170 BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 



Thus does the air administer to the senses of see- 

 ing and smelling. Happy, however, ought we to 

 account ourselves, that, so often charged with noi- 

 some effluvia and noxious vapours, it does not ren- 

 der these susceptible to the taste; and although it 

 certainly is a body corporeal, and may at times be 

 felt, yet, its resistance in ordinary cases, when it is 

 unagitated and unconfined, is so undistinguishable as 

 to occasion no inconvenience. 



The region of the atmosphere is the great thorough- 

 fare to the feathery creation ; it is, if we may so speak, 

 the king's highway for the fowls of heaven, where 

 they perform their lengthened journeys with expe- 

 dition and safety, and range and expatiate beyond 

 the reach of danger. It is by this element, also, that 

 the inhabitant of the waters is enabled to work his 

 little philosophical engine with effect; for, without 

 the aid of this subtile fluid, the empty vesicle would 

 have remained a piece of useless lumber 



We cannot as yet say, there go the balloons, as if 

 the atmosphere, like the sea, had become the esta- 

 blished medium of commerce and travelling; but the 

 art has already attained to such a degree of perfec- 

 tion, as render it not improbable that a voyage in the 

 air will be regarded one day, by the generality of 

 mankind, with less awe than was evinced by those 

 who first witnessed the adventurous navigator push 

 his bark out of sight of land, beyond the pillars of 

 Hercules 



As all the rivers run into the sea, and deposit their 

 contents in its capacious bosom, so do all the exha- 



