The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner.

  • Dumas, J.-B. (Jean-Baptiste), 1800-1884.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    And as if all in these grand phenomena were destined to be associated with causes which should appear the most remote, we may here observe upon the sources whence the oxide of ammonium and azotic acid, from which vegetables derive a por- tion of their food, are themselves derived. They are, in fact, produced upon the grand scale by the action of those magnificent electric sparks that dart from the storm-cloud, and, furrowing vast fields of air, engender in their course the nitrate of am- monia, which analysis discovers in the thunder- shower. As it is from the mouths of volcanoes, then, whose convulsions so often make the crust of our globe to tremble, that the principal food of plants, carbonic acid, is incessantly poured out; so is it from the atmosphere on fire with lightnings, from the bosom of the tempest, that the second and scarcely less indispensable aliment of plants, ni- trate of ammonia, is showered down for their be- hoof. Might it not be said, that we have here a re- membrancer of that chaos mentioned in the Bible, of those periods of tumults and disorders which pre- ceded the appearance of order and organization upon earth ? For, scarcely are carbonic acid and nitrate of ammonia formed, than a calmer, though not less