[62] This title, and many of the following ideas, are borrowed from a treatise of Mr. Michaelis, director of the Royal Society of Gottingen.
[63] Any person may prove this by a trifling experiment. Let him place a glass receiver or bowl over the grass in a summer's day, and the next morning he will find as much dew under it as around it.
The truth is this; the particles of water are constantly exhaled from the earth by the heat of the sun. During the day time, these particles ascend in an imperceptible manner, and furnish the atmosphere with the materials of clouds and rain. But in the night, the atmosphere grows cool, while the earth, retaining a superior degree of heat, continues to throw off the particles of water. These particles, meeting the colder atmosphere, are condensed, and lodge upon the surface of the earth, grass, trees and other objects. So that the expression, the dew falls, is in a degree true, altho it first rises from the earth.
[64] It is a fact, supported by unquestionable testimony, that the savage nations on the frontiers of these States, have fewer vices in proportion to their virtues, than are to be found in the best regulated civilized societies with which we are acquainted.
[65] Uxores habent deni, duodenique inter se communes; et maxime fratres cum fratribus, et parentes cum liberis. Sed si qui sunt ex his nati; eorum habenter liberi a quibus primum virgines quæque ductæ sunt.—— Cæsar de bell. Gall. Lib. 5.
[66] Let an individual depend solely on his own exertions for food, and a single failure of crops subjects him to a famin. Let a populous country depend solely on its own produce, and the probability of a famine is diminished; yet is still possible. But a commercial intercourse between all nations, multiplies the chances of subsistence, and reduces the matter to a certainty. China, a well peopled country, is subject to a famin merely for want of a free commerce.
[67] Jacob Dict. word, domesday.
[68] Cowel Dict. Daysman.
[69] Coke Litt. 3. 248.
[70] It iz singular that the last syllable of this word domesday, should hav been mistaken for day, a portion of time; for the latter in Saxon waz written daeg and daegum, az in the Saxon version of the Gospels; whereaz the termination of domesday waz formerly, and ought now to be, spelt dey.