11 



landscape, no clouds to sliade iis from tlie scorching heat ; but the 

 bald earth, as it revolyed on its axis, would tui'n its tanned and 

 weakened front to the full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day. 



39. " The atmosphere affords the gas which vivifies and warms 

 Its functions, om' framcs ; it receives into itself that which has 



been polluted by use, and is thrown off as noxious. It feeds the 

 flame of life exactly as it does that of the fire. It is in both cases 

 consumed, in both cases it affords the food of consumption, and 

 in both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires 

 it for combustion, and which removes it when combustion is over. 

 It is the girdling encircling air that makes the whole world kin. 

 The carbonic acid viith which to-day om- breathing fills the au', 

 to-morrow seeks its way round the Avorld. The date-trees that 

 grow round the faUs of the Nile will drink it in by their leaves ; 

 the cedars of Lebanon ^oll take of it to add to their stature ; the 

 cocoa-nuts of Tahiti will grow rapidly upon it; and the palm-s 

 and bananas of Japan will change it into flowers. The oxygen 

 we are breathing was distilled for us some short time ago by the 

 magnolias of the Susquehanna and the great trees that sknt the 

 Orinoco and the Amazon ; the giant rhododendrons of the Hima- 

 layas contributed to it, and the roses and myrtles of Cashmere, 

 the cinnamon-tree of Ceylon, and the forest, older than the flood, 

 that lies bmied deep in the heart of Ahica, far behind the Momi- 

 tains of the Moon, gave it out. The rain we see descending was 

 thawed for us out of the icebergs which have watched the Polar 

 Star for ages, or it came from snows that rested on the summits 

 of the Alps, but which the lotus lilies have soaked up from tli(^ 

 Nile, and exhaled as vapour again into the ever-present air." 



40. There are processes no less interesting going on in other 

 The operations of parts of tliis magnificent field of research. Water 

 w*<^"- is natm^e's carrier. With its currents it conveys 

 heat away from the torrid zone and ice from the frigid ; or, bot- 

 tling the cfaloric avv^ay in the vesicles of its vapour, it first makes 

 it impalpable, and then conveys it, by unknown paths, to the most 

 distant parts of the earth. The materials of which the coral builds 

 the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this rest- 

 less leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys in all latitudes. 

 Some it washes down fi'om the Mountains of the Moon, or out of 

 the gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi, others 

 from the battle-fields of Em-ope, or from the marble quarries of 

 ancient Greece and Eome. These materials, thus collected and 



