REMARKABLE SIMPLICITY IN NATURE. 29 



kingdom of nature. Or, if we allowed that 

 number to be sufficient, man would anticipate 

 the entire exhaustion of its powers, and would 

 suppose that the whole number of elements had 

 been employed and put together in various ways, 

 in the work of constructing a universe full of the 

 most varied and opposite substances. Chemistry 

 teaches us that such is far from being the case- 

 Do we look to the framework of the solid globe, 

 triumphantly expecting to discover in its count- 

 less constituents the exhaustion of the whole 

 range of elementary bodies ? Our investigations 

 supply a very different answer, and we may 

 almost without an hyperbole say that so far as the 

 crust of the globe is accessible to our experiments 

 and analysis, and our researches penetrate deep 

 therein, chemistry declares in round terms that 

 the earth en masse is composed of but seven ele- 

 ments ! These are silicium, calcium, aluminum, 

 magnesium, potassium, and sodium, united with 

 the gas oxygen. Do we turn to the zoological 

 and vegetable worlds, point to the countless 

 myriads of species, and to the innumerable 

 products of these kingdoms? How strange to 

 discover that these are after all chiefly carbon, 

 nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen ! Lastly, do 

 our eyes rest upon the broad ocean, consti- 

 tuting as it does three-fourths of the area of 

 our planet? This vast accumulation of fluid 



