286 APPENDIX TO PART I. 



cepting those connected with animal and vegetable decompo- 

 sition ; whilst there are many, such as the combustion of 

 various organic substances, which, by resolving bodies 

 containing nitrogen into their constituent elements, would 

 have diminished the aggregate amount of them which might 

 have formerly existed. 



"Some compensating process, therefore, is clearly re- 

 quired, and that, if I mistake not, is the disengagement of 

 ammoniacal gas from the interior of the globe." 



''Granting, then, what upon Liebig's principles seems 

 most consistent with analogy, namely, that the ammonia, 

 no less than the carbonic acid, which formed the food of 

 the first plants, has been produced, not by processes of ani- 

 mal decay, but by such as were proceeding within the globe 

 prior to the creation of living beings, the notion of a slow 

 and continuous disengagement of both compounds, from the 

 earliest period to the present time, will be received perhaps, 

 as at least the most probable mode of accounting for their 

 unfailing supply. 



*' Whilst it relieves us from the difficulty of supposing the 

 atmosphere surcharged with these gases at any one period, 

 it suggests to us, at the same time, sublime and interesting 

 views of the arrangements of the Deity, in thus having made 

 all things subservient to one common end, and having or- 

 dained, that the mighty agents of destruction, which exist 

 in the bowels of the earth, should minister, like the malig- 

 nant Genii of some eastern fable, to the wants and necessities 

 of the living beings, which He has placed upon its surface." 



TJSE OF PHOSPHATE OF SODA IN CALICO PRINTING.* 



(See page 186.) 



The discovery of the principle which led to the use of 

 phosphate of soda, was made in the United States, by Dr. 

 Dana, of Lowell. The first practical application of the 

 salt was made, in consequence of Dr. Dana's researches, 

 by Mr. J. D. Prince, Jr., at the works of the Merrimack 

 Manufacturing Company in Lowell, in 1834. Mr. J. D. 

 Prince, Sen., the scientific and accomplished superintend- 

 ent of the establishment, was engaged with Dr. Dana for a 



* Substance of a communication from Dr. Dana. 



