DIVISION OF NATURAL OBJECTS. 



CHAR I. 



ON THE DIVISION OF NATURAL OBJECTS, AND THE PECU- 

 LIAR CHARACTERS OF INORGANIC BODIES. 



J-HE objects which present themselves to the notice of 

 the Natural Historian, on the surface of this globe, exhibit 

 innumerable varieties of form, structure, action and posi- 

 tion. But, however diversified in appearance, they readily 

 admit of distribution into various groups, each including 

 numerous species, capable of farther arrangement into sub- 

 ordinate tribes. The most extensive of these groups, are 

 two in number, the one called the ORGANIZED, the 

 other the INORGANIC Kingdom. The limits which sepa- 

 rate these two divisions, are so well defined, that the dis- 

 tinction has been universally received. 



Philosophers and poets, in all ages, have been anxious 

 to point out a certain gradation of perfection in earthly 

 objects, a CHAIN OF BEING, the links of which consist 

 of all created beings, passing by insensible degrees from 

 the simplest to the most complicated, and constituting 

 one harmonious whole, unbroken and dependent. Crys- 

 tallization, they say, is the highest link of the inani- 

 mate part of the chain, and connects the Mineral with the 

 Vegetable Kingdom. The lichen which encrusts the stone, 

 is but one step higher in the scale of being than the stone 

 itself. The mushrooms and corals, form a bond of union 



