14 THE CAMEL. 



primal elements its rocks, its soils, its waters, 

 and its atmosphere, and even soared above its 

 canopy of cloud. He has traced, through the 

 void of space, its movements of rotation, revo- 

 lution, and translation ; resolved the seeming 

 circles of its attendant satellite into strangely 

 tortuous paths of progression ; investigated its 

 relations of density, attraction, and motion, to 

 other visible and invisible cosmical orbs; and 

 unfolded the laws of those mysterious allied 

 agencies, heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, 

 whose sphere of influence seems commensurate 

 with that of creation. But, notwithstanding 

 these triumphs, earth is not yet all his own ; 

 and millions of leagues of her surface still lie 

 uninhabited, unenjoyed, and unsubdued, yield- 

 ing neither food, nor clothing, nor shelter to 

 man, or even to the humbler tribes of animal or 

 vegetable life, which minister to his other neces- 

 sities, convenience, or enjoyments. 



In like manner, we have studied the biog- 

 raphy of organic life in its infinitely varied, 

 and more conspicuous, contemporaneous forms, 

 and the relations of affinity or dependence be- 

 tween them ; traced the history of myriads of 

 species of both plants and animals, which had 

 ceased to be before the Creator breathed into 

 our nostrils the breath of life ; and demonstrated 

 the past and present existence of numerous 



