Elisha Noyce

“ How grand is the ever-moving ocean! how majestic its voice, how terrible its anger! how beautiful every colour that is reflected from its dancing spray, and how balmy the air which is wafted from its bosom to refresh the heated earth, which, under the glare of a summer's sun, seems parched with thirst. ”

“ The air is the great source from which all the nourishment of the organic creation, whether vegetable or animal, is derived; its carbonic acid is decomposed by the vegetables, which appropriate the carbon, turning over the oxygen to their companions, the animals; the ammonia of the air furnishes all the nitrogen of seeds and other nutritious parts of vegetables, which are eaten by animals; and water, the chief source of all nutriment, passes first from the air before it enters the soil, bringing both carbonic acid and ammonia to fertilise it. ”

“ This earth is an enormous mass, contemplated in comparison with ourselves, but an insignificant speck when compared with the sun, and there are certain laws, chemical and mechanical, which govern them all—heat, light, and electricity permeate all the infinity of space—attraction exists everywhere. ”

“ The Earth, considered as one of those spheres which circulate round the sun amidst the wide expanse of the firmanent, holds but an insignificant position among them, especially when compared with those great and magnificent orbs, Jupiter and Saturn; but, in another point of view, as the dwelling-place of all the animated beings, vegetables, and minerals, with which we have any practical knowledge, it holds to us a position in creation far above all the others. ”

“ The rapidity and ease with which thousands of troops were lately conveyed to the Crimea and India, together with all their stores, horses, &c., form one of the most wonderful feats of ocean navigation ever performed, and point out the beauty of those arrangements which enable man to traverse the whole earth, whether by land or by water, so that it may fairly be said that the civilisation of the world depended and still depends upon the waters. ”

“ It is a wonderful sight, and one which fills our minds with reflection; here we see many of the laws of nature exemplified on a great scale. The laws of gravity keep the surface of the ocean perfectly spherical as a whole, while those of equilibrium keep it in constant and ever-varying motion, the laws of attraction produce the tides, and those of reflection and refraction cause its surface to assume all sorts of colours and tints. ”

“ But this world is one of perpetual change, and the coal thus brought forth from the depths of the earth, is by man being rapidly restored to the air from whence—thousands of years ago—it was derived; and it is not coal alone which is thus being restored, but every organic being in the whole creation, for at their decay they all enter this vast mausoleum of the dead! ”

“ The ocean is full of life, both vegetative and animal; myriads of both classes have their natural habitation in the sea, and the shore is often, after a gale, strewed with curiosities well worth the contemplation of those who devote their minds to thought. ”

“ The immense preponderance of the vegetable over the animal world in quantity compensates somewhat for the superior organisation and the intelligence of the latter, which must be studied in the individual, while the vegetable world, which can be contemplated in the mass, almost overwhelms the imagination with its vastness. It is indeed impossible to compute the amount of vegetation in the great forests of America and Russia (in which latter country are the largest in the world) , covering hundreds, nay thousands, of square miles with one continuous growth of timber. ”

“ Of what use, to any creature but man, is coal—of what use the metals? Of what avail is it to any of the lower animals, that God has caused glass and other transparent substances to have the power of refracting the rays of light? but without which not one-half of our knowledge of His wondrous works would ever have been obtained, for it is upon this property alone that the powers of the telescope and microscope depend. Of what use to any but man are fire, artificial light, and galvanism? ”

“ THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.
QUANTITY, DISTRIBUTION, AND OFFICES OF THE VEGETABLE.
In contemplating nature there are few things which give more delight than the beauty and variety of the vegetation which clothes the surface of the earth, whether it be that we contemplate the grassy covering of the plains of the Old World, or the immense "prairies" of the New, spreading out as it were into seas of grass, and giving food and shelter to thousands of wild animals ”

“ The comets traverse our system of suns, and passing onwards with incredible rapidity, for years upon years, through that great space beyond it, at last visit some other system—perhaps to be as much an object of regard and wonderment there as they were here. The same ray of light which emanated from one of the distant stars of some one of the clusters situated far out in space, and which has travelled for thousands of years at the rate of 200,000 miles for every second of time, serves us here on this globe to distinguish it—it enters the tube of our telescope and affects our optic nerve ”

“ If we consider it wonderful that God should take up hundreds of millions of miles for one system, and that He should scatter through space millions of such systems, then let us lay aside the telescope and, after an exclamation of adoration, take up the microscope, by which we shall learn that God has also placed millions of systems equally wonderful within the compass of an inch! ”

“ On looking at the horizon we do not look on a perfect level, (if we did, being above it, of course we could not see it at all) but the depression of the line of vision is so slight as to be quite unable to be appreciated; yet, small as it is, it enables us to see a considerable space of the ocean, and the higher we rise—at the same angle—the more we see. The edge of the horizon also appears curved, being higher in front of us than on either side. ”

