AND EXTERNAL RESISTANCE, 32 J 



the process of respiration, and consumed in the 

 generation of ignition, and of combustion. 



It is very probable that these means may form 

 a subordinate, and auxiliary part, i the pro- 

 duction of oxygen gas. The whole column of 

 the atmosphere, however, long before this ad- 

 vanced period of the world, would have been 

 contaminated, and rendered unfit for the sup- 

 port of animation, and the generation of igni- 

 tion, if there did not exist, in the great labora- 

 tory of nature, some means, by whose agency 

 the whole chaotic mass, of which the atmos- 

 phere is composed, both solid, liquid, and 

 gaseous,--animals in their living state, as 

 well as animal and vegetable exuviae, and poi- 

 sons the product of both, become purified 

 and regenerated through the process of decora- 

 position. 



On a faithful review of the whole, it ap- 

 pears most probable, that it is by the agency 

 of the solar rays, that this regeneration i 

 accomplished, and oxygen gas formed ia 

 the abundant quantity in which it is found. 

 It may, indeed, become a question, which 

 future experiments may solve, it may, I 

 say, become a question, whether the resolu- 

 tion of particular parts of organised bodies^ 

 both animal and vegetable, into hydrogen and 

 carbonic acid gas, may not be among the first 

 changes which these parts undergo, by the 







