life upon the globe, interfere in any way with comfort. As to what would happen on the our reasonings and conclusions as to the natural face of the globe, were all men so to live that and possible length of human life? Not in the none should fail to reach this great age-as to least. As an abstract result of physiological how the people would multiply, and what inquiry, it has been rendered probable that would become of them,-these are questions from ninety to a hundred years is the natural which do not concern us as individuals anxious length of an ordinary human life. As a special to live long-which, were we all to begin inand individual positive result, affecting each of continently so to live, could scarcely cause us to whom this information is given, it has anxiety for generations to come, and which we been rendered further probable that, by leading may confidently leave to be answered by the a moderate and sober life, any of us may attain ALL-DISPOSER. this length of life in comparative health and From the New York Observer. THE VERGE OF JORDAN. I stand upon the river's verge, Its waves break at my feet; 'Tis not alone the billows' roar For angel harps are turned to cheer And angel tongues are chanting there Though dim and faltering grows my sight It sees a land in glory bright Beyond the darkening wave; The gales that toss its crest of foam They whisper of another home The everlasting hills arise, The radiance of those sunny skies Loved faces look upon me now, And well-known voices speak! I thought my heart would break! Earth, home and time, farewell! The snowy, blood-washed robe I'll wear-- Welcome, the waves that waft me there THE WIND. The wind went forth o'er land and sea, Foaming waves leapt up to meet it, And the forest's murmured sigh Of the wind that swept o'er land and sea. Cast the bark upon the shore, And the cry of pain and death Through the wind that roar'd upon the sea. The wind was whispering on the lea Tenderly; But the white rose felt it pass, All her trembling petals shed, So gently by,the wind upon the lea. And a gentler message send, For thy bidding still is one, Be it done In tenderness or wrath, on land or sea! Household Words. MORALITIES. Marriage is the nursery of Heaven-Jeremy Taylor. Sleep is the fallow of the mind. There are graves no time can close. Flattery is a sort of bad money, to which our vanity gives currency-Rochefoucault. Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defence of manners.—Chesterfield. We seldom find people ungrateful so long as we are in a condition to serve them.-Rochefoucault. Covetousness, like a candle ill-made, smothers the splendor of a happy fortune in its own grease.-F. From The Edinburg Review. to adorn and enjoy it, and light and heat are ART. VII.-The Chemistry of Common Life. awakened or extinguished at will. The inacBy JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, M. D., F. R. tive nitrogen dilutes the too energetic oxygen, S. L. & E., Reader in Chemistry and Min- so as to make animal life longer, and to suberalogy in the University of Durham. 2 ject living fire to human control; while the vols. post 8vo. Blackwood: 1855. poisonous carbonic acid is rendered harmless to animal life by the very small proportion in which it is mixed with the other airs. THE common life of man is full of wonders, chemical and physiological. The manner and One of the most admirable, indeed, of Nameans of our existence, every necessary we ture's wonders in the material world, is the consume, every material comfort we enjoy,-purpose served by this carbonic acid gas. Itall the parts and functions of the bodily organs self poisonous in a high degree, it can be through which we enjoy them, everything, in breathed by man with impunity only in very short, which concerns our daily individual life, minute quantity; that is, in an extreme state -abounds in admirable marvels, which chem- of dilution. Hence, the atmosphere in which istry and chemical physiology disclose. Dr. man lives contains only one gallon of this gas Johnston has described and discussed these in every 2,500. And so small is this quantity, subjects, at once so familiar and so obscure,- that the weight of carbon in this form which so universally felt and so imperfectly under- the whole atmosphere contains, amounts only stood,-in one of the most agreeable and in- to thirty-three grains out of the fifteen pounds structive publications of the present day. We of air which press upon every square inch. shall follow him rapidly through the general Yet by this comparatively minute quantity all divisions of his subjects, and terminate our ob- vegetable life is nourished and sustained. servations by some of the examples which the Doctor draws from the habits and wants of our daily lives. Look out in the coming spring-time at the bursting bud. Watch how beneath the midday sun, the tiny leaflet spreads out its yellow If we begin, for example, with that univer- surface to the favoring