tends or contracts as the water rises or falls; | plant, we find that instead of its being neglectthis rise or fall, from the torrents which flow into the river, often amounting to many feet in a few hours. The flowers of the male plant are produced under water; and, as soon as the fecundating farina is mature, they separate themselves from the plant; rise to the surface; and are wafted by the air, or borne by the currents, to the female flowers." Our attention in this narrative will be directed to two particulars: first, to the mechanism, the "elastic, spiral stalk," which lengthens or contracts itself according as the water rises or falls; secondly, to the provision which is made for bringing the male flower, which is produced under water, to the female flower which floats upon the surface.

ed, Nature has gone out of her course to provide for its security, and to make up to it for all its defects. The seed-vessel, which in other plants is situated within the cup of the flower, or just beneath it, in this plant lies buried ten or twelve inches under ground within the bulbous root. The tube of the flower, which is seldom more than a few tenths of an inch long, in this plant extends down to the root. The stiles in all cases reach the seed-vessel; but it is in this, by an elongation unknown to any other plant. All these singularities contribute to one end. "As this plant blossoms late in the year, and, probably, would not have time to ripen its seeds before the access of winter, I which would destroy them; Providence has II. My second example I take from Wither- contrived its structure such, that this imporing's Arrangement, vol. ii. p. 209. ed. 3. tant office may be performed at a depth in the "The cuscuta europea is a parasitical plant. earth out of reach of the usual effects of The seed opens, and puts forth a little spiral frost." That is to say, in the autumn nobody, which does NOT seek the earth, to take thing is done above ground but the business root; but climbs in a spiral direction, from of impregnation; which is an affair between right to left, up other plants, from which, by the antheræ and the stigmata, and is probably means of vessels, it draws its nourishment." soon over. The maturation of the impregnaThe "little spiral body" proceeding from the ted seed, which in other plants proceeds withseed, is to be compared with the fibres which in a capsule, exposed together with the rest seeds send out in ordinary cases: and the of the flower to the open air, is here carried comparison ought to regard both the form of on, and during the whole winter, within the the threads and the direction. They are heart, as we may say, of the earth, that is, straight; this is spiral. They shoot down-" out of the reach of the usual effects of frost." wards; this points upwards. In the rule, and But then a new difficulty presents itself. in the exception, we equally perceive design. Seeds, though perfected, are known not to veIII. A better known parisitical plant is the getate at this depth in the earth. Our seeds, ever-green shrub, called the mistletoe. What therefore, though so safely lodged, would, afwe have to remark in it, is a singular instance ter all, be lost to the purpose for which all of compensation. No art hath yet made these seeds are intended. Lest this should be the plants take root in the earth. Here therefore case, "a second admirable provision is made might seem to be a mortal defect in their con- to raise them above the surface when they are stitution. Let us examine how this defect is perfected, and to sow them at a proper dismade up to them.-The seeds are endued with tance :" viz. the germ grows up in the spring, an adhesive quality so tenacious, that, if they upon a fruit stalk, accompanied with leaves. be rubbed upon the smooth bark of almost any The seeds now, in common with those of other tree, they will stick to it. And then what plants, have the benefit of the summer, and follows? Roots springing from these seeds in-are sown upon the surface. The order of vesinuate their fibres into the woody substance of the tree; and the event is, that a mistletoe plant is produced next winter. Of no other plant do the roots refuse to shoot in the ground; of no other plant do the seeds possess this adhesive, generative quality, when applied to the bark of trees.

IV. Another instance of the compensatory system is in the autumnal crocus, or meadow saffron (colchicum autumnale.) I have pitied this poor plant a thousand times. Its blossom rises out of the ground in the most forlorn condition possible; without a sheath, a fence, a calyx, or even a leaf to protect it: and that, not in the spring, not to be visited by summer suns, but under all the disadvantages of the declining year. When we come, however, to look more closely into the structure of this

Withering, Bot. Arr. vol i. p. 203, ed. 2d.

getation externally is this :—the plant produces its flowers in September; its leaves and fruits in the spring following.

V. I give the account of the dionæa musci. pula, an extraordinary American plant, as some late authors have related it: but whether we be yet enough acquainted with the plant, to bring every part of this account to the test of repeated and familiar observation, I am unable to say. "Its leaves are jointed, and furnished with two rows of strong prickles; their surfaces covered with a number of minute glands, which secrete a sweet liquor that allures the approach of flies. When these parts are touched by the legs of flies, the two lobes of the leaf instantly spring up, the rows of prickles lock themselves fast together, and squeeze the unwary animal to death."+ Here

• Withering, ubi supra, p. 360.

