244 SPRING. 



light and the darkness divide the day ; the influence of 

 the gravitation of the sun and moon acting upon the 

 greatest circumference ; the high tides that are thereby 

 produced, both in the ocean and the atmosphere ; the 

 northward currents of these, more especially of the lat- 

 ter, occasioned by the rapid change of the declination 

 northward ; the counter motion produced by the in- 

 creased heat on the bare surface, and even from that 

 reflected by the snow ; the continual transfer of air 

 from place to place, as the sun variously affects them ; 

 the alternate evaporation and condensing of humidity ; 

 the constant production of carbonic acid by the leaves 

 of those plants that were bare and actionless during the 

 winter ; that acid descending through the atmosphere 

 from lofty trees in invisible showers, running down the 

 slopes like water, entering the soil, (and probably 

 nourishing the roots of plants with a substance which 

 the leaves have separated from the atmosphere) ; the 

 differences of electric state; and the various causes 

 of heat and cold that are at work in the mass of the 

 air itself; all this increased action must be felt by 

 all things acted upon, and by the human constitu- 

 tion as well as every thing else. The budding season, 

 therefore, though a delightful, is not altogether a 

 healthy one ; and it may be regarded as injurious to 

 all that is not in a state of growth. The new produc- 

 tions of the season, it must be borne in mind, are not 

 creations, not additions to the quantity of nyxtter that 

 exists, they are merely new states and forms of it, and 

 before they can come into existence they require the 

 destruction and decomposition of something else, of 

 the decayed productions of the former year, and all 



