FIRST CHAPTER. 



MATTER AND ITS FORMS. 



T^HE first question that the inquisitive student is 

 most likely to ask, concerns the composition 

 of matter. Of what substances are the plants, the 

 animals and all other earthly things, live or dead, 

 composed? What is water, what earth, what rock, 

 what air ? 



Suppose we dip up a quart of liquid manure in 

 the barn-yard and empty it upon the ground in the 

 garden. It soaks in and disappears from view, but 

 its every part remains in existence all the same. 

 While passing downward through the soil, some of 

 the ingredients that are held in solution, forming 

 with the water a most intimate mechani- 

 ^^Fom °^ ^^^ mixture, and giving it color, are filter- 

 ed out and retained in the soil. The 

 liquid that reaches the subsoil is comparatively free 

 from the foreign substances that were held only in 

 solution, and now consists of little more than pure 

 water. This may pass into underground veins, and 

 bubble up again, far remote, in a spring or well. 



