THE POETRY OF CHEMISTRY. 89 



operate upon the minute atoms of which bodies are composed ; and as 

 all the atoms of matter have a spherical or globular form, the attrac- 

 tions and repulsions of atomic particles exhibit a close analogy to the 

 attractions and repulsions of the worlds. It is possible, indeed, that 

 there is but one attraction and one chemical law, and the phenomenon 

 of an atom may be repeated in the dewdrop, in the bubble on the 

 stream, and in the floating world. There is more poetry in the 

 alembic and the test tube than the worldly dream about. 



In one direction the earnest workers are probing the secrets of 

 nature, and unravelling one by one the mystic threads that run 

 through all her fabrications ; and in another, poet-minds are arranging 

 and diffusing the facts which the former have made known, that all 

 the world may become inheritors of the new posse«sion, and dwell 

 with increased joy on the contemplation of these new treasures of the 

 Almighty's handiwork.* 



If we trace back the history of our world into those remote eras of 

 which the early rocks are records, we shall discover that the same 

 chemical laws were operating then which control the changes of matter 

 now. At one period the earth was a huge mass of fiery fluid, which, 

 radiating or throwing off" heat into space, gradually cooled, and be- 

 came surrounded with a solid crust, entombing within itself a chaos 

 of intensely heated materials, which now assert their existence in the 

 shock of the earthquake, and the awful outbreaks of volcanic fires. 

 In later ages, when the erusthad cooled still more, and the atmosphere 

 let fall its showers, the still heated surface, hissing and roaring with 

 the contact of the flood, was rent into enormous blocks, and dreadful 

 abysses ; which still remain all over the world, and form the wondrous 

 monuments of an age of great convulsions. Later still the seas 

 gathered together, the rocky masses were powdered into dust by the 

 delicate fingers of. the dew and the shower, the green herbs sprang up, 

 and the monsters of the slimy deep appeared in obedience to the 

 Creator's fiat, and the whole earth became a home of beauty in obedi- 

 ence to chemical law. The ceaseless play of the elements, and the 



* The Chemistry of the Seasons. By J. Griffiths, Author of the Chemistry of 

 the Four Elements, Chemical Lecturer to the Royal Family. London : John 

 Churchill. 



Chemistry, as Exemplifying the Wisdom and Beneficence of God. By George 

 Fownes. Ibid. 



