52 ORIGIN OF THE 



heated and powdered oxides were then in the 

 best possible condition for forming a union with 

 that gas, or, rather, so many of them as were 

 susceptible of such union ; and, when it is recol- 

 lected, that all the carbon, which has since con- 

 tributed to the formation of the carbonates, such 

 as limestone, marble, chalk, and numerous oth- 

 ers, as well as the immense beds of coal that 

 have since been discovered, together with the 

 vast quantities taken up in the first formation 

 of vegetable and animal productions, then ex- 

 isted in a state of carbonic acid gas, exterior to 

 the earth's surface j and, that this must all have 

 been disposed of before any animal, now an in- 

 habitant of the earth, could have lived, we 

 can not but admire and reverence the wisdom 

 of that Being, who had contrived and adapted 

 every thing for the gradual but sure progression 

 of all the elements of matter to the purposes 

 designed for them. 



But now the steaming earth was the constant 



