The flower has grown under the impulse of principles which have traversed to it on the solar beam, and mingled with its substance. A stone is merely a stone to most men. But within the interstices of the stone, and involving it like an atmosphere, are great and mighty influences, powers which are fearful in their grander operations, and wonderful in their gentler developments. The stone and the flower hold, locked up in their recesses, the three great known forces--light, heat, and electricity: and, in all probability, others of a more exalted nature still, to which these powers are but subordinate agents. Such are the facts of science, which, indeed, are the true “sermons in stones,” and the most musical of “tongues in trees.” How weak are the creations of romance, when viewed beside the discoveries of science! One affords matter for meditation, and gives rise to thoughts of a most ennobling character; the other excites for a moment, and leaves the mind vacant or diseased. The former, like the atmosphere, furnishes a constant supply of the most healthful matter; the latter gives an unnatural stimulus, which compels a renewal of the same kind of excitement, to maintain the continuation of its pleasurable sensations. FOOTNOTES: [200] All the phenomena connected with volcanic action, and the theories connected therewith, will be found in Dr. Daubeny’s work, _A description of active and extinct Volcanoes, of Earthquakes, and of Thermal Springs_. 1848. [201] Graham’s _Elements of Chemistry_. New Edition. [202] Graham’s _Elements of Chemistry_; and Brande’s _Manual_. [203] Of these _tables of attraction_ the following may be taken as a specimen:-- SULPHURIC ACID. Baryta. Strontia. Potassa. Soda. Lime. Magnesia. Ammonia. It thus appears that baryta separates sulphuric acid from its compounds with all inferior substances, and that ammonia is separated from the acid by all that are above it. [204] Berthollet: _Essai de Statique Chimique_, 1803. Sir Humphry Davy, in his _Elements of Chemical Philosophy_, has given an excellent review of the views of Berthollet.