia; or, the First Principles of Natural Things, l/eing NewAttempts toward a Philosophical Explanation of the Elementary World; lyEmanuel Swedenborg . Translated from the Latin , by the Rev. A. Clissold, M.A.

t Some Specimens of a Work on the Principles of Chemistry, with otherTreatises, by Emanuel Swedenborg . Translated from the Latin , by Charles EdwardStrutt.