Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation | Page 9

the more entitled to draw such conclusions, seeing that there is nothing at all singular or special in the astronomical situation of the earth. It takes its place third in a series of planets, which series is only one of numberless other systems forming one group. It is strikingly--if I may use such an expression--a member of a democracy. Hence, we cannot suppose that there is any peculiarity about it which does not probably attach to multitudes of other bodies--in fact, to all that are analogous to it in respect of cosmical arrangements.
It therefore becomes a point of great interest--what are the materials of this specimen? What is the constitutional character of this object, which may be said to be a sample, presented to our immediate observation, of those crowds of worlds which seem to us as the particles of the desert sand-cloud in number, and to whose profusion there are no conceivable local limits?
The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are all, as has been stated, reducible into fifty-five substances hitherto called elementary. Six are gases; oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen being the chief. Forty-two are metals, of which eleven are remarkable as composing, in combination with oxygen, certain earths, as magnesia, lime, alumin. The remaining six, including carbon, silicon, sulphur, have not any general appellation.
The gas oxygen is considered as by far the most abundant substance in our globe. It constitutes a fifth part of our atmosphere, a third part of water, and a large proportion of every kind of rock in the crust of the earth. Hydrogen, which forms two-thirds of water, and enters into some mineral substances, is perhaps next. Nitrogen, of which the atmosphere is four-fifths composed, must be considered as an abundant substance. The metal silicium, which unites with oxygen in nearly equal parts to form silica, the basis of nearly a half of the rocks in the earth's crust, is, of course, an important ingredient. Aluminium, the metallic basis of alumin, a large material in many rocks, is another abundant elementary substance. So, also, is carbon a small ingredient in the atmosphere, but the chief constituent of animal and vegetable substances, and of all fossils which ever were in the latter condition, amongst which coal takes a conspicuous place. The familiarly-known metals, as iron, tin, lead, silver, gold, are elements of comparatively small magnitude in that exterior part of the earth's body which we are able to investigate.
It is remarkable of the simple substances that they are generally in some compound form. Thus, oxygen and nitrogen, though in union they form the aerial envelope of the globe, are never found separate in nature. Carbon is pure only in the diamond. And the metallic bases of the earths, though the chemist can disengage them, may well be supposed unlikely to remain long uncombined, seeing that contact with moisture makes them burn. Combination and re-combination are principles largely pervading nature. There are few rocks, for example, that are not composed of at least two varieties of matter, each of which is again a compound of elementary substances. What is still more wonderful with respect to this principle of combination, all the elementary substances observe certain mathematical proportions in their unions. One volume of them unites with one, two, three, or more volumes of another, any extra quantity being sure to be left over, if such there should be. It is hence supposed that matter is composed of infinitely minute particles or atoms, each of which belonging to any one substance, can only (through the operation of some as yet hidden law) associate with a certain number of the atoms of any other. There are also strange predilections amongst substances for each other's company. One will remain combined in solution with another, till a third is added, when it will abandon the former and attach itself to the latter. A fourth being added, the third will perhaps leave the first, and join the new comer.
Such is an outline of the information which chemistry gives us regarding the constituent materials of our globe. How infinitely is the knowledge increased in interest, when we consider the probability of such being the materials of the whole of the bodies of space, and the laws under which these everywhere combine, subject only to local and accidental variations!
In considering the cosmogenic arrangements of our globe, our attention is called in a special degree to the moon.
In the nebular hypothesis, satellites are considered as masses thrown off from their primaries, exactly as the primaries had previously been from the sun. The orbit of any satellite is also to be regarded as marking the bounds of the mass of the primary at the time when that satellite was thrown off; its speed likewise denotes the rapidity of the rotatory motion of the