The 2^fctals. 241 



too small for the unassisted eye to discern. He 

 arms himself with thunderbolts, and with the deadly 

 rifle and ponderous cannon he becomes terrible as 

 a destroyer. All this he does because by intellect 

 he seizes upon the provisions that have been made 

 for him alone in the crust of the earth. As there 

 is no limit to his intellectual improvement, so there 

 is no limit to the provisions that have been made 

 in the elements, and their combinations for this 

 nature with which he has been gifted. If we con- 

 sider the gathering together of the metals in veins, 

 in the earth, and the comparative quantity of each, 

 according to its re[atin to the progress of man, we 

 cannot fail to recognize a wonderful and perfect pro- 

 vision ; a provision depending upon so many condi- 

 tions, that we seem necessarily to infer an intelligent 

 provider. Like the many cases already cited, so 

 many conditions must meet to secure the result, 

 that he alone is chargeable with credulity who refers 

 such combinations to chance. If we consider the 

 properties, physical and chemical, of the metals 

 alone, we have a marvellous provision for man ; a 

 provision without which he would find no fitting 

 means of embodying his grandest conceptions in 

 material forms ; no means of becoming lord and 

 master of the earth; no means of manifesting those 

 higher characteristics of which civilization is both 

 the offspring and parent. In fact, without the 

 metals mainly as they are, man would be like the 

 bird without an atmosphere, though spreading its 

 wings, doomed ever to walk upon the earth. 



ii 



