42 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



Other writers have preferred the ideas of Kep- 

 ler, and, like that great astronomer, have consi- 

 dered the globe itself as possessed of vital facul- 

 ties. According to them a vital fluid circulates in 

 it ; a process of assimilation goes on in it, as well as 

 in animated bodies ; every particle of it is alive ; 

 it possesses instinct and volition, even to the most 

 elementary molecules, which attract and repel 

 each other according to sympathies and antipa- 

 thies. Each kind of mineral has the power of 

 converting immense masses into its own nature, 

 as we convert our food into flesh and blood. The 

 mountains are the respiratory organs of the globe, 

 and the schists its organs of secretion ; it is by 

 these latter that it decomposes the water of the 

 sea, in order to produce the matters ejected by vol- 

 canoes. The veins are carious sores, abscesses of 

 the mineral kingdom ; and the metals are pro- 

 ducts of rottenness and disease, which is the 

 reason that almost all of them have so bad a 

 smell *. 



Telliamed, vol. ii. p. 169, as well as a multitude of new Ger- 

 man works. M. de Lamarck has of late years developed 

 this system to a great extent, in France, and supported it 

 with much ingenuity, in his Hydrogeologie and Philosophic 

 Zoologique. 



* M. Patrin has shewn much ingenuity in supporting 

 these fantastical ideas, in several articles of the Nouveau 

 Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle. 



