M. Dumas on the Chemical Statics of Organized Beings. 341 



moreover remark how the oxide of ammonium, the nitric 

 acid, from which plants borrow a part of their azote, are 

 themselves almost always derived from the action of the great 

 electric sparks which flash forth in stormy clouds, and which 

 (furrowing the air through a vast extent) produce there the 

 nitrate of ammonia which analysis detects in it. 



Thus, from the craters of those volcanos whose convulsions 

 so often agitate the crust of the globe, continually escapes 

 carbonic acid, the principal nutriment of plants ; from the at- 

 mosphere flashing with lightnings, and from the midst of the 

 tempest itself, there descends upon the earth the other and no 

 less indispensable nutriment of plants, that whence they de- 

 rive almost all their azote, the nitrate of ammonia, contained 

 in storm-showers. 



Might not this be called, as it were, an idea of that chaos 

 of which the Bible speaks, of those times of disorder and of 

 tumult of the elements, which preceded the appearance of or- 

 ganized beings upon the earth ? 



But scarcely are the carbonic acid and the nitrate of 

 ammonia produced, than a form more calm, although not 

 of inferior energy, comes to put them in action, — it is Light. 

 Through her influence, the carbonic acid yields its carbon, 

 the water its hydrogen, and the nitrate of ammonia its azote. 

 These elements unite, organized matters form, and the earth 

 puts on its rich carpet of verdure. 



It is then by continually absorbing a real force, the light 

 and the heat emanating from the sun, that plants perform 

 their functions, and that they produce this immense quantity 

 of organized or organic matter, pasture destined for the con- 

 sumption of the animal kingdom. 



And if we add, that animals on their part produce heat 

 and force in consuming what the vegetable kingdom* has pro- 

 duced and has slowly accumulated, does it not seem that the 

 ultimate end of all these phaenomena, their most general for- 

 mula, reveals itself to our sight? 



* The atmosphere appears to us as containing the primary 

 substances of all organization, volcanos and storms as the 

 laboratories in which were first produced the carbonic acid 

 and the nitrate of ammonia which life required for its mani- 

 festation or its multiplication. 



In aid of these comes light, and developes the vegetable 

 kingdom, — immense producer of organic matter : plants ab- 

 sorb the chemical force which they derive from the sun to 

 decompose carbonic acid, water and nitrate of ammonia ; 



' [* " Le regne animal" in the original; but this is obviously an error. — 

 Edit.] 



