Mat] AND SYMBOLS. 217 



which remains clear in pure air, becomes at once milky, showing 

 the presence of an invisible gaseous body produced by the burn- 

 ing of the candle, which possesses properties different from those 

 of pure air. Although an apparent loss of matter occurs when 

 a candle burns, it is easy to show by a simple experiment not 

 only that this is not the case, but that, on the contrary, an increase 

 of weight has occurred ; this increase is occasioned by the con- 

 stituent parts of the tallow or wax having united chemically 

 with an invisible gas (called oxygen) present in the air. By 

 the careful examination of all the known cases of chemical action 

 it has been satisfactorily proved that a loss of matter never takes 

 place, that matter is indestructible, and that in chemical actions 

 such as that going on in the burning of the candle a change of 

 state and not an annihilation of matter occurs. The truth of 

 this first great principle in chemical science has been gradually 

 demonstrated by finding that the weight of the substance acting 

 chemically upon one another always remains the same after as 

 before the chemical changes have occurred. LES. 



The Circulation of Matter. 



Few things appear more incomprehensible than the production 

 and reabsorption of matter. An animal falls to the ground and 

 dies ; myriads of creatures are now summoned by a call, by an 

 impulse of which we have no perception, to remove it, and 

 prepare it for a new combination; chemical agencies, fermen- 

 tation and solution, immediately commence their actions to 

 separate the parts ; and in a short time, of all this great body 

 nothing remains but the framework or bones, perhaps a little 

 hair or some wool all the rest is departed we know not 

 whither ! "Worms and insects have done their parts ; the 

 earth has received a portion ; and the rest, converted into gases 

 and exhalable matters, has dispersed all over the region, which, 

 received into vegetable circulation, is again separated and 

 changed, becomes modified anew, and nourishes that which is 

 to continue the future generations of life. The petal of the 

 rose, the pulp of the peach, the azure and the gold on the 

 wing of the insect, all the various productions of the animal 

 and vegetable world, the very salts and compounds of the 