+ Smellie's Phil. of Nat. Hist. vol. i. p. 2►

under a new model, we recognise the ancient sphere's investing our globe; yet it does in. plan of nature, viz. the relation of parts and vest it: and we see how many, how various, provisions to one another, to a common office, and how important are the purposes which it and to the utility of the organized body to answers to every order of animated, not to say which they belong. The attracting syrup, the of organized, beings, which are placed upon rows of strong prickles, their position so as to the terrestrial surface. I think that every one interlock the joints of the leaves; and, what of these uses will be understood upon the first is more than the rest, that singular irritabili-mention of them, except it be that of reflecting ty of their surfaces, by which they close at a light, which may be explained thus :—If I had touch; all bear a contributory part in produ- the power of seeing only by means of rays cing an effect, connected either with the de- coming directly from the sun, whenever I turnfence or with the nutrition of the plant.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ELEMENTS.

ed my back upon the luminary, I should find myself in darkness. If I had the power of seeing by reflected light, yet by means only of light reflected from solid masses, these masses would shine indeed, and glisten, but it would be in the dark. The hemisphere, the sky, the world, could only be illuminated, as it is illuminated, by the light of the sun being from all sides, and in every direction, reflected to the eye, by particles, as numerous, as thickly scattered, and as widely diffused, as are those of the air.

WHEN we come to the elements, we take leave of our mechanics; because we come to those things, of the organization of which, if they be organized, we are confessedly ignorant. Another general quality of the atmosphere This ignorance is implied by their name. To is the power of evaporating fluids. The adsay the truth, our investigations are stopped justment of this quality to our use is seen in long before we arrive at this point. But then its action upon the sea. In the sea, water and it is for our comfort to find, that a knowledge salt are mixed together most intimately; yet of the constitution of the elements is not ne- the atmosphere raises the water, and leaves the cessary for us. For instance, as Addison has salt. Pure and fresh as drops of rain descend, well observed," we know water sufficiently, they are collected from brine. If evapora when we know how to boil, how to freeze, how tion be solution (which seems to be probato evaporate, how to make it fresh, how to ble) then the air dissolves the water, and not make it run or spout out, in what quantity the salt Upon whatever it be founded, the and direction we please, without knowing what distinction critical; so much so, that when water is." The observation of this excellent we attempt to imitate the process by art, we writer has more propriety in it now, than it must regulate our distillation with great care had at the time it was made: for the consti- and nicety, or, together with the water, we tution, and the constituent parts, of water, get the bitterness, or, at least, the distasteappear in some measure to have been lately fulness, of the marine substance: and, after discovered; yet it does not, I think, appear, all, it is owing to this original elective power that we can make any better or greater use of in the air, that we can effect the separation water since the discovery, than we did before which we wish, by any art or means whatit.

ever.

We can never think of the elements, with- By evaporation, water is carried up into out reflecting upon the number of distinct uses the air; by the converse of evaporation, it which are consolidated in the same substance. falls down upon the earth. And how does it The air supplies the lungs, supports fire, con- fall? Not by the clouds being all at once reveys sound, reflects light, diffuses smells, gives converted into water, and descending like a rain, wafts ships, bears up birds. E idaros sheet; not in rushing down in columns from Ta zavra: water, besides maintaining its a spout; but in moderate drops, as from a own inhabitants, is the universal nourisher of colander. Our watering-pots are made to plants, and through them of terrestrial ani- imitate showers of rain. Yet, à priori, 1 mals; is the basis of their juices and fluids; should have thought either of the two former dilutes their food; quenches their thirst; floats methods more likely to have taken place than their burdens. Fire warms, dissolves, en- the last.

