OCR Text |
Show 220 AIR AND WATER. which opens downward into the well or pit that supplies the water; and, whatever the heating cause is, whether warm air or warm earth, it converts the water in that boiler into steam. The steam is confined by the pressure of the column of water in t?e pit or well, which is open to the air. But when tne steam reaches a certain heat, the pressure of t~e column can no longer resist it, and it forces the water up in a high and powerful jet. The ste~m, and most likely also heated air, escape al~ng. with the water and the water is cooled, so that It smks down in the' pit, and again enters the boile_r, so as to shut the opening till the steam be sufficiently powerful to drive up the column of water. SECTION VIII. Observation of tlw Water and the Earth. NoTWITHSTANDING the length to which the precedino- section has extended, it contains only a few hints o; an exceedingly limited numbe! of those c?nclusions relatino- to the agency of arr and water m the economy of ~ature, to which even the most comnwn observer must arrive, if he reflects. as well as ob~ erves. There is scarcely any thmg natural that happens in which one or both of t~ese substanc~s are not concerned, either as matenals, or as medm by means of which other substances are e~abled to act upon each other. Thus, whatever we observebe it in the solid earth, down to the bottom of the deepest mine-be it in the ocean, H deeper than plummet ever sounded"-be it in the atmosphere, as high as a foot can climb or a wing cl~ave, a -va-pour ascend or a meteor be formed-be 1t at any ti_me, or at any place-be it in plants, from the ~1ttle mouhls of which the spar(£ or seeds probably cucu· FOUNDATION OF NATURE. 221 late viewless in every current of the air, every rush of the \Vater, every motion of sap in the plant, and every pulse of life in t~1e animal, to the giapt pi_ne ?f Western America, which stands proudly m mid-mr, towering- over the forest, as some ~all cliff do~s o'er the pebbles at its base; or the Indmn fig, which ex. tends its ever multiplying- stems over acres of space, and braves the vicissitudes of a thousand years,-or be it in the animated tribes, from the small tenants of water tinged with sour paste, to which a single drop is the same for space. a~d scope as an ocea!l ~o a whale, to that giant of hymg cre~tures_:-:-be 1t 1.n any or in all of these, or I~ any thmg wit~m th_mr limits or any limits to which the most dtscurstve fancy' can extend, even in its farthe~t flight, ther~ ~s not a thing done, not a pulse of life, not a hau s breadth of growth, not a tint of co~our, ~ot a. trace of motion, not a shadow of change, m whiCh au and water (or one or other of them) are not present, and contribute to the result. The observation of Nature is, therefore, very little else than the observation of air and water, simply or in their combinations. So far as we are able to judge, that bas been the case in the formation of all the solid and permanent parts of the earth; for even the oldest mountain rock bears distinct evidence that its parts have been crystallized from a watery :mlution ; and though in many places we can discover rocks that have been molten by fire, yet these are merely changed _rocks that had previously existed; and, if we wish to trace them back to the first working of Nature's hand upol?- th~m-to t~at mysterious boundary where _creat~on 1s creatiOn still, though our present capacity will go no further -it is in the waters we must take our farewell of them. So true, even literally, is the declaration of Holy Writ, "He hath laid the foundation thereof upon the waters." The softer and, as we may say, the younger strata T2 |