• 13 



mass through various fissures of the reposing super- 

 structure, and ejected the metalHc veins throughout the 

 convulsed body of our planet. 



3. It is further spjd, that the first organic develop- 

 ments upon the crust of the earth, were an abundant 

 and. gigantic race of vegetables,, to which w-ere denied, 

 in a great degree, the means of re-production.* 



Why v^^as this ? 



We always find present in the atmospltere, a fluid 

 known as carbonic acid. If the atmosphere were 

 mixed with more than eight per cent, of this fluid, it 

 would be unfit, for respiration, and therefore fatal to or- 

 dinary animal life. Still, this fluids so deleterious to 

 animals, is essential to plants, which absorb it by their 

 leaves and roots. Another fluid, oxygen, without 

 which animals cannot live, forms a large portion of the 

 atmosphere. Now this, when vegetables decay, is giv- 

 en to the atmosphere. Thus we see the existence of 

 plants improves the atmosphere by disposing of the 

 carbonic acid, which is fatal to the lives of animals, and 

 renewing oxygen, without which they cannot exist. 

 If we now suppose the presence of an atmosphere too 

 highly impregnated witii carbonic acid for the exist- 

 ence of animal life, and deficient in the necessary oxy- 

 gen, we can perceive that the readiest w^ay of decom- 

 posing th« one, and of supplying the other, would be 

 the production of a race of vegetables. Now carbonic 

 acid exists in the different varieties of limestt)ne, mar- 

 ble, and chalk, and is separated by combustion. When 



* Cryplogamia, Linneeus — Class, Acotyledonous — Class, Monocoty- 



ledonous. 