rays. See how from sal air which floats around us,-which expands day to day its hue becomes greener, and its our lungs and permeates every tissue of our several parts increase in size. This growth bodies-modern chemistry informs us that. will continue till closing summer finds the though considered simple and elementary by little bud changed into a magnificent plant, the ancients, this air is a mixture of at least clad with copious leaves, and successively three elastic fluids, equally subtle and invisible, blooming with gay flowers, or borne down by and equally essential to the purposes which the a burden of tempting fruit. Autumn will atmosphere is intended to serve. These are succeed, to stop the growth and give a new the now well-known gases nitrogen, oxygen, color to its leaves; and chill winter will strip and carbonic acid. In the first, flame dies and it of all its leafy pride, and leave it naked as no life can persist; in the second, bodies burn when spring-time began. and animals live with great intensity; in the Such is the yearly plant-life, as seen by the third, both life and flame are extinguished. ordinary cultivator, or watched with daily care Though so different in their properties when by the lover of vegetable nature. But, betaken singly, the admixture of them, which neath this outer open life, there is an inner seforms our atmosphere, is adjusted-in kind cret life which the common eye does not see. and in the relative proportions of each-to the A constant invisible intercourse has all the condition of things both living and dead, which time been taking place between the external now obtains on the surface of the earth. air and the most hidden parts of the internal Did the air consist of nitrogen only, the plant. No sooner does the little leaf burst sun's rays would be the sole source of heat the swelling bud, than a thousand unseen wherever the atmosphere extended, and no mouths open on its surface to suck in the airy existing plant or animal could flourish on the food which now for the first time comes within globe. Were it formed of oxygen only, fire, their reach. These minute mouths (stomata) once kindled, would refuse to be extinguished, are scattered in millions over the leaf, now on and conflagration would spread, till everything its upper, now on its under side, and now on combustible in the earth was consumed. Did both-according to the circumstances in which it consist of carbonic acid only, death and com- the plant is destined to live. Beginning with parative stillness would reign everywhere, and the first dawn of sunlight, they perpetually the production of light and heat such as we suck in carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and can now command, would be utterly impossi-give off oxygen gas in nearly equal volume, ble. But the happy mixture of the three till the sun goes down. Then, with a view to gases which now prevails, renders everything other chemical ends, and, obedient to the repossible. Under their united influence the tiring sun, they change the nature of their rocks crumble to form a fertile soil, plants work. While darkness lasts, they take back flourish to cover it with verdure, animals live carbonic acid from the air, and give out again pure oxygen gas. And thus, day after day, lasts, it cannot render the atmosphere unthe leafy labor proceeds, and by the aid of wholesome to animal life. To the knowledge the raw materials which the working mouths of these and many similar adjustments, the thus incessantly carry out and in, other vital study of the chemistry of the air we breathe parts within the plant produce the varied forms has gradually led us. of matter of which the vegetable substance con Turn now to the water we drink. In this sists. The solid stem is formed, as it were, admirable fluid, so clear, so bright, so grateful of compressed and hardened air; and vast for- to the system, so healthful to the temperate, ests on a thousand hills thus steal from the so necessary to all, the delight of Grecian atmosphere the carbonaceous matter of which song,-the charm of the Eastern paradise,— they mainly consist. of this fluid, lauded with justice by the phy But a marvel of wondrous forethought dis-siologist, and worshipped, not unduly, by the closes itself as we interrogate more nearly this total abstainer,-chemistry tells us that threemutual relation between terrestrial plant-life fourths of our apparently solid bodies consist, and the air which surrounds it. The quantity and that it forms nearly as large a proportion of carbon in the air, as we have seen, is small; of all living vegetables during the height and -some thirty odd grains over every square vigor of their growth. In this fluid, looked inch. The active growth of vegetable matter upon as elementary till nearly our own times, over the entire surface of the globe, is able to modern research has taught us to see the result convert the whole of this carbon into the sub- of a subtle union