THEORY OF THE EARTH. 61 



ered the globe itself as possessed of living faculties. 

 According to them, it contains a circulating vital 

 fluid. A process of assimilation goes on in it as 

 \vell as in animated bodies. Every particle of it 

 is alive. It possesses instinct and volition even 

 to the most elementary of its molecules, which at- 

 tract and repel each other according to sympathies 

 and antipathies. Each kind of mineral substance 

 is capable of converting immense masses of mat- 

 ter into its own peculiar nature, as we convert 

 our aliment into flesh and blood. The mountains 

 are the respiratory organs of the globe, and the 

 schists its organs of secretion. By the latter it- 

 decomposes the waters of the sea in order to pro- 

 duce volcanic eruptions. The veins in strata are 

 caries, or abscesses of the mineral kingdom, and 

 the metals are products of rottenness and disease, 

 to which it is owing that almost all of them have 

 so bad a smell.* 



It must, however, be noticed, that these are 

 what may be termed extreme examples, and that 

 all geologists have not permitted themselves to be 

 carried away by such bold or extravagant concep- 

 tions as those we have just cited. Yet, among those 

 who have proceeded with more caution, and have 

 not searched for geological causes beyond the es- 



* M. Patrin has used much ingenuity to establish this view of the 

 subject, in several articles ef the Nouveau Dictionnaire d? Histoire 

 Naturdle. 



