Synopses & Reviews
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. OF THE ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL. 87. The mineral elements of soil, become part of plants. Under the influence of the mysterious principle of life, they no longer obey the chemical laws, but are parts of a living structure. Life suspends all chemical laws. It organizes inorganic matter. To what laws obedient, to what purposes subservient, are the elements of soil during the brief moment, in which they are endowed with life, it is not intended to inquire. Plants by their living power, select from the fifty-five elementary substances, fourteen only; of these, three are gaseous; seven belong to the class silicates, and four to the class urets. (44.) 88. Every plant does not contain the same elements, nor does eveiy part of the same plant; but every part of the same plant, at the same age, probably contains the same elements, united in definite proportions. Whenever plants die, their elementsare again subject to the laws of affinity, and during the decay of vegetables, they return to the earth, not only those substances which the plants had taken from the soil, but also those which have been elaborated by their living structure. The former are silicates and salts, or the inorganic elements; the latter, are the organic parts of soil. 89. It is thus seen, that soil, presents itself in a new view. Soil consists of two grand divisions of elements. Inorganic, and organic. The inorganic are wholly mineral, they are the products of the chemical action of the metallic, or unmetallic elements of rocks. They existed before plants or animals. Life has not called them into existence, nor created them, out of simple elements. Organic elements are the product of substances once endowed with life. This power influences the elements, re- combines them in forms, so essentia...
Synopsis
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