“ This wonderful quality exists in all organic beings; they obtain by it individual identity; they are whole creatures—imperfect with any part taken away, also imperfect with any addition. Clay is clay, in any quality or form; iron is iron, whether a grain or a ton; but a tree is only a tree when it is complete. ”

“ Beetles have been called the scavengers of nature, and truly they are so, for they (with other insects) clear off all dead matter, whether animal or vegetable; the Geotrupes stercorarius, and others, dig holes in the ground and bury the excrement which is deposited on the surface, thus doing a great service to vegetation, taking it down to nourish the roots of the grass and other plants instead of allowing it to harden and decompose on the surface. All dead animals are at once attacked and devoured by insects, and the Beetles play their full share in this necessary operation. ”

“ Some of the lower members of the animal kingdom resemble the higher members of the vegetable kingdom, both in outward appearance and in intimate structure; Dr. Darwin, who wrote scarce half-a-century ago, says that a tree should no more be considered as one plant than a branch of coral as one animal, for as it is found that in the coral hundreds of separate beings exist associated in one habitation, so (he says) should every bud on a tree be considered as a separate being. Even Dr. Carpenter, one of our most eminent physiologists, seems in a great measure to favour this idea. ”

“ The swarms of Locusts in Africa will sometimes cover many hundred square miles of surface, and in this space not a vestige of any vegetation would remain after their visit. The description of the prophet Joel is sublime: "The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness: yea, and nothing shall escape them.... The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining."
FIG. 21.—LOCUST (Locusta Migratoria) . ”

“ Man is, without doubt, the only animal possessed of reflective and reasoning faculties, and the possession of these has raised him immeasurably above all the rest. He has also physical capabilities suitable to a dominant being whose race is destined to people the earth in every part. Were his constitution formed like that of the Chimpanzee or the Ourang, he could only live in the very hottest of climates; but it is found that Man is healthy and happy through ranges of temperature, which would prove fatal to most other animals. ”

“ Just at a time when the great forests of the earth are fast disappearing, and with them the only other source of fuel for fires, this reserve of the old forests, which was then useless, serves man as a most excellent friend—more useful than gold or silver, more precious than diamonds or rubies! ”

“ They are furnished with eight or ten tentacula or arms, which spring from the head, and which are covered with suckers; the mouth is in the centre, and these tentacula are used to lay hold of their prey and convey it to the mouth; they have two perfect eyes, and they breathe by gills. The Nautilus has a univalve shell, which is of a very graceful and elegant form; its interior is divided into chambers, with a syphon running through them, by which the air is exhausted or compressed so as to cause them to sink or swim; the animal occupies only the outer chamber ”

“ The planets appear to be at different stages of condensation, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that our earth was once of no greater density than the lightest of them. The inner ring of Saturn is probably in a liquid state, for it is transparent. The substance of which comets are composed is a vapour, so rare and thin that it cannot be compared in density to our atmosphere even, and yet these comets preserve their identity, circulating through immense realms of space with prodigious rapidity. ”

“ The part of a plant which grows into the earth is called the root; this has a variety of forms, in some it is branched like the upper part, and these branches divide into rootlets or fibres penetrating deep into the ground, and absorbing nourishment in all directions, but this absorption does not take place from the whole surface of the root but from spots covering it, and from the slightly expanded ends of the fibres, these portions are formed of new and porous cellular tissue, and are called "spongioles." ”

“ Thus it is seen that the vegetable kingdom far exceeds the animal in quantity, that it is everywhere distributed, that it affords nourishment and shelter to animals, preserves the air fit for respiration, keeps down the excess of heat, and preserves the form of the surface of the earth. ”

“ There have been writers, who would endeavour to make it appear that God only created the lowest and most simple germs, and the circumstances which were necessary to develop them, and then allowed these to act and re-act until a man or an oak tree at last became the result! Were this the case, geology would long before this have shown the "small beginnings" [Pg 217] of man; but no! as soon as traces of man's creation are perceived, he is found as perfectly formed and organised as he is now, there are no transition stages of man's existence, nor of any other animal. ”

“ For all the members of creation form, as it were, the links of one great chain, and were but one removed, though it might perchance be only some poor weed or lowly moss, yet might it cause the whole to be annihilated ”

“ But the contraction of the interior mass of the earth still continues, and the cavities left by the expulsion of volcanic matters, and the pushing-up of the mountains, may not all have been compensated for by the sinking-in of the strata, so it remains a matter of doubt whether the crust of the earth is sufficiently strong to bear the pressure of its own and the air's gravity, or whether at some future day another contraction will break it up and destroy the whole existing order of things. ”

“ Some very curious and complicated changes take place in the lowest of the animals, very similar to those in the lowest vegetables; and what has been called the life-history of these beings, often embraces a great number of forms before the circle of their metamorphoses comes round to the starting-point. Some of these phases of existence are quite different from those going before and after them, and as the vegetable free-cell at one time is capable of motion, it has long been mistaken for an active living animalcule (the Protococcus pluvialis, &c.) ”

