No, 133.] 485 



Let us see if the Bible does not throw some light upon this 

 question. In Genesis, second chapter, fourth and fifth verses, we 

 find these words : " The Lord God made tlie earth and the heavens, 

 and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every 

 herb of the field before it grew." We see that every plant was 

 made, that is its substance, before it was in the earth — before it 

 grew. Now where was this substance, the elements of the plant 

 before it was in the earth — before it grew 1 It must have been in 

 the air. Every plant is either in a state of formation, growing, 

 or of decomposition, or dissolution into its primary elements. The 

 same elements that constitute and organize the plants that we see 

 now have constituted and organized plants many times^before 



There is no more creation. 

 There is no annihilation. 



Therefore, if we know where the dissolved plant goes to, we know 

 where the new one must come from. The atmosphere must be 

 the great store house from which the plant draws most of its sub- 

 stance. 



The process of growing is carried on chiefly by attraction and 

 repulsion. Several requisites are essential. Tlie plant must be 

 in the earth or in a moist place ; water, air, warmth, light and 

 probably electricity must be present. 



The plant being organized with absorbents and exhalents in 

 every part of it, attracts or exhales, according to it? wants, by the 

 powers of vegetable life and instinct inherent in it. So, when the 

 plant is in the midst of its natural elements, and is most abun- 

 dantly supplied with them, then it will grow in its greatest per- 

 fection. The atmosphere lying upon the ocean does not hold in 

 solution so much of dissolved vegetable substance as that lying 

 upon cultivated lands. Therefore, when the wind blows much 

 from the ocean while the plant is growing, it is unfavorable ; and 

 mucli wind from any direction is unfavorable at such a time, espe- 

 cially where much manure is used. Hence bleak exposures are 

 not so favorable. Some seasons are more favorable than others 



emitted in immense quantities from many volcanoes. Hydrogen is found in water, nitrogea 

 in the air, and the proper and inexhaustible sources of oxygen are the tropies. A stream of 

 it u constantly proceeding from the equator toward the poles." 



