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If man is not more than an "accident in the history of the thermic evolution of the globe," or the result of the fortuitous juxtaposition and combination of carbonic acid gas and water and a few other elements, what shall we say? It is at least a bewildering proposition. Could one by analyzing a hive of bees find out the secret of its organization its unity as an aggregate of living insects?

We look at a gas flame, and we see in the flame itself those particles of gas which have come through the pipe to be agitated violently in the higher temperature of the flame as they are oxidized or burnt. These particles immediately pass off as carbonic acid gas and water vapor which are no longer parts of the flame.

In the next case the series of Oxides begins. Herein are the oxides and hydrous oxides of manganese. Having examined the sulphurets and oxides, the visitor should cross to the northern suite of tables marked from 48 to 54. Here are arranged a series of the Carbonates, or combinations of carbonic acid with earths, metallic oxides or alkalis.

For the rapid evolution of oxygen by plants the action of sunlight is required. That evolution becomes very feeble, or ceases entirely, in the darkness of the night. Some authorities assert even that carbonic acid is given off during the latter period.

He thought he discovered that the whole weight of the sugar was represented by the carbonic acid produced; that in other words, supposing this tumbler to represent the sugar, that the action of fermentation was as it were the splitting of it, the one half going away in the shape of carbonic acid, and the other half going away in the shape of alcohol.

It has been found by experiment, that every six pounds of carbon in existing plants has withdrawn twenty-two pounds of carbonic acid gas from the atmosphere, and replaced it with sixteen pounds of oxygen gas, occupying the same bulk.

That which we consider the most delicious and exhilarating portion of our common beverage, porter, contains carbonic acid gas, commonly known by the "spirit," and which the poor miners dread with the utmost horror, like the Arabian does the destructive blast of the simoon.

Another view was therefore taken by the French chemist, Thenard, and it is still held by a very eminent chemist, M. Pasteur, and their view is this, that the yeast, so to speak, eats a little of the sugar, turns a little of it to its own purposes, and by so doing gives such a shape to the sugar that the rest of it breaks up into carbonic acid and alcohol.

Just before the commencement of the lecture in the Laboratory of the Polytechnic School, an iron cylinder, two feet and a half long and one foot in diameter, in which carbonic acid had been developed for experiment before the class, burst, and its fragments were scattered about with the most tremendous force; it cut off both the legs of the assistant and killed him on the spot.

Whether all this blood shall convey the nourishing and invigorating oxygen to every part of the body, or return unrelieved of carbonic acid, depends entirely on the pureness of the atmosphere that is breathed. Every time we think or feel, this mental action dissolves some particles of the brain and nerves, which pass into the blood to be thrown out of the body through the lungs and skin.