Miscellaneous. 



consumes and corrupts, every day, twenty cubic feet of air ; hence 

 the population of Manchester, by the air consumed in breathing, cor- 

 rupts 2,190,000,000* cubic feet of air every year. 



But vast as these quantities may appear, let us consider what a 

 fraction of the globe we form; and not to extend our ideas beyond 

 what they will readily embrace ; let us calculate what 100 million 

 men (an insignificant portion of the population of the globe) will 

 annually consume and corrupt of air. 



One hundred million men, then, will render unfit for the support 

 of animal life, every year, no less than 9,505,200,000,000 of cubic feet 

 of air. 



From such data as these, it is evident, that the air would soon be 

 rendered unfit for the support of animal life were there no means 

 by which it is retained in a state of purity. 



This it is the duty of plants to perform. An Allwise Creator has 

 connected the life of plants and animals most closely together, the 

 one depending upon the other. It is, indeed, a wonderful link 

 which associates the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Plants form 

 the primary nutriment of all animals ; for although there are certain 

 kinds entirely carnivorous, still the herbivorous animals upon which 

 they subsist receive their nourishment from vegetable matter. But, 

 following the chain in its continuation, we discover that animals, on 

 the other hand, furnish the food of plants. During their life, they 

 constantly expire carbonic acid, and discharge from their system 

 matter, which by its decomposition, emits ammonia into the atmos- 

 phere ; whilst at their death, their bodies decay, and furnish the 

 same substance to the surrounding air. Thus they afford food for 

 those very plants, upon which they themselves subsist ; thus also the 

 destruction of an existing generation forms the means for the pro- 

 duction of a new one, and death becomes the source of life. 



Such is a brief outline of the intimate connection subsisting be- 

 tween the animal and vegetable kingdoms. So closely, indeed, are 

 they bound together, that, in the present system of things, we could 

 not conceive the existence of one without that of the other. 



But very different seems to have been the arrangements which 

 prevailed in former ages. Animals were not then created in number 

 sufficient to supply the food of plants. And although we cannot 

 affirm, or even suppose, that the animal kingdom was independent 



* The calculation is as follows : — Supposing that a man consumes 20 cubic feet of oxygen, 

 each day, in the process of respiration, then 365 + 20=7000. Again, 7300 + 300,000= 

 2,190,000,000. 