lightens is the great promoter of vegetation By respiration, flame, putrefaction, air is and life, if not necessary to the support of both. rendered unfit for the support of animal life. We might enlarge, to almost any length we By the constant operation of these corrupting please, upon each of these uses: but it appears principles, the whole atmosphere, if there were to me almost sufficient to state them. The no restoring causes, would come at length to few remarks, which I judge it necessary to add, be deprived of its necessary degree of purity. are as follow: Some of these causes seem to have been disI. Air is essentially different from earth. covered, and their efficacy ascertained by ex. There appears to be no necessity for an atmo- periment. And so far as the discovery has

proceeded, it opens to us a beautiful and a three-quarters of its whole surface. But the wonderful economy. Vegetation provestobe one expanse of ocean, immense as it is, may be no of them. A sprig of mint, corked up with a small more than sufficient to fertilize the earth. Or, portion of foul air, placed in the light, renders it independently of this reason, I know not why again capable of supporting life or flame. Here, the sea may not have as good a right to its therefore, is a constant circulation of benefits place as the land. It may proportionably maintained between the two great provinces of support as many inhabitants; minister to as organized nature. The plant purifies what the large an aggregate of enjoyment. The land animal has poisoned; in return, the contami- only affords a habitable surface; the sea is nated air is more than ordinarily nutritious to habitable to a great depth. the plants Agitation with water turns out to

III. Of Fire, we have said that it dissolves. be another of these restoratives. The foulest The only idea probably which this term raised air, shaken in a bottle with water for a suffi- in the reader's mind, was that of fire melting cient length of time, recovers a great degree metals, resins, and some other substances, of its purity. Here then again, allowing for fluxing ores, running glass, and assisting us the scale upon which nature works, we see the in many of our operations, chymical or culisalutary effects of storms and tempests. The nary. Now these are only uses of an occayesty waves which confound the heaven and sional kind, and give us a very imperfect nothe sea, are doing the very thing which was tion of what fire does for us. The grand done in the bottle. Nothing can be of greater importance of this dissolving power, the great importance to the living creation, than the sa- office indeed of fire in the economy of nature, lubrity of their atmosphere. It ought to re- is keeping things in a state of solution, that concile us therefore to these agitations of the is to say, in a state of fluidity. Were it not elements, of which we sometimes deplore the for the presence of heat, or of a certain degree consequences, to know, that they tend power- of it, all fluids would be frozen. The ocean fully to restore to the air that purity, which itself would be a quarry of ice; universal naso many causes are constantly impairing. ture stiff and dead.

We see, therefore, that the elements bear not only a strict relation to the constitution of organized bodies, but a relation to each other. Water could not perform its office to the earth without air; nor exist, as water, without fire.

II. In Water, what ought not a little to be admired, are those negative qualities which constitute its purity. Had it been vinous, or oleaginous, or acid; had the sea been filled, or the rivers flowed, with wine or milk; fish, constituted as they are, must have died: plants, constituted as they are, would have withered: IV. Of Light (whether we regard it as of the lives of animals which feed upon plants, the same substance with fire, or as a different must have perished. Its very insipidity, which substance) it is altogether superfluous to exis one of those negative qualities, renders it patiate upon the use. No man disputes it. the best of all menstrua. Having no taste of The observations, therefore, which I shall ofits own, it becomes the sincere vehicle of every fer, respect that little which we seem to know other. Had there been a taste in water, be of its constitution.

it what it might, it would have infected every Light travels from the sun at the rate of thing we ate or drank, with an importunate twelve millions of miles in a minute. Urged repetition of the same flavour. by such a velocity, with what force must its

Another thing in this element, not less to be particles drive against (I will not say the eye, admired, is the constant round which it travels; the tenderest of animal substances, but) every and by which, without suffering either adulte-substance, animate or inanimate, which stands ration or waste, it is continually offering itself in its way! It might seem to be a force to the wants of the habitable globe. From sufficient to shatter to atoms the hardest bothe sea are exhaled those vapours which form dies.

the clouds: these clouds descend in showers, How then is this effect, the consequence of which, penetrating into the crevices of the such prodigious velocity, guarded against? hills, supply springs; which springs flow in little By a proportionable minuteness of the particles streams into the valleys; and there uniting, of which light is composed. It is impossible become rivers; which rivers, in return, feed for the human mind to imagine to itself any the ocean. So there is an incessant circulation thing so small as a particle of light. But of the same fluid: and not one drop probably this extreme exility, though difficult to conmore or less now than there was at the crea-ceive, it is easy to prove. A drop of tallow tion. A particle of water takes its departure expended in the wick of a farthing candle, from the surface of the sea, in order to fulfil shall send forth rays sufficient to fill a hemis certain important offices to the earth, and phere of a mile diameter; and to fill it so full having executed the service which was as- of these rays, that an aperture not larger than signed to it, returns to the bosom which it left.

