Then, what becomes of it?
Wonderful is it to find that the change produced by respiration, which
seems so injurious to us (for we cannot breathe air twice over), is the
very life and support of plants and vegetables that grow upon the surface
of the earth. It is the same also under the surface, in the great bodies
of water; for fishes and other animals respire upon the same principle,
though not exactly by contact with the open air.
Such fish as I have here [pointing to a globe of gold-fish] respire by the
oxygen which is dissolved from the air by the water, and form carbonic
acid; and they all move about to produce the one great work of making the
animal and vegetable kingdoms subservient to each other. And all the
plants growing upon the surface of the earth, like that which I have
brought here to serve as an illustration, absorb carbon. These leaves are
taking up their carbon from the atmosphere, to which we have given it in
the form of carbonic acid, and they are growing and prospering. Give them
a pure air like ours, and they could not live in it; give them carbon with
other matters, and they live and rejoice. This piece of wood gets all its
carbon, as the trees and plants get theirs, from the atmosphere, which, as
we have seen, carries away what is bad for us and at the same time good
for them,--what is disease to the one being health to the other.
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