ANDREW MARVEL. 167 



the air of the receiver was neither vitiated nor improved by the 

 respiration of the plant. 



The science of chemistry also, through the medium of M. 

 Duma?, lends its aid to support this , opinion. This distinguished 

 philosopher shows, by calculation, that the vegetable kingdom 

 exercises no influence whatever on animals. " The circumambient 

 atmosphere," says he, "presses upon us with a weight equal to 

 681,000 cubes of ^'copper of a kilometre to each side ; its oxygen 

 has a specific gravity equal to 134,000 of these cubes. Supposing 

 the population of the earth to be a thousand millions, and, including 

 other animals, to be equivalent to three thousand millions of men, 

 we have found that all these would not, in the course of an age, 

 consume more oxygen than the weight of 15 or 16 kilometre cubes 

 of copper, whilst the gravity of the entire atmosphere is equal to 

 134,000 such cubes. Ten thousand years must elapse before all 

 these animals could produce on our atmosphere an effect appreciable 

 by that delicate instrument, the eudiometre of Volta, even supposing 

 the influence of vegetation annihilated during that period. We 

 perceive then how, by different routes, M. Martins and M. Dumas 

 have both arrived at the same conclusion." The chemist, with his 

 balance at hand, confirms the opinions of the vegetable physiologist, 

 their results agree ; nor need we be surprised, for the sciences are all 

 sisters and advance hand in hand. 



w. H. 



ANDREW MARVEL. 



We've gained the village, and our task is done ! 

 Yet, let us take the roadway to the west. 

 And from the height of this commanding hill 

 View H umber once again. How far the eye 

 On each hand stretches o'er the level plain 

 Spread out beneath ; which to the east is clad 

 With purple woods, the west with cultured fields. 

 Farms, hamlets, villages, the rural church. 

 The solitary cot, the whirling mill. 

 With mingled beauty animate the scene ; 

 Through which proud H umber with his rolling tide 



