78 EXTENDED RESPIRATION 



stration that the works of creation must •have origi- 

 nated from One omniscient in knowledge, as well as 

 omnipotent in action. But though in this, as in all 

 other cases, we could never have fathomed the pur- 

 pose of the Eternal, without the example which he 

 has set, yet the lesson held forth in that example is, 

 when scanned with even a moderate degree of atten- 

 tion (a degree of which any human being is compe- 

 tent), so plain and simple, that a child may under- 

 stand it. It is the same with all nature ; and if the 

 vain affectation of superior wisdom on the part of 

 those who have attempted to school us in it, had not 

 encumbered and concealed it by the clouds and dark- 

 ness of words and wayward theories, the learned 

 and the unlearned might read this, the elder and 

 more general volume of " The book of the living 

 God," together, and with nearly the same pleasure 

 and the same profit. 



And the means by which the action of the air on 

 the blood of birds is rendered equal to the rapidity 

 in circulation, and consequent necessity of vital repair, 

 in that fluid, without the painful fatigue of ever-pant- 

 ing lungs, is made, like all other contrivances in 

 nature, to answer other important purposes at the 

 same time. The lungs of birds are ample in their 

 dimensions, and have the cells into which air is 

 admitted larger than in the mammalia ; and they are 

 kept in their places by being fastened to the bones. 

 Ramifications extend from them in tubes and cells 

 tiirough the whole cavity of the body, into the hol- 

 lows of the bones, and in short, along the course of 

 every artery which is not immediately imbedded in 

 those muscles, which are in action during the violent 

 exertions of the bird. The blood-vessels in these 

 muscles are fewer than those in the muscles of the 



