FORE:But smoothly as this transaction had passed, there was a hurricane behind. The threatened extension of the measure to Scotland roused all the Presbyterian bigotry of the North. The synod of Glasgow and other synods passed resolutions vowing to oppose any interference with the Scottish Act for the suppression of Popery. Press and pulpit were speedily inflamed; associations were formed in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and most of the towns, for the defence of the Protestant interest. All the old persecutions and insults of Catholics were renewed; they could not safely appear in the streets, or remain safely in their houses. Not even those liberal enough to advocate the just rights of Catholics were secure, at least from rude treatment. Dr. Robertson, the historian, was hooted, when he went abroad, as a favourer of the Papists. There was as yet no more toleration in Scotland than if a William III. had never appeared in England. From Scotland the intolerant leaven spread southwards. It grew fiercer and fiercer, and in a while found a proper champion in the hot-headed Lord George Gordon, whose exploits as the ringleader of riot, and fire, and confusion, culminated two years later in the scenes of destruction and terror for ever memorable as the Gordon riots.Chemistry also received valuable extensions of its field. Dr. John Mayow published new facts respecting nitre, and on the phenomena of respiration and combustion, as revealed by experiments on this and other substances. At the commencement of the eighteenth century Stahl, a German chemist, propounded his theory of phlogiston as the principle of combustion, which was only exploded by the further discoveries of Dr. Black, Cavendish, and Priestley. Soon after, Dr. Hales threw new light on a?riform bodies, or, as they are now termed, gases; and finally, Dr. Black demonstrated the presence of a gas in magnesia, lime, and the alkalies, which had long before been noticed by Van Helmont, but had been forgotten. This was then termed fixed air, but has now acquired the name of carbonic acid gas, or carbon dioxide. At the end of this period chemistry was extensively studied, and was rapidly revealing its secrets.
Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae.