between the oxygen we have stance of solid wood within the lifetime of a spoken of, and another gas, to which the name single generation of men. But hundreds of of hydrogen (water-former) has been given. generations of men have already lived on the Kindle this latter gas in the air, and it burns earth, and thousands of generations of other with a pale flame. Hold a cold bell glass over animals before him, yet carbon is as abundant the flame, and its under surface will become in the atmosphere as ever, and vegetable bedewed with moisture, and drops of water growth, in similar circumstances, quite as lux- will trickle down its sides. Collect this water uriant. There must, therefore, be some nat- and submit it to a current of electricity; the aral sources of supply from which carbonic liquid will disappear, and in its stead the two acid gas flows into the air, as fast as the leafy gases oxygen and hydrogen will remain. These mouths withdraw it. These sources, also, experiments prove, first, that while burning in must be watched and regulated, that they the air, the hydrogen unites with the oxygen may not pour it in so fast as to increase unduly of the atmosphere and forms water; and, the natural proportion of this poisonous gas second, that the water thus formed consists of in an atmosphere which man and countless these two gaseous constituents only, compressother animals perpetually breathe. These sev-ed and bound together by some incompreheneral conditions are beautifully fulfilled by a sible connexion, which it makes us no wiser to series of compensating natural operations, call chemical combination. which, like the growth of plants, form a part It is, indeed, incomprehensible how water, of the existing system of things; and, like it, the enemy of fire, should itself consist of two never cease to proceed at a duly measured gases, the one of which burns most readily, pace. while the other is the great natural supporter Thus, plants die, and the carbon of their of living fire. And it is equally strange that stems and leaves is gradually resolved again oxygen, so indispensable to animal life, should into carbonic acid by the gradual progress of form eight-ninths by weight of a liquid in which decay, or by the quicker agency of fire. Or few terrestrial animals can live for more than the plant is eaten by the living animal, and two or three seconds of time. By no known after many chemical changes within the ani- theory of physical or mechanical union can we mal's body, its carbon is breathed forth again satisfactorily explain how properties so new from the lungs and skin in the form of car- should be the result of such chemical combibonic acid. In these several ways the very nations. same carbon which the plant-leaf has taken The chemical study of this water in its refrom the air, is again, in a great measure, re-lations to animal and vegetable life presents turned to it. A certain small and indefinite new points of interest. The most important proportion of their carbon is indeed yearly of its chemical properties are so familiar to us buried in the soil, or covered up in the depths that we rarely think of them, and certainly do of the sea, or accumulated in bogs and dismal not sufficiently prize them. Pure water has swamps. But to make up for this, the earth neither taste, nor smell, nor pungency. It is itself, from bubbling springs, from myriads of neither sour like vinegar, nor sweet like sugar, unseen fissures, and from the open mouths nor alkaline like soda. It irritates no nerve of of many volcanoes pours forth a ceaseless con- sensation, even the most delicate, nor is the tribution of carbonic acid gas, ceaseless, yet in tenderest part of the animal frame disturbed such wise limited, that so long as vegetation by contact with this universal fluid. It is thus frted to penetrate unfelt into the subtlest tis- make them fluid before they can find their way ses, and vithet causing the sightest jar to into the blood and be afterwards conveyed to Sow Ling the finest, most sensitive, and most the parts of the body where their seveni ser Mi-e res's It soothes and assuages vices are required. And here comes into veW warever it comes, lessening inflammation, hul- a glimpse of wise beneficence in what at first The pain, disting unhealthy fluids within the sight appears only a form of material evil. The bar, and wasting mortid humors and waste impurities, as we call them, of natural waters are materials from the sickly and changing frame. often of real advantage to those who drink them, Again, as a cooling agent water is equally in- supplying saline and mineral matters in which In a dry and thirsty land we feel and the food is deficient, or which the peculiar acknowledge the pleasure of bathing our heated nature of the staple form of diet in a given region bodies in the sea or the running stream. But we renders grateful to the enfeebled frame. The are less sensible how it watches over us, as it purest