TUB liEAsojy WHY. [79 



1 Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the 



mighty man glory in his might, let'not the rich man glory in his riches." 



JEREMIAH ix. 



it consists of certain gases essential to the life of animals, and to the growth of 

 plants ; and that it takes part in most of those chemical changes, which mark 

 the transformations of the inorganic creation. Whether it be the burning of a 

 piece of wood, the evaporation of a drop of water, the breathing of an animal, 

 the respiration of a plant, or the fermentation of bodies, the air in almost every 

 instance gives or receives and in most of the operations in which it engages, it 

 does both. 



But there is one point of view, which we must add to those which have 

 already been considered : the order of nature consists of generation, life, and 

 death. Every beat of the watch signals the birth of millions of living things, 

 and the same beat proclaims that as many living organisms have yielded up their 

 vital spark, and that forthwith the elements of which they are composed must 

 be dissolved, and restored to the great laboratory of nature. 



The air is the vast receptacle of those organic matters which are undergoing 

 dissolution. The body of the shipwrecked mariner, cast upon the shore of a 

 desolate island, blackens in the sun, and the full round form gradually dwindles 

 to skin and bone, until at last the few atoms that remain crumble into dust, and 

 are scattered to the wind. The same process occurs, with some modifications, 

 whether bodies are buried in the earth, or dissolve upon its surface. The 

 leaves of forests fall and accumulate in heaps, where they ferment and dissolve, 

 leaving only their more earthy particles behind. 



The amount of matter which day by day passes from the state of the living to 

 that of the dead, must be enormous ; but from the difficulties of acquiring data, 

 beyond the possibility of calculation. Such statistics as we have, however, 

 enable us to form conclusions as to the mighty agencies in which the air is 

 constantly engaged. There are on tho earth 1,000,000,000 inhabitants of whom 

 nearly 35,000,000 die every year, 91,824 every day, 3,730 every hour, and 60 every 

 minute. But even the living die daily, and undergo an invisible change of 

 substance, as we shall hereafter explain. 



The bodies of those many millions are dissolved in the air, in vapours and 

 gases which, before the dissolution of each corporeal organism is complete, 

 begin to live again in the various forms of vegetable and animal life. 



Of the number of animals living and dying upon the face of the earth, we can 

 form no adequate estimate. Of mammals there are about 2,000 ascertained 

 species ; of birds 8,000 species ; of reptiles 2,000 species ; of fishes some 8,000 

 or 10,000 species ; of molluscs some 15,000 species ; of shell fish 8,000 species ; 

 of insects 70,000 species. And, including others not specified here, the total 

 number of species of animals probably amounts to no less than 250,000, each 

 species consisting of many millions of living creatures. 



In the area of London alone, no less than 200,000 tons of fuel are annually cast 

 into the air in the form of smoke. And if we take into account the vast opera- 

 tions of nature in evaporation, fermentation, and putrefactive decomposition, 

 we may be enabled to form a conception of the mighty part which that thin air, 

 cf which we think so little, plays in the grand alchemy of nature. 



In addition, also, to the facts already communicated, respecting the sound- 

 bearing and light-refracting properties of air, it must be remarked, that but for 

 the atmosphere, and the general refraction of light by its particles each atom 

 as it were catching a fairy taper, and dancing with it before fur view the con. 

 dition of vision would be widely opposite to that which exists, and totally 