Some have thought, that we have too much water upon the globe, the sea occupying above

the pupil of an eye, wherever it be placed within the hemisphere, shall be sure to receive some of them. What floods of light are continually poured from the sun, we cannot

estimate; but the immensity of the sphere Some degree therefore of complexity is neceswhich is filled with its particles, even if it reach- sary to render a subject fit for this species of ed no farther than the orbit of the earth, we argument. But the heavenly bodies do not, can in some sort compute; and we have reason except perhaps in the instance of Saturn's ring, to believe, that, throughout this whole region, present themselves to our observation as comthe particles of light lie, in latitude at least, pounded of parts at all. This which may be near to one another. The spissitude of the a perfection in them, is a disadvantage to us, sun's rays at the earth is such, that the num-as inquirers after their nature. They do not ber which falls upon a burning-glass of an come within our mechanics. inch diameter, is sufficient, when concentrated, to set wood on fire.

And what we say of their forms, is true of their motions. Their motions are carried on The tenuity and the velocity of particles of without any sensible intermediate apparatus; light, as ascertained by separate observations, whereby we are cut off from one principal may be said to be proportioned to each other; ground of argumentation, analogy. We have both surpassing our utmost stretch of compre- nothing wherewith to compare them; no inhension; but proportioned. And it is this vention, no discovery, no operation or resource proportion alone, which converts a tremendous of art, which, in this respect, resembles them. element into a welcome visitor.

Even those things which are made to imitate It has been observed to me by a learned and represent them, such as orreries, planefriend, as having often struck his mind, that taria, celestial globes, &c. bear no affinity to if light had been made by a common artist, it them, in the cause and principle by which their would have been of one uniform colour; where- motions are actuated. I can assign for this as, by its present composition, we have that difference a reason of utility, viz. a reason why variety of colours, which is of such infinite use though the action of terrestrial bodies upon to us for the distinguishing of objects; which each other be, in almost all cases, through the adds so much to the beauty of the earth, and intervention of solid or fluid substances, yet augments the stock of our innocent pleasures. central attraction does not operate in this manWith which may be joined another reflec-ner. It was necessary that the intervals betion, viz. that, considering light as compound- tween the planetary orbs should be devoid of ed of rays of seven different colours (of which any inert matter either fluid or solid, because there can be no doubt, because it can be re- such an intervening substance would, by its solved into these rays by simply passing it resistance, destroy those very motions, which through a prism,) the constituent parts must attraction is employed to preserve. This may be well mixed and blended together, to pro- be a final cause of the difference; but still the duce a fluid so clear and colourless as a beam difference destroys the analogy. f light is, when received from the sun.

CHAPTER XXII.

ASTRONOMY.*

Our ignorance, moreover, of the sensitive natures, by which other planets are inhabited, necessarily keeps from us the knowledge of numberless utilities, relations, and subservien cies, which we perceive upon our own globe.

After all; the real subject of admiration is, that we understand so much of astronomy as we do. That an animal confined to the surMy opinion of Astronomy has always been, face of one of the planets; bearing a less prothat it is not the best medium through which portion to it than the smallest microscopic into prove the agency of an intelligent Creator; sect does to the plant it lives upon; that this but that, this being proved, it shows, beyond little, busy, inquisitive creature, by the use of all other sciences, the magnificence of his ope- senses which were given to it for its domestic rations. The mind which is once convinced, necessities, and by means of the assistants of it raises to sublimer views of the Deity than those senses which it has had the art to proany other subject affords; but it is not so well cure, should have been enabled to observe the adapted, as some other subjects are, to the pur- whole system of worlds to which its own be>pose of argument. We are destitute of the longs; the changes of place of the immense means of examining the constitution of the globes which compose it; and with such acneavenly bodies. The very simplicity of their curacy, as to mark out beforehand, the situaappearance is against them. We see nothing, tion in the heavens in which they will be found but bright points, luminous circles, or the at any future point of time; and that these phases of spheres reflecting the light which bodies, after sailing through regions of void falls upon them. Now we deduce design from and trackless space, should arrive at the place relation, aptitude, and correspondence of parts. where they were expected, not within a minute, but within a few seconds of a minute, of

For the articles in this chapter marked with an as- the time prefixed and predicted: all this is terisk, I am indebted to some obliging communications wonderful, whether we refer our admiration received (through the hands of the Lord bishop of El. phin) from the Rev. J. Brinkley, M. A. Andrew's Pro-to the constancy of the heavenly motions fessor of Astronomy in the University of Dublin, themselves, or to the perspicacity and preci

sion with which they have been noticed by mankind. Nor is this the whole, nor indeed the chief part, of what astronomy teaches. By bringing reason to bear upon observation (the acutest reasoning upon the exactest observation,) the astronomer has been able, out of the "mystic dance," and the confusion (for such it is) under which the motions of the heavenly bodies present themselves to the eye of a mere gazer upon the skies, to elicit their order and their real paths.

