We have thus far discovered that this terrestrial globe is composed of sixty-four elementary substances; that fifty belong to a class called metals, and the remaining fourteen are non-metallic and are called metalloids.

We know with absolute certainty the elementary chemical composition of all the substances known to man; everything within the reach of man has been analyzed, whether of inorganic or of organic origin.

We also know the principal elements that enter into the composition of organic substances, animal or vegetable.

But a thing that is not generally known is the wonderful role certain elements play in nature, especially in the life of plants and animals.

If we examine the extraordinary display of combination or composition of some of the elements—especially those that enter into the composition of organic substances—we shall find how few of these elements are essential for the production of life, and its maintenance; and we shall be surprised to find what force or power, and phenomena, they are capable of producing. We shall be surprised to see how nicely and delicately these elementary compositions are adjusted—with what precision the elements enter into combination with each other—and with what astonishing result.

The union of the elements that enter into the composition of living matter, must always be very accurately balanced, to insure a healthy or normal condition of either plant or animal. A very slight deviation or change may prove either injurious or destructive to the living organism.

In order to obviate writing the names of the elements, we propose to use symbols. The elementary substances that enter into the composition of living matter being few, it will not be difficult to recognize the meaning of the symbols. The four vital elements mentioned in a previous chapter are

The atmosphere we breathe, for example, is what is called a chemical mixture, and is composed of O₂₂N₇₇, with traces of ammonia, etc.

The water we drink is a chemical composition, and is constituted by O H₂.

The number placed against each element indicates the quantity of each one requisite, or found, in the composition, or chemical combination, of the substance indicated.

Take water for example. O₁ (one) and H₂ (two), that represents a chemical compound. It is most abundant, and is by far the most essential, in the formation of organic life.

Air, water, fire, are represented by the four elements C H N O.

Every power, every force known to man is dependent upon these. Every kind of life is made up of these. Of every phenomenon manifested by nature, whatever the display may be or where it may occur, these elements are the fundamental basis.

Protoplasm, which is acknowledged to be the base of physical life, is nothing more than a homogeneous mass of albuminous matter which is composed of C H N O—with a greater or less quantity of each of these elements.

These elements enter into the formation of all gases, fluids, and solids. They are invisible at one time and visible at another. Without taste or color or odor in a free state, or even in combination, they assume taste, color, and odor when the elements combine in certain proportions. They become either harmless or poisonous; create, maintain, or destroy life.

Oxygen is a tasteless, colorless, and inodorous gas.

Hydrogen is a colorless, tasteless, and inodorous gas.

Nitrogen is destitute of color, taste, or odor.

Carbon is a solid but becomes gaseous in combination with either Oxygen or Hydrogen.

The diamond is one of the most remarkable substances known. It is always distinctly crystallized, often quite transparent and colorless, now and then having a shade of yellow, pink, or blue. Carbon is also found as graphite or plumbago. It constitutes a large proportion of all organic structures, animal and vegetable. Pure carbon, diamond, is the hardest substance known. In combination with Oxygen and Hydrogen it forms the softest of living matter, protoplasm. In combination with Oxygen it is poisonous to all animal life, and beneficial to vegetable life. Combined with Hydrogen, it forms the gas we burn, and is destructive to animal life. It is the food-maker in the plant, and it is the food-provider for the animal. It is the combustive agent in nature, in vegetables and in animals. From a thunderstorm to a flickering flame of a candle, carbon displays its power. From the smallest and lowliest aquatic vegetable cell to the highest animal cell tissue, it is the important solidifying, heat-giving element. These elements when free have neither color, odor, nor taste. Combined, however, they acquire odor, taste, and color.

O and N, the atmosphere, has no color, taste, or odor.

O and H, water, has no color, taste, or odor.

N and H, ammonia, has color, taste, and odor.

O and C is given off by animals, taken in by vegetables—carbonic acid.

C and H, the gas, has taste, odor, and color.

N and O produce a gas—laughing gas.

Any two of these elements may combine in the form of a gas, a liquid, or a solid. And any one may combine with any other element known and form a substance, a molecule.