waters, therefore, are by no means to be were, every passing moment, dispeiling each considered as everywhere and in all cases the ring heat, and removing from the body every most wholesome. The natural waters of every excess of warmth which might disturb the locality are more or less medicated, so to speak, eqle working of its many parts. Do we eat and the constitutions of the inhabitants by long infammatory food, or drink over-stimulating use becomes adapted to their peculiar quality, fids, the excess of bodily warmth produced and even their food is adjusted to it; so that to converts a portion of water into vapor, and the change their wonted beverage even for one lungs throw it off into the air. Do we by hard more pure may sensibly affect the health, for labor, or other usual exertion, exalt the temper years to come, of large masses of people. ature of the body, the same water again takes up Look next at the food we eat. This is either the superfluous heat, and bathing in perspiration of vegetable or of animal origin, and what modboth skin and lungs restrains with due bounds the ern chemistry tells us regarding it is not only growing inflammation. full of rich uses and of deep personal interest to But more widely useful still in relation to every one of us, but is in itself truly marvellous. vegetable and animal life is the property which For, first, it abolishes the artificial distinction water possesses of dissolving and rendering fluid which mere sense has long established between a host of usually solid bodies. Put sugar or animal food and vegetable food. The bread we salt into water, it disappears and becomes fluid simply bake is no longer quite different in use and penetrative like water itself. The salt sea and quality from the flesh meats on which learncontains within its bosom many substances so ed cooks exhaust their culinary skill. In bread dissolved; the fluids that circulate through our we actually eat the substance of beef, and in veins are chiefly water, holding various com- bread and butter another form of that marbled pound bodies in solution; the moisture which flesh on which the eye of the epicure so placidly the plant-root drinks in carries with it into rests. In every variety of eatable plant there root, stem, and leaf many substances it has taken exists a portion of what chemists call gluten, up from the soil; and the purest waters we which is nearly identical with the muscular part consume for domestic use are not free from of animal flesh, and a proportion also of fat, foreign matters of mineral and organic origin. which is absolutely identical with the fat of In all this there is a purpose, and good flows to animals. How unphilosophical and vain, thereall living things from this solvent power of fore, the discipline which enjoins and makes a merit of abstaining from a substance when ob water. It must suffice at present to mention one tained from the body of an animal, and yet general benefit. Into the composition of the allows the use of the same substance when obplant a variety of solid mineral substances enter, tained from a vegetable ! which it is the duty of the plant root to draw Again, it shows us how curiously and by from the soil. In their solid form these sub- what admirable contrivances this food is preparstances could neither move freely through the ed for man. Of carbon and nitrogen, such as soil nor find their way into the fine pores of the float in the air, combined with the oxygen and little rootlets. But dissolved in water they hydrogen gases already spoken of, the flesh and move as freely as the liquid itself, and penetrate tissues of animals, and the solid portions of with it into the most delicate tissues of plant or vegetables in great part consist. But of these animal. Thus along the finest vessels they only one, the oxygen, serves directly as food ascend through stem and twig and leaf, and dis- either to animal or to plant. The plant, as we tribute themselves wherever their presence is have seen, sucks in at times oxygen by leaves, required. and some of this oxygen, no doubt, contributes It is so also with the animal. Into all its parts, to the formation of its growing substance. The solid saline, and mineral, matters enter as a animal, also, draws in oxygen from the air by necessary portion of their substance. These we its lungs, and uses it directly to build up the introduce into the stomach along with our other tissues of its body. Thus both animals and food, but water must dissolve them there and plants, to a certain small extent, feed upon 1 It This passage contains the germ of an idea ed, by which the utmost possible or extreme limit which he afterwards develops more clearly. of human life is determined-that limit beyond "The duration of life in the horse," he says, " as which man cannot possibly live? To this quesin all other species of animals, is proportionate tion physiology as yet returns no answer. to the length of time during which it grows. falls