372 MOVEMENTS OF NATURE. 



putrefy and decay ; marshes and dull waters, clog- 

 ged by their own products, stagnate, and discharge 

 large portions of hydrogen, carbonic gas, &c. 

 injurious and even fatal to animal existence: in 

 summer all these baneful exhalations are neu- 

 tralized and rendered wholesome by the vast quan- 

 tities of oxygen, or vital air, discharged from 

 vegetable foliage : but these agents of benefit, by 

 the autumn, are no more consequently the dis- 

 charge of oxygen is suspended, but the production 

 of unhealthy air increased by the additional de- 

 composition of the season. To counteract this, is 

 probably the business of the storms of wind and 

 rain prevailing at this season, which, by agitating and 

 dissipating the noxious airs, introduce fresh cur- 

 rents, and render the fluid we breathe salubrious. 

 The same may be advanced in regard to spring : the 

 whole decay of winter, having no neutralizing body 

 to render it wholesome, requires some great in- 

 fluencing power to remove it. But all this is rea- 

 soning without actual evidence ; a discursive license, 

 from the fallibility of human judgment not often 

 to be indulged in : yet we can so rarely perceive 

 the purport of the movements of nature, that our 

 conceptions, vague as they may be, are almost all 

 that remain to us. 



We have here so few operations of nature de- 

 serving mention, that I must not omit to notice a 

 rather uncommon appearance in some of our clay- 



