126 THE ORIGIN OF CREATION. 



interior, are continually forming, dissolving, and reforming, 

 into the different substances found in nature's arcana, and all 

 the time throwing off gases, which find their way through 

 fissures in the rock, through volcanoes, and in other ways to 

 the surface of the earth ; where they again take up a position 

 in the atmosphere according to their density. The light 

 mineral gases all ascend and take up a position in the higher 

 atmosphere, while the vegetable gases being more dense, remain 

 near the surface. 



Just also as a man, or other animal, has a coating of hair on 

 the skin, so is our earth bristled all over (except at high polar 

 latitudes) with an edging of vegetation, which is thrown out on 

 every side by the atomagnetic repellent force of nature, after 

 being produced by the dissolving process of water, and elements, 

 on the surface. Thus thousands of varieties of trees and plants 

 have been, and are being, continuously produced, each with a 

 different exhalation ; because composed in varying proportions 

 of different vegetable and mineral materials ; consequently 

 thousands of differing vegetable, as well as mineral, gases, mingle 

 in our atmosphere. It will be seen, therefore, that to define our 

 atmosphere as composed only of two particular gases, is sheer 

 nonsense. Enough it is for us to know, that as we ourselves 

 and every living thing, are composed elementally of certain 

 proportions of mineral and vegetable atoms, so the atmosphere 

 adapted for our use is also composed of certain proportions of 

 the same : and, as in overloading the stomach with one descrip- 

 tion of either vegetable or mineral food, we bring on disease 

 and death, so wherever there is an atmosphere with an excess 

 of one gas or the other, it is also a dangerous place for us to 

 live in. We should therefore learn the nature, and actions, of 