back in its turn upon historical experience, Man, who takes fourteen years to grow, may and even from that source gathers only prelive six or seven times as long; that is to nine- sumptive evidence. ty or a hundred years. The horse, which com- We have seen that, from a consideration of pletes its growth in four years, may live six or the extreme cases of long life to be found upon seven times as long; that is to twenty or thirty record, Haller had concluded that the extraor years." dinary limit of life approached to two centuries. And again, "As the stag is five or six years Buffon reached the same conclusion by a differin growing, it lives also seven times five or six; ent progess. The ordinary life of a horse is that is, to thirty-five or forty years." twenty-five years; but there is a case on record So far, Buffon lays down the true physiologi- of a horse of the Bishop of Metz which lived cal problem. The length of life is a multiple of fifty years, or double the ordinary length of a the length of growth. His own deductions as horse's life. "The same should happen in other to the true multiple were uncertain, because his species, and therefore in the human species," data were so. He did not know accurately at says Buffon. Man, he concludes, may live to what age the growth of man and other animals double the ordinary length of life. really ceased, or what was the true sign of such In aid of this analogical argument of Buffon, M. cessation. At this point M. Flourens takes the Flourens brings further facts. The camel which question up; and with more accurate anatomical has an ordinary life of forty or fifty years, has lived and physiological data, he has arrived at what he to a hundred. The lion, which lives commonly to believes, and what certainly appears, more reliable results. "I find," he says, "the true sign of the term of animal growth in the reunion of the bones to their epiphyses. So long as this union does not take place, the animal grows. As soon as the bones are united to their epiphyses, the animal ceases to grow." In man this reunion takes place at the age of twenty years, and he lives to ninety or a hundred. The following table contains the other data given by M. Flourens :— Man grows for 20 years, and lives 90 or 100 The horse, The ox, The lion, The dog, The cat, The hare 8 5 11-2 1 The guinea-pig, 7 months, 40 25 15 to 20 10 to 12 8 6 or 7 twenty, may live to forty and even to sixty. Dogs have lived twenty, twenty-three and twenty-four years, and cats eighteen and twenty. From all these cases united, he concludes-in regard to mammiferous animals, to which our accurate knowledge is at present confined—" that it is a fact, a law-in other words the general experience in regard to that class-that their extraordinary life may be prolonged to double the length of their ordinary life; that is to say, the extreme possible limit of human life is measured by ten times the period of growth. "A first century," he adds, "of ordinary life, and almost a second-a half century at leastof extraordinary life." Such is the perspective which science opens up to man. It is true that science offers this great fund of life to us, more in the possible than the actual-plus in posse quam in actu, to speak after the manner of the ancients; but were it offered to us in the actual, would the complaints of men cease? "Begin By these data the result of Buffon is correct- by telling me," said Micromegas, "how many ed. All the larger animals live about five times senses the men of your globe have?"—"We longer than they grow, instead of six or seven have seventy-two," answers the inhabitant of times, as inferred by Buffon. This by a physio- Saturn; "and we complain every day of the logical analogy, the ordinary natural life of a smallness of the number." I don't man is fixed at a hundred years. He grows doubt it," said Micromegas; "for on our globe twenty, and five twenties make up the hundred. we have nearly a thousand, and we are still torIf some few men live beyond the hundred years, mented with vague desires." it may be that their natural growth was also unu- SECOND. But an old age thus protracted — sually prolonged. Or some extraordinary pru- a life continued to the full period of one century dence in living, or uncommon constitutional only-are they worth struggling for, are they strength, may have secured for these rare indi- worth living for, are they worth having when viduals their extraordinary length of life. they come? Solomon speaks of them as "evil But, having arrived at a degree of comparative days," as years in which a man shall say, “I certainty in regard to the ordinary or natural have no pleasure in them." And he describes length of human life, we turn with renewed in- the infirmities of the period as "the day in terest to these extraordinary lives. Can any which the keepers of the house shall tremble, general physiological relation or law be discover-land the strong men bow themselves, and the |