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Show 106 ALL THINGS USF.FUL. nature ; but there are a few others. VIe must not abstain from the examination of any thing on account of the ignorant having a prejudice againf't it. It has been already said, that no production of nature is ugly; and it may be added, that when we are properly acquainted with them, none of the productions of nature are injurious. 1t is true, that there are some that would poison us, if we ate them; others would burn the body, if they cante in contact with it; and others again offend, and even waste (l:'l.d wear our organs of sense. But it is our own fault, if we allow them to produce any of these bad effects. We need not swallow arsenic, be bitten by rattlesnakes, offended by the sight of toads or newts, or sickened by noxious effluvia. We should find out their properties, and shun those that are hurtful, at the same time that we turn to advantage those that are beneficial. Deadly as the white oxide of arsenic is when taken into the human stomach, arsenic, used for proper purposes, is a highly valuable substance. Some of its oxides are beautiful paints, others give purity to glass, hardness to the metal of printing types and the mirrors of telescopes ; and even the deadly poison itself is the most effectual re:medy in some diseases. Prussic acid, again, which in certain states is a more deadly poison, perhaps, than even arsenic, is not only in other states a valuable medicine, as well as a most essential ingredient in some of the most grateful tastes and odours, but it is highly probable that it tends as much, and perhaps more than any other substance in nature, to produce the colours of those flowers which render the fields and the gardens so gay. These are, no doubt, extreme cases ; but they are cases to the purpose; and with them before us. we must learn not to have an aversiOn to, or to despise, any one of nature's -productions, until we can be sure tha~ w~ know all its properties and all the purposes that It will a~1swer. And as that is a degree of knowledge at whlCh we UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES. 107 never can arrive, it is tantamount to saying, that we should never despise, or cease further to examine, any natural object whatsoever; because, even in the most c~mmon and neglecter} one there may be properties more really useful than those of that upon which we, with our present knowledge, whatever the extent of that knowledge may be, set the highest value. There was a time when people · little dreamed that common coal might be made to circulate in pipes like water, and light up streets, roads, and dwellings, and yet be nearly as serviceable as ever for common fires, and more serviceable in all cases where smoke is objectionahlc; and there was also a time when, if any one had said that the elements of water, mixed in the same proportion in which they form that liquid, could, by being burnt from the state of two separate airs to the state of liquid water, produce about the most intense heat that could be produced, the statement would have been treated as the ctream of a distempered imagination. There are innumerable cases, too, in which that which has for ceaturies been thrown away as the refuse has, upon further discoverv, been found to be the most valuable part of the whole composition. The ore of zinc, which united with copper forms brass. used to be considered as a useless encumbrance ·by the miners in several parts of the country. The bones of meat, which were once scattered both unsightly and unprofitably over the waste places, are now, in consequence of a few very simple discoveries, made probably more valuable, weight for weight, than the meat itself; and the very dust and rubbish of the houses, which in the places where it collects is absolute filth, is found very serviceable in many of the arts, so that large fortunes are made by people who collect it at their own e.xpense. It is scarcely possible to turn one's attentwn to any one branch of industry in which there shall not be found some substance of the |