“ But of all the beautiful effects of the refraction of light, the Rainbow (fig. 9) is the most glorious, it has been celebrated in all ages for its transient beauty. It is only seen when rain is falling in front of a brightly illuminated cloud, the sun being behind the spectator; it is a reflection of the sun by the cloud transmitted through millions of drops of rain, each of which acts as a prism, and produces rings of colour ”

“ Even the great deserts, which appear so useless to man, and which are uninhabitable to a great extent, have their office, and an important one too; they are to the earth what ventilators are to buildings, drawing the cold air from the poles to cool the regions that are too hot, and sending a current of heated air through the upper regions of the atmosphere (where it can do no injury to anything) to warm the colder parts of the earth, another instance of the wonderful care and goodness on the part of the Creator. ”

“ The foreign possessions of France are insignificant, and, of the other nations of Europe, the Dutch alone possess a territory abroad greater than they have at home.... The proud position of Britain among the nations, the necessities of her foreign trade, and the wants of her colonies and dependencies, apart from all other considerations, rendered it fitting and natural that she should lead the way in maritime enterprise, and teach the nations how to navigate the ocean by steam. ”

“ Clouds are amongst the most beautiful as well as useful things in nature, and it is one of the greatest proofs of the active benevolence of God, that all those things which serve man the most, are the most beautiful to contemplate. Without clouds there would be no rain, and without this no vegetation. In many parts of the tropical regions there is little or no rain, and in such parts desert places abound. ”

“ This is one of the stumbling-blocks in the way of those who wish to have it believed that all animals are progressive from certain types, which cannot be got over; if such were the case, man would be most nearly imitated by the Apes, and these again by those most nearly allied to them, and so on downwards, but here we find a government almost as perfect as that of the human species—an arrangement of work, a division of labour, buildings, storehouses, &c.—showing nearly all the social habits and feelings of man, in creatures who in form and size have no resemblance to him. ”

“ There can be little doubt that the great variety of climate, whether hot or cold, moist or dry, is one of the greatest sources of happiness that can be well imagined; it stimulates to research, travel, and inquiry into the works of God; every change experienced tends to make man search for further change, every new scene makes him compare it with others ”

“ The Graminacæ comprise the great bulk of those plants which supply man and the lower animals with food, for it contains all the grasses and corn-bearing plants, including rice, maize, wheat, oats, barley, and rye. Upon these all the Ruminants of the earth feed, and millions of human beings taste no other kind of food. There are nearly 4000 species of graminaceous plants, rice and maize being the most broadly extended, forming the chief food of the Chinese, Hindoos, and other nations; wheat is here the most valuable grain, and is now grown in all parts of Europe and America. ”

“ Toads when small will often creep into holes in rocks and hollows in trees, and in these situations they find abundance of food; being slothful in their habits, and capable of existing upon but little food, and abstaining from it a long time, they are apt to remain in their snug quarters and content themselves with what insects may come to them. In this way they grow too large to get out of the hole, and live for a great time in it; when chance discovers them, by the rock being broken open or the wood of the tree cleft, the opening into which they had crept is overlooked. ”

“ The difference between the highest of the lower animals and Man, is so distinct, that no more need be said about it; but among men themselves, there is a great difference; between the European, and the Negro or the Hottentot, there is a vast distinction, but the most simple would at once say they are both men, and possessed of the essential qualities of men; and there can be no doubt that all men of every kind form one species. ”

“ Pure water exposed to the air does not afford nourishment to the germs which fall into it till a sufficient number of them shall have been deposited to form a food for those which come after them; but if we mix with the water any soluble vegetable or animal matter, in a short time the microscope will detect the growth of the germs that are being deposited, for where nourishment is, there only can they be developed. ”

“ Some Spiders are called Hunting Spiders, they do not construct webs, but pounce upon their prey with a leap; the Mygale avicularis of South America is one of this kind; it is said that some grow so large that their feet spread out a foot wide. The Long-legged Spider, often found in our houses, and of which fig. 32 is an exact copy, measures 31⁄2 inches, and is the largest species we have. There are also aquatic Spiders, which feed upon insects in the water and dive down for them; their surface being hairy and unctuous, retains sufficient air to bring them up and prevent them being wetted. ”

“ Geology was at first adduced as a proof that the world had existed from all eternity, instead of having been created by an Omnipotent God, and the question had often been asked, "Can you produce one proof of the creation of anything?" Now this was a difficult question to answer, until Geology made manifest the fact that Man was created, by producing a clear and unimpeachable proof that up to a certain time, he did not exist on the earth, and that at a period of time, a little later, he did exist ”

“ Man was created, and created as perfect in his physical organisation as he is at present—no long series of developments from the higher animals by fortuitous circumstances, as some pretend—no gradual addition of parts to suit the physical changes of the earth's surface. ”

“ All the great oceans and seas unite, and, in reality, form one great world of waters, spread out and covering all the lower parts of the earth, the term "lake" being applied to collections of water surrounded by land, although the Caspian Sea retains the name of sea, and some of the great lakes of America may well deserve such a name. ”