192 Effect of Plants upon the Air. 



even in the driest countries springs up at that season, p res . 

 an elaborating surface of immeasurable extent, and am l 

 sufficient to consume such gaseous impurities as may then L 

 engendered. On the other hand, in the spring, when an el 

 vated temperature sets rapidly at liberty the elastic impuriti * 

 that the winter had bound in chains, leaves too are produced 

 with renewed vigor, and still carry off from the atmosphere all 

 that the rapidly decaying matter is mingling with it, separating f or 

 themselves what man is incapable of respiring, and generating 

 in its room, in infinite abundance, that vital air or oxygen 

 without which, living things would perish. 



Hence in bright floods the vital air expands, 

 And with concentric spheres involves the lands ; 

 Pervades the swarming seas, and heaving earths, 

 Where teeming nature breathes her myriad births; 

 Fills the fine lungs of all that breathe or bud, 

 Warms the new heart and dyes the gushiug blood ; 

 With life's first spark inspires the organic frame, 

 And as it wastes, renews the subtle flame. 



These very beautiful lines are from the " Botanic Garden" 

 of Darwin, a writer of an ingenious and philosophical mind, 

 whose poetry is now forgotten, although it has some splendid 

 passages, and contains numerous descriptions of natural phe- 

 nomena, expressed in language remarkable alike for its magni- 

 ficence, and for its fidelity to what were, in the author's time, 

 considered facts. — Ladies' Botany. 



