346 MATERIAL BESOUBCES OF LIFE. 



At the present time, the market value of the resources of life engages 

 little general attention. There is a narrow branch of commerce, wherein the 

 prices-current of the three elemental materials which we have taken as "ade- 

 quate resources" are the values constantly under calculation in daily business- 

 In this guild, one sells nitrogen at thirty cents, another offers phosphoric acid at 

 five cents; and all parties have atacitunderstandingthat the values of nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid and potassa, are to each other about as six, one and a half, 

 and one, and that these are the only values to be considered. The technical 

 terms of any jDrofession or pursuit are jargon to the general ear. But hear- 

 ing a man say that he "sold a hundred tons of rectified Peruvian at thirty. 

 one cents for nitrogen, this morning," it is not so much as understood to 

 what sort of business such jargon belongs. 



Thinking of the multiplication of life and the waste of its resources, it 

 seems that, in the time coming, the phrases that tell the rise and fall of valae 

 in commercial fertilizers may find some general recognition — may even have 

 as much meaning for everybody as the terms of the gold market and the 

 silver stocks. 



It is only about a hundred years since man began to attain such definite 

 knowledge of the components of matter as enables him to trace (we by no 

 means say to understand) the transmutations of earth and air into tissues fit 

 for life. Thirty-six years ago, Liebig commenced giving the people the first 

 really systematic lessons upon the material resources of life. Seeing the value 

 of a knowledge that goes below the surface of things, in 1852 he wrote his con- 

 viction that, "ere long, a knowledge of the principal truth of chemistry will 

 be expected in the political enonomist and statesman, as it already is held 

 indispensable to the manufacturer and physician." And, seeing the mean- 

 ings and mysteries that cluster around the primary forms of matter, he Avrote 

 at another time : "It is not the mere practical utility of these truths which 

 is of importance. Their influence upon mental culture is most beneficial; 

 and the views acquired by knowledge of them enable the mind to trace, in 

 the phenomena of Nature, proofs of an infinite wisdom — for the unfathomable 

 depths of which language has no expression." 



