The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1854-07-12

can tell you what these. elements are,
and how they are combined when dead !;
but when living, they resist all his pow
er of analysis. Rudolph ebnfesses that
chemistry is able to investigate only the
lifeless remains of organized beings.
There are many remarkable facts con-
nected with Animal Chemistry-if we
may employ the term--which show how
superior is the principle of life to- all
known methods of synthesis and analy-
sis. For example, much more carbon
or charcoal is regiularft Z = Roided from
the respiratory organsoalone, of all
living beings-not totspeak of its ejec-
tion in many other waysr-than can be
accounted for, as having in any way en-
tered Tia system. They also produce
and eject much more riitrbgen than they
inhale. The mushroom and mustard
plant, though nourished by pure water,
containing no nitrogen, yet give it, off
abundantly; the same is the case with
zoophytes attached to rocks at the bot
tom Of the sea and reptiles and fishes
contain!it in abundanceI , though living
and growingih pure water only. Again,
plants which grow on sand. containing
not a particle of lime, are found to con-
tain as much of this mineral as those
which grow in a calcareous soil; and the
bone of animals in New South Wales
and other districts where not an atom of
lime is to be found in the soil, or in the
plant from which they gather their food,
contain the usual proportisn of lime,
though it remains an entire mystery
to the chemist where thev can have OBJ
tanned it. The same fact is, observable
in the egg shells of hens, where lime is
produced in quantities for which the
kind of food taken is altogether made
quate to account; as well as in the enor-
nous deposites of eoral-roeks consisting
of almost pure lime, Without any mani
fest supply of that ingredient. Chem
istry fails to unravel these mysterious
facts; nor can it account for the abun-
daht production of soda, by plants grow
ing on a soil containing not an atom of
soda in any form; nor. Of gold in be-
zoardsi nor of copper in some description
of shell-fsh. These extraordinary facts
seem to point to this that many, if not
most, of the elements which chemists
have set down as simple. because they
h I'VE failed to reduce them further, are
in reality compound; and that what we re
gard as elements, do signify matters that
are undecompoundable, but which are
merely sundecompounded by chemical
processes. Life, however, which is su-
perior to human powers of analysis, re
solves and composes the ultimate atoms
of things after methods of, its own,- but
which to the chemist will probably ever
remain involved in mystery. ---sl -,..o-
The last mystery of life is death
Such is the economy of living beings,
that the very actions which are subservi-
ent to their preservation, tend to exhaust
and destroy them. Each being has its
definite term of life, and on attaining its
acme of perfection, it begins to decay,
and at length ceases to exist. This is
alike true of the insect which perishes
within the hour, and of the octogenarian
who falls in a ripe old age. Love pro-
vides for the perpetuation of the species,
ave love-" says Virey, because we
do not live forever; we purchaseIlove at
the expense of our life" To die, is as
characteristic of organized beings as to
live. The one condition is necessary to
the other. Death is the last of life's
functions. And no sooner has the mys-
terious principle of vitality departed,
than the laws of matter assert their pow
er over the organized frame.
!" Universal experience teaches us, :"
says Leibig. /" that all organized beings,
after death, suffer change, in conse-
quence of which their bodies gradually
vanish from the surface of the earth
The mightiest tree, after it is cut down,
disappears, with the exception, perhaps,
of the bark, when exposed to the action
of the air for thirty or forty years.
Leaves, young twigs, the straw of which
is added to the soih as manure, juicy
fruits, Sc, disappear, much more quick,
ly. In a shorter time. animal matter
lose their cohesion; they are dissipated
into the air, leaving only the mineral
elements which they had derived from
the soil. Ia ssli3 zaiIsizo eaI .2iil
"This grand and natural process of
the dissolution of all compounds formed
in living organizations, begins immedi-
ately after death, wheAi the manifold
causes nodonger act under the influence
of which theyTwere produced. The COM
pounds formed in bodies of animals and
of plants, undergo, in the air, and with
the aid of moisture, a series of changes,
the last of which are, the conversion of
their carbon into earboniG acid of their
hydrogen into water, of their nitrogen
into ammonia, of their sulphur into
sulphuric acid. Thus their elements re-
sumo the forms in which they can again
serve as food to a new generation of
plants and animals. Those elements
which had been derived from the at
mosphere take the gaseous form and re-
turn to the air; those which the earth
had yielded, return to the soil. Death,
followed by the dissolution of the dead
generation, is. the source of life for a new
one. The tame atom of carbon which,
as a constituent of muscular fibre in
the heart of a man. assists to propel the
blood through his frame, was perhaps a
constituent of the heart of one of his
ancestors; and any atom of nitrogen in
our brain has perhaps been a part of the
brain of an Egyptian or of Q negro. As
the intellect of the men of this genera
tion draws the food required for it's de-
velopment and cultivation from the pro-
ducts of the intellectual activity of for
mer times, SO may the constituents of ele-
ments of the bodies of former genera
ton pass into, and become parts of our
own frames. bono -e.... l..rg b.. ...f -
The greatest mystery of all remains.
What of the spirit-the soul 2 The vi
tai principle which bound the frame to-
gether has been dissolved; :; what of the
man, the being of high aspirations, "look-