35 
SECT. VII. 
II. THE NATURE OF OUR ATMOSPHERE. 
Gnomes! with nice eye the slow solution watch, 
With fostering hand the parting atoms catch. 
Darwin. 
Water' and air , says Sir Isaac Newton, composed of old worn particles and fragments of particles, 
would not be of the same texture and nature now as at the beginning, did not the primitive par¬ 
ticles of matter continue entire , and compose bodies of one and the same nature and texture in 
all ages. The changes of corporeal things are to be placed only in the various separations and 
new associations of thes c permanent particles. Optics, page 370. 
Previous to our entering into the consideration of the connexion 
betwixt air and vegetable life, it may be proper, for the sake of some of our 
readers, to contemplate first some chemical discoveries which have done 
honour to this age, and immortalized the names of Priestley, Cavendish, and 
Lavoisier. 
The Hon. Mr. Boyle has considered our atmosphere as one large che¬ 
mical vessel, in which an infinite number of various operations are con¬ 
stantly performing. In it all the bodies of the earth are continually sending 
up a part of their substance by evaporation, to mix in this great alembic , 
and to float a while in common. Plere minerals from their lowest depths 
ascend in noxious vapours to make a part of the general mass; seas, rivers, 
and subterraneous springs, furnish their copious supplies; plants receive and 
return their share; and animals, that by living upon consume this general 
store, are found to give it back in vast quantities when they die. 
The air , therefore, which every where presses on us, and upon which 
we subsist, bears very little resemblance to that pure , simple , elementary body 
generally imagined; and which is rather a substance that can be conceived, 
than experienced to exist. 
