developed — for the age of the strongest physical develop- 

 inent is doubtless passed — will hooome the progenitors ot 

 i nobler descendants. 



The rapid brain or nervous development of the American 

 [people is not alone the result of antecedent, hereditary, 

 (historical, or political causes. Physical, external, condi- 

 tions are operating with and upon these with immeasure- 

 able, irresistable power; hygrometrical, electrical, and other 

 conditions are producing results than can only be surmised 

 as yet; we can not grasp or understand them. For this 

 sequence of thought carries us beyond the seen and tangi- 

 ble, but not beyond that lohich really, actually exists. The 

 subtle, invisible, intangible gases are as truly matter as 

 iron is matter. Oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen we can 

 neither see, touch, taste, or smell in their native state. To 

 our physical senses, though they had always existed right 

 around us, yet unconlined, they had been to us as though 

 they ivere not. In their chemical combinations, by experi- 

 ments and observation of their effects, man has been able 

 to learn not only of their existence, but something of their 

 properties. He finds oxygen existing everywhere, in every- 

 thing; in vast quantities in solid forms, as well as well as 

 liquid and gaseous ; hydrogen united w^ith oxygen in liquid 

 torm; nitrogen mingled with gaseous oxygen. Hydrogen 

 and nitrogen are, however, most abundant in their native 

 mobile forms; they are i/iore ahundant in living organisms 

 than in dead; ytiore in dead bodies than in fossil remains; 

 they are found in very small quantities in the geological 

 strata of the earth, in proportion to the solid oxygen and 

 carbon, although in sufficient quantity to effect its electrical 

 condition. 



If gaseous and liquid matter has solidified in that trans- 

 formation, certain ^9ar^5 of the subtle gases, nitrogen and 

 hydrogen, that existed with the oxygen before its solidifi- 

 cation, have disappeared. Where are they? Do they not 

 probably exist in proportionally increased quantities in a 



