EELATIONS OF TEEES TO THE ATMOSPHEEE. 



I HAVE not muclL faith in the science of ignorant men ; 

 for the foundations of all knowledge are laid in books ; 

 and those only who have read and studied much can 

 possess any consideraMe store of wisdom. But there are 

 philosophers among laboring swains, whose quaint obser- 

 vations and solutions of nature's problems are sometimes 

 worthy of record. With these men of untutored genius 

 I have had considerable intercourse, and hence I oftener 

 quote them than the learned and distinguished, whom I 

 have rarely met. The ignorant, from want of knowledge, 

 are always theorists ; but genius affords its possessor, how 

 small soever his acquisitions, some glimpses of truth which 

 may be entirely hidden from the mere pedant in science. 

 My philosophic friend, a man of genius born to the 

 plough, entertained a theory in regard to the atmosphere, 

 which, though not strictly philosophical, is so ingenious 

 and suggestive that I have thought an account of it a 

 good introduction to this essay. 



My friend, when explaining his views, alluded to the 

 well-known fact that plants growing in an aquarium 

 keep the water supplied with atmospheric air — not with 

 simple oxygen, but with oxygen chemically combined 

 with nitrogen — by some vital process that takes place in 

 the leaves of plants. As the lungs of animals decompose 

 the air which they inspire, and breathe out carbonic-acid 

 gas, plants in their turn decompose this deleterious gas, 

 and breathe out pure atmospheric air. His theory is 

 that the atmosphere is entirely the product of vegetation. 



