52 PROSERPINA. 



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 suffocated in uncleansed 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 neces- 

 sary earth, — in smaller quantity, but absolutely 

 essential, — the trees get from the ground ; but, I 



