NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. i^ 



which series is only one of numberless other systems 

 forming one group. It is strikingly — if I may use such 

 an expression — a member of a democracy. Hence, we 

 cannot suppose that there is any peculiarity about it 

 which does not probably attach to multitudes of other 

 bodies — in fact, to all that are analogous to it in respect 

 of cosmical arrangements. 



It therefore becomes a point of great interest — what 

 are the materials of this specimen? What is the con- 

 stitutional character of this object, which may be said to 

 be a sample, presented to our immediate observation, of 

 those crowds of worlds which seem to us as the particles 

 of the desert sand -cloud in number, and to whose diffu- 

 sion there are no conceivable local limits % 



The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are 

 all, as has been stated, reducible into fifty-five substances 

 hitherto called elementary. Six are gases; oxygen, hydro- 

 gen, and nitrogen being the chief. Forty-two are metals, 

 of which eleven are remarkable as composing, in com- 

 bination with oxygen, certain earths, as magnesia, lime, 

 alumina. The remainder, including carbon, silicon, 

 sulphur, have not any general appellation. 



The gas oxygen is considered as by far the most 

 abundant substance in our globe. It constitutes a fifth 

 part of our atmosphere, eight-ninths of the weight of 

 water, and a large proportion of every kind of rock in 

 the crust of the earth. Hydrogen, which forms the 

 remaining part of water, and enters into some mineral 

 substances, is perhaps next. Nitrogen, of which the 

 atmosphere is four-fifths composed, must be considered 

 as an abundant substance. The metal silicium, which 

 unites with oxygen in nearly equal parts to form silica, 

 the basis of nearly a half of the rocks in the earth's crust, 

 is, of course, an important ingredient. Aluminium, the 



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