OF NATURE. 269 



blood and sap of all the animals and plants that 

 inhabit the earth, we should be amazed at the 

 result. Yet they are all produced by the subtile 

 agency of caloric, a definite amount of which is 

 indispensable to all vital action, from that of the 

 insignificant moss or animalcule, to the most 

 perfect dev elopements of organized existence. 



On beholding for the first time so grand a 

 spectacle as the falls of Niagara, the mind is 

 bewildered by an impression of irresistible power. 

 But if we compare this thundering exhibition 

 of might, with the vast but silent power of solar 

 caloric in evaporation, or of subterraneous caloric 

 in upheaving mountains, the ocean cataract 

 dwindles into a fractional item ; for it is demon- 

 strable, as before observed, that about 140 cubit 

 miles of water are daily converted into steam, 

 and carried into the atmosphere by the expansive 

 energy of solar heat, and that all the lakes, 

 rivers, and springs of the earth are supplied by 

 its precipitation. 



We are sometimes aroused to a perception of 

 the wonderful powers that are in nature, by the 

 sudden and awful coruscations of the electric 

 fluid, when darting through the heavens like 

 arrows of Omnipotence, rending rocks, trees, and 

 dwellings. But few are aware that it is only a 

 concentrated exhibition of the same agent which 

 causes evaporation, solution, crystallization, and 

 the growth of vegetation. 



