276 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



all these false ideas is the simple and accurate 

 expression of the Scriptures, contained in the 

 beautiful words, " My doctrine shall drop as the 

 rain, my speech shall distil as the dew."* For 

 if we liken the bedewed surfaces to the " con- 

 denser," we see the force and correctness of the 

 expression. The ancients imagined universally 

 that the dew fell, and the same erroneous idea 

 prevailed almost to the end of the last century ! 

 Yet for more than three thousand years the 

 true account of its formation, namely, from a 

 vaporous to a condensed state, lay forgotten in 

 the Bible ! How satisfactory are such incidental 

 evidences of the Divine origin of the Sacred 

 Word. 



If the earth continues to lose heat by radia- 

 tion, even after the formation of dew, it may 

 be reduced as low as 32, the freezing point, or 

 even lower. The dew then freezes, its limpid 

 particles become set fast in solid beads and 

 crystals of various forms ; thus hoar -frost is 

 produced. The extraordinary beauty of the 

 crystallizations thus formed must have been 

 universally noticed. 



There is something eminently interesting 

 in noticing the occasional glimpses of an ad- 

 justing principle which we may catch in a 

 survey of the kingdom of nature. The depo- 

 * Deut xxxii. 2. 



