Sim] AND SYMBOLS. 319 



The Achievements of Silent Aggressive Forces. 



The chemical action of the atmosphere (composed of oxygen, 

 nitrogen, and carbonic acid) is observable less or more on all 

 exposed surfaces. Its gases, partly by their own nature, and 

 partly by the moisture diffused through them, exert a wasting or 

 weathering influence on all rocks softening, loosening, and 

 crumbling them down, to be more readily borne away by 

 currents of winds and water. Carbonic acid acts specially on all 

 rocks containing lime ; oxygen rusts or oxidises those impreg- 

 nated with iron ; moisture insinuates itself everywhere, and 

 thus in a few years the hardest rock exhibits a weathered or 

 wasted surface. Particle after particle is loosened ; film after 

 film falls away ; a new surface is exposed to new waste, and in 

 course of ages the boldest mountain mass yields to this silent 

 and almost imperceptible agency. In such instances as the above 

 the atmosphere acts directly as a chemical agent; where it impreg- 

 nates rain and other water with its gases, and these operate 

 within the crust as springs, it acts indirectly, though not less 

 efficiently. Such are some of the many achievements of aggres- 

 sive forces that are silent in their action. AD. 



The Snare of Simulated Unity. 



One of the basest tricks played alike by men and brutes is 

 that of simulated unity. The trickster leads his victims to 

 suppose that he is one of themselves. An Arctic fox, on dis- 

 covering a flock of sea gulls sitting about the shore, approaches 

 them backwards, with his tail so raised as to resemble one of 

 themselves, and as it is commonly white, and he advances with 

 slow steps, they seldom discover the intrigue until he has reached 

 them, when he is sure to seize one of them for his prey. There 

 are rogues called informers, who have joined political associations 

 by practising a sort of fox's trick of simulated unity with the 

 assembly, and who thereby have been enabled to cause the 

 destruction of their victims. There are self-seekers who have 

 ingratiated themselves into the society of good people by simu- 

 lating a resemblance to them, and then have ruined their 

 innocent dupes. Churches and chapels are often visited by 



