Objects and Uses of Meteorology, 149 



the man of science, it may be as well to exemplify them by 

 reference to some particular instances. 



The soil, then, in which plants grow, and on which animals 

 live and move, is derived, in the first instance, from the pul- 

 verisation of some stratum, or some rock, forming the ori- 

 ginal surface of the earth ; this may be either granite, sand- 

 stone, clay, limestone, or chalk, &c. Now these rocks and 

 strata consist of various inorganic bodies or minerals, aggre- 

 gated together in various ways ; and the solid parts, forming 

 the basis of the more delicate organisation of plants and ani- 

 mals, consist also of similar substances, to which the arrange- 

 ment effected by the vital powers has given an organic form, 

 — or disposed into structures and tissues of vessels, — for the 

 purpose of receiving, adapting, and making use of the dif- 

 ferent fluids destined to be the agents employed by the vital 

 powers in sustaining the manifestation of life. Thus the reti- 

 culated epidermis, or outer coat of the plants which have hol- 

 low stalks, including the reeds, the grasses, and the various 

 species of cane, consists principally of the originally inor-^ 

 ganic substance silica, of which, in various states of combina- 

 tion, a great part of the earth's surface is formed. Thus, 

 also, the skeletons of the vertebrated animals are composed of 

 the inorganic substance lime, combined with phosphoric acid j 

 and the shells, which serve as external skeletons to the mol- 

 luscous animals, including the different kinds of shell-fish, 

 consist chiefly of the same earth combined with carbonic acid^ 

 or in the state oi carbonate of lime, which inorganic substance 

 forms many great ranges of mountains, and many extensive 

 plains. 



Having taken this glance at the two primary divisions of 

 natural things, — the inorganic and the organic subjects of 

 creation, — we will now proceed to examine the phenomena 

 attending the distribution of the latter over the surface of the 

 earth ; phenomena which are connected immediately and in 

 a very important manner with the main subject of the pre- 

 sent article, namely, the objects and uses of meteorological 

 science. But it appeared expedient, on entering so wide a 

 field of enquiry, to take, at first, a comprehensive view of 

 the relations to each other of several departments of the 

 creation, in order to counteract the fallacious ideas of dis- 

 union and independence among natural objects, which the 

 segregation and separation of them in the mind, for the 

 purpose of scientific investigation, has a tendency, from the 

 imperfection of the human faculties, to produce. 



The life and well-being of organised nature in general, and 

 of plants and animals in particular, are sustained primarily 



L 3 