O combines with all the elements known.

H combines,, with,, many.

N combines,, with,, some.

C combines,, with,, many.

Two elements form a substance.

Three elements form vegetable life.

Four elements form animal life.

Common salt is used daily with our food; is harmless and useful; it is known as the chloride of sodium. By analysis this compound is separated, analyzed, into chlorine and sodium. Na stands for sodium, and Cl for chlorine. Combine Cl with H. That forms hydrochloric acid, a strong poison, strong enough to dissolve marble. Cl has little attraction for O. Its chemical energies are principally exerted toward hydrogen and the metals. Cl is one of the best disinfectants, and makes excellent bleaching material. Na (sodium) combines with O, and H, and C. These are some of the combinations:

Na Cl = common salt.

Cl H = hydrochloric acid, a poison.

O Na H = caustic soda.

Na₂ N O₃ = Chili saltpetre.

Na₂ C O₃ = sodium, carbonate, etc.

Phosphorus and sulphur and other elements enter into combination with Oxygen and Hydrogen.

Both phosphorus (P) and sulphur (S) enter into organic life, but play a subordinate role.

The vegetable cell contains liquid, solid, and air. The growing, vitally active cells are filled with liquid, namely O and H, charged with more or less nutritive assimilated matters, C, etc.

Sap—the liquid which is imbibed by the roots and carried upwards by the stem—this is the water impregnated with certain gaseous matter derived from the air, and minute portions of earthy matter dissolved from the soil under the influence of light. Sap elaborated—from this we obtain the ternary substances composed of three elements, O C H; also substances composed of four elements, O C H N. The latter represents protoplasm or protein.

Vegetable chemical compounds, organic substances, can be produced only under certain vitalizing conditions and influences.

Wherever upon the surface of this earth, the sun’s rays produce a certain degree of heat, temperature, C H O may combine and evolve vegetable life.

In tropical climates, for example, notwithstanding the sun’s heat, no vegetation grows on high mountain peaks that are covered with snow and ice year in and year out; nor will vegetation grow in the cold climate of the north. C H and O will produce vegetable life only in the presence of heat. Heat is essential. And there is one source only whence it can be obtained, that is the sun.

The climate, as the temperature, etc.; the quantity of elements, and the quality of soil, vary the products of vegetation. That accounts for the immense variety, the differences existing. The organic chemical combinations in vegetable life are infinite. And all these varieties depend on the numerical quantities of each of the elements C H O that enter any composition.

We have other vegetable products called alkaloids, that are principally found in the bark andthe leaves. A few examples will suffice:

The alcohols, acids, ethers, and so on, are all composed of these elements:

The combinations are infinite. Volumes are filled with organic chemistry. Mere mention only can be made, to show the wonderful power these elements display when variously combined.

The products of destructive distillation of coal yield a remarkable series of combinations:

These may undergo a vast variety of changes and combinations. Chloroform, alcohol, ethers, acids, oils and fats, resins, balsams, etc., etc., all have these elements in combination.

Does it not seem strange that the different numerical combinations of the same elements should have such different effects upon the animal system?

Why should starch and sugar compounds be good for the sustenance of animal life while other compounds of the same elements prove destructive to life? Or, why should morphia have such a peculiar effect upon the animal tissues—especially the nervous? And why should alcohol have such a peculiar effect upon the master tissues of the body? The difference in the chemical composition of quinine and strychnine is not so very great, yet the action upon the system is by no means the same. The effect upon the tissues is not the same.

Those who believe in a God easily dispose of these questions by simply exclaiming, They are the wonderful works of God!

That one drop of hydrocyanic acid upon the tongue of an animal should kill is very astonishing; that acid being composed only of one of Carbon, one of Hydrogen, and one of Nitrogen (C N H). Why should it paralyze the brain first, before it affects the heart, since it has to be carried by the blood through the circulation to the brain? The derangement of the functions of that center causes death.

The revelations of these important combinations and actions man had to make for himself. They were not brought down to us on tablets of stone by some supernatural agent, nor did spirits or angels communicate the mysteries and the powers of these elements.

