4:6 PKOSEEPINA. 



the currant-bush looks like a young sycamore tree ; and the 

 vine is a bower : and meanwhile the forests, all over this 

 side of the round world, have grown their foot or two in 

 height, with new leaves so much deeper, so much denser 

 than they were. Where has it all come from ? Cut off the 

 fresh' shoots from a single branch of any tree in May. 

 Weigh them ; and then consider that so much weight has 

 been added to every such living branch, everywhere, this 

 side the equator, within the last two months. What is all 

 that made of ? 



12. Well, this much the botanists really know, and tell 

 us, It is made chiefly of the breath of animals : that is to 

 say, of the substance which, during the past year, animals 

 have breathed into the air ; and which, if they went on 

 breathing, and their breath were not made into trees, would 

 poison them, or rather suffocate them, as people are suffoca- 

 ted in unclean sed pits, and dogs in the Grotta del Cane. So 

 that you may look upon the grass and forests of the earth as 

 a kind of green hoar-frost, frozen upon it from our breath, 

 as, on the window-panes, the white arborescence of ice. 



13. But how is it made into wood? 



The substances that have been breathed into the air are 

 charcoal, with oxygen and hydrogen, or, more plainly, 

 charcoal and water. Some necessary earths, in smaller 

 quantity, but absolutely essential, the trees get from 

 the ground ; but, I believe all the charcoal they want, and 

 most of the water, from the air. Now the question is, 

 where and how do they take it in, and digest it into wood ? 