Our knowledge therefore of astronomy is admirable, though imperfect: and, amidst the confessed desiderata and desideranda, which impede our investigation of the wisdom of the Deity in these the grandest of his works, there are to be found, in the phenomena, ascertained circumstances and laws, sufficient to indicate an intellectual agency in three of its principal operations, viz. in choosing and determining, in regulating; in choosing, out of a boundless variety of suppositions which were equally possible, that which is beneficial; in determining, what, left to itself, had a thousand chances against conveniency, for one in its favour; in regulating subjects, as to quantity and degree, which, by their nature, were unlimited with respect to either. It will be our business to offer, under each of these heads, a few instances, such as best admit of a popular explication.

I. Amongst proofs of choice, one is, fixing the source of light and heat in the centre of the system. The sun is ignited and luminous; the planets, which move round him, cold and dark. There seems to be no antecedent necessity for this order. The sun might have been an opaque mass; some one, or two, or more, or any, or all, the planets, globes of fire. There is nothing in the nature of the heavenly bodies, which requires that those which are stationary should be on fire, that those which move should be cold: for, in fact, comets are bodies on fire, or at least capable of the most intense heat, yet revolve round a centre: nor does this order obtain between the primary planets and their secondaries, which are all opaque. When we consider, therefore, that the sun is one; that the planets going round it are, at least, seven; that it is indifferent to their nature, which are luminous and which are opaque; and also, in what order, with respect to each other, these two kinds of bodies are disposed; we may judge of the improbability of the present arrangement taking place by chance.

isted, as he is, from eternity. This consequence arises out of the hypothesis with still more certainty, if we make a part of it, what the philosophers who maintain it have usually taught, that the planets were originally masses of matter, struck off in a state of fusion, from the body of the sun, by the percussion of a comet, or by a shock from some other cause, with which we are not acquainted: for, if these masses, partaking of the nature and substance of the sun's body, have in process of time lost their heat, that body itself, in time likewise, no matter in how much longer time, must lose its heat also, and therefore be incapable of an eternal duration in the state in which we see it, either for the time to come, or the time past.

The preference of the present to any other mode of distributing luminous and opaque bodies, I take to be evident. It requires more astronomy than I am able to lay before the reader, to show, in its particulars, what would be the effect to the system, of a dark body at the centre, and of one of the planets being luminous: but I think it manifest, without either plates or calculation, first, that supposing the necessary proportion of magnitude between the central and the revolving bodies to be preserved, the ignited planet would not be sufficient to illuminate and warm the rest of the system; secondly, that its light and heat would be imparted to the other planets much more irregularly than light and heat are now received from the sun.

(*) II. Another thing, in which a choice appears to be exercised, and in which, amongst the possibilities out of which the choice was to be made, the number of those which were wrong, bore an infinite proportion to the number of those which were right, is in what geometricians call the axis of rotation. This matter I will endeavour to explain. The earth, it is well known, is not an exact globe, but an oblate spheroid, something like an orange. Now the axes of rotation, or the diameters upon which such a body may be made to turn round, are as many as can be drawn through its centre to opposite points upon its whole surface: but of these axes none are permanent, except either its shortest diameter, i. e. that which passes through the heart of the orange from the place where the stalk is inserted into it, and which is but one; or its longest diameters, at right angles with the former, which must all terminate in the single circumference If, by way of accounting for the state in which goes round the thickest part of the which we find the solar system, it be alleged orange. The shortest diameter is that upon (and this is one amongst the guesses of those which in fact the earth turns, and it is, as the who reject an intelligent Creator,) that the reader sees, what it ought to be, a permanent planets themselves are only cooled or cooling axis; whereas, had blind chance, had a casual masses, and were once, like the sun, many impulse, had a stroke or push at random, set thousand times hotter than red-hot iron; then the earth a-spinning, the odds were infinite, it follows, that the sun also himself must be but that they had sent it round upon a wrong in his progress towards growing cold; which axis. And what would have been the conse puts an end to the possibility of his having ex- | quence? The difference between a permanent