Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/91

 in weight that of eight to one—a coincidence with the ratios of the later discovered elements that is highly suggestive. Dumas, in his Chemical Philosophy, remarks of Swedenborg, "It is then to him we are indebted for the first idea of making cubes, tetraedrons, pyramids, and the different crystalline forms, by grouping the spheres."

At the same time with these deep investigations he was also engaged with all earnestness in promoting the working of mines and metals, and on his return home he attempted to introduce an entirely new method of reducing copper ore, as described in his treatise on Copper published twelve years later. In the spring of 1723, though not yet an Ordinary Assessor, he became a regular attendant at the sittings of the College, except when abroad or engaged in the sessions of the Diet, of which by the ennoblement of the family he now became member. In place of speeches at the Diet, none of which have been preserved, we have memorials presented by him not without interest at the present day. The following was perhaps his first address, read to the Diet, February 7, 1723:—

"The chief cause of a country's increase in