THE POETRY OF CHEMISTRY. 
101 
ruddy and cheerful the hearth whereon our children 
play; it shall combine with a portion of the invisible 
atmosphere, ascend upward as a curling wreath to revel 
in a mazy dance high up in the blue ether; shall reach 
earth again, and be entrapped in the embrace of a 
flower; shall live in velvet beauty on the cheek of the 
apricot; shall pass into the human body, giving enjoy¬ 
ment to the palate, and health to the blood; shall circu¬ 
late in the delicate tissues of the brain; and aid, by 
entering into some new combination, in educing the 
thoughts which are now being uttered by the pen. It 
is but an atom of charcoal, it may dwell one moment in 
a stagnant ditch, and the next be flushing on the lip of 
beauty; it may now be a component of a limestone rock, 
and the next an ingredient in a field of potatoes; it may 
slumber for a thousand years without undergoing a single 
change, and the next hour pass through a thousand: 
and after all, it is only an atom of charcoal, and occupies 
only its own place wherever it may t e. 
It is from the unceasing interchange of the particles 
of matter that the living lustre of the world is born; it 
is the separation of one atom of water from one atom of 
starch which gives rise to the formation of sugar; and 
to this change, produced by the mutual influences of 
warmth and moisture, the germination of all seeds is 
due, and hence the continuance of vegetation. Neither 
the oaks of the forest, nor the grasses of the field, could 
ever have burst into their green beauty but for this 
simple change in the elements of their seeds.* The 
* Seeds contain a large quantity of starch, a material best of all 
suited to resist the destroying influences to which seeds are sub- 
