506 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



similar quantity taken before the leap, he would 

 discover in the former more dissolved atmo- 

 spheric air than in the latter. These processes 

 are all subsidiary to the oxygenization effected by 

 marine plants ; but when we consider the com- 

 parative smallness of the number of these plants, 

 together with the fact that a large number of 

 them are for some hours out of every day in- 

 capacitated for their office by the departure of 

 the tides, and that probably these, and a still 

 larger number, which live always in deep 

 water, are also unable to fulfil it during the 

 hours of darkness, it will be perceived that the 

 relation subsisting between the ocean and its 

 vegetation is far inferior in importance to that 

 subsisting between the air and plants. Con- 

 sidering the vast preponderance of animal over 

 vegetable life in the ocean, it becomes more 

 than questionable whether the marine vege- 

 tation could, unassisted, preserve the purity of 

 the waters as a respirable medium. It has been 

 stated by M. Morren that he discovered a vast 

 number of infusorial animalcules in certain 

 regions of the ocean which, instead of vitiat- 

 ing the water, like all other members of the 

 animal kingdom, actually enriched it, by pro- 

 ducing oxygen ; but this statement requires 

 confirmation. 



There remains another portion of the che- 