It is owing to the development of man’s intellectual faculties, that the combinations of these elements has been made possible. It was quite a discovery when it was found that nitre, sulphur, and charcoal made gunpowder. There are only five elements in that compound, viz., Nitrogen, potassium, Oxygen, Carbon, and sulphur. Chili saltpeter is used for domestic purposes. Harmless to animal life, so is each one of these elements when they enter into combinations that are not destructive to life.

The forces and powers exercised by any compound depend on the number and kind of elements that enter into the composition. And the influence that bears directly upon their mutual activity again depends, when in a state of nature, upon the presence of heat. When a seed, as of wheat or of any starchy vegetable, is thrown into the ground, it will not germinate except in the presence of a certain amount of moisture, and heat, the heat varying from 50° to 80° Fahrenheit, in addition to free communication with the air.

Temperature, moisture, air, electricity, kind and quantity of the various elements in the soil present, cause the immense variations in plant life and plant compositions. Yet the same elementary compositions will be found in the same species, and the same conditions generally will be required to reproduce them.

Each group of elements that enters into the composition of any substance, carries with it qualities and capabilities peculiar to itself, throughout the vegetable kingdom. Its influence upon the animal economy will depend on the various atomic elements, and the quantities of each, that enter its combinations. For example, the atmosphere, the balance of power between O and N, is essential to both plant and animal. So with water, O H₂. And so with those foods, starch and sugars, C₁₈H₃₀O₁₅ or C₆ H₁₂O₆; in each of these substances Carbon has its complement of Hydrogen and Oxygen. That is, the Carbon is, as it were, diluted in a sufficient quantity of water to make it suitable for food. Rob it of its Oxygen and it becomes a poison, an active poison. The less the quantity of Oxygen in any substance of organic origin the more unfit it becomes as a food. And it becomes poisonous to the animal system in proportion as the Oxygen is absent or removed from the composition. We have representatives of poisonous substances in alcohol, C₂H₆O, a mild poison; and in hydrocyanic acid, C N H, the strongest poison known.

Moreover, we see already peculiar manifestations in vegetable life, humble in character, low in degree. Plants not only rest from activity, but have their sleep and exhibit sensible movement from irritation. The foliage of the locust, and of most leguminous plants, and that of oxalis and wood-sorrel, seem to have their sleep, as seen by the position of their leaves and blossoms. Irritate the mimosa plant, as by roughly touching it, and the leaflets will suddenly change position. In the DionÆa muscipula, or Venus’s flytrap, the touch of an insect, alighting upon the upper surface of the outspread laminÆ, causes its sides to close suddenly, the strong bristles of the marginal fringe crossing each other like the teeth of a steel trap, and the two surfaces pressing together with considerable force, so as to retain, if not destroy, the intruder, whose struggles only increase the pressure which this animated trap exerts.

It is evident that the elementary combinations under certain conditions and the influence of heat, will exhibit vital action, in an organic form—manifest phenomena of life, that are only in degree, and not in kind, inferior to the lowest plant life. The process is the same. The mode of living differs in degree, though the results are different.

The combination and exchange of elements takes place in the simple plant life as in the higher animal life. The watery portion of plant life is composed of O and H₂, the same as water in a free state or water in animal life, and the combination of Oxygen and Hydrogen with Carbon. The food substances are found in the vital machinery of vegetation.

The characteristics of life exhibited in the lower grade of vegetation, are seen in a more perfect degree in animal life—respiration, exchange of gases, imbibition, absorption, assimilation, evolution of heat and motion, the power of incorporating material in its own substance, endosmosis, subjectibility to irritation, exhaustion, spontaneous movement, rest and sleep, capability of being influenced by various stimuli, etc., etc.

The combination of O, C, and H, organized and vitalized, in conjunction with a few other less important elements, manifests in conformity with the laws of nature all functions and activities that plant lie is capable of realizing. It would neither be extravagant, nor an exaggeration, considering the important role these elements play in vegetation, if they were rightfully termed the soul-life of plants.