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Show 162 AGGREGATION. ~solid disappears, it passes through the liquid state mto vapour. So also, in the formation of new aggregations, whether these be liquid or solid, or whether they be what we call simple or what we call compound, the primary state-that in which the combination or the aggre gation begins-is the state of air. It is of no consequence whether the result be what we call a new body, or what we call the repairing of an old one ; for the process of nature, however it may vary in appearance, and whether to our senses it be visible or invisible, is always the same. Air with air is the only state of intimate union which we know of that is primary, or that of atom with atom, so that the compound or the mass may, to our observation, appear one substance. Liquidity is a weakening of the cohesion of particle with particle; but it is not, in the case of any liquid with which we are acquainted, a total suspension of that cohesion. There is no liquid but which can form into drops, or be poured in a continued and connected stream, which shows that the particles have still some attraction, as we call it, for each other. They are not quite subdued, but, like the bent bow, retain their capacity of returning from the bend. Some, no doubt, pass very soon into vapour. In dry air, single drops of ether will evaporate before they reach the ground from the usual height of the hand ; and there are many instances of showers being evaporated in their fall, and never reaching the ground; indeed, most showers are less or more evaporated in their falling by the warm air near the sheltered and low places ; and thus there falls more rain even at the top of a place of ordinary elevation, than on the same surface of the ground on which the house stands. But still, even the most rapid of those evaporations takes some time, and the cohesion of the particles forms a drop at the beginning, in opposition both to the liquidity and CHARCOAL. 163 gravitation. The mixture of liquids is, therefore, only a mechanical mixture, even when the parts that ,are mixed are far too fine either for the senses or the microscope. It rna"; be the means of a more 1 intimate union-of those· unions that produce compound, and organized, and living substances; and as we cannot see the masses of the different matters m the liquid, we cannot of course see the future and ultimate process; but we may rest assured that the chymistry, the ~}i/lta, the "secret process," of the matter-that from which the forms of things originate, is always a union of air with air. And the facility given by this aerial state, in which, to our observation, the atoms of all matter are nothing, and yet fit and ready for every thing, is truly wonderful; so much so that we can hardly name l one ultimate substance and a primary purpose, and dare say that the one of them is not fit for the other. A cinder, a bit of burnt stick, or the snuff of a candle is, in our estimation, not only a useless, but an offensive thing, and we throw it away as such. Bu~ it is far otherwise in nature; and those things whiCh we cast away as useless and offensive are, in her working, far more vnluable than gold. · Let us examine the matter a little ; it may be useful to us on other occasions. What can nature do with the cinder, the burnt stick, or the candlesnuff! Why nature can make them serve more purpo~es than man can serve by the most valuable matenal that he knows. In as far as they contain charcoal, nature can make them into marble and limestone, and black-lead for pencils, and sheils of all. kinds, an~ every plant that grows, and every ammal that hves; and, with very few exceptions, . all the parts of all those plants and those animals. There ld not only charcoal in them all but it is the ch~r?oal that gives the soft parts their 'firmness and sohdtty ; and part of the brightest eye that now beams in England may once have been, and may be |
