ng.

"Poets deal in fiction, Mr Wilmot," replied Mr Swinton; "to study man
is only to study his inconsistencies and his aberrations from the right
path, which the free-will permitted to him induces him to follow; but in
the study of nature, you witness the directing power of the Almighty,
who guides with an unerring hand, and who has so wonderfully apportioned
out to all animals the means of their providing for themselves. Not
only the external, but the inward structure of animals, shows such
variety, and ingenuity to surmount all difficulties, and to afford them
all the enjoyment their nature is capable of, that after every
examination you rise with increased astonishment and admiration at the
condescension and goodness of the Master Hand, thus to calculate and
provide for the necessities of the smallest insect; and you are
compelled to exclaim with the Psalmist, `O God, how manifold are thy
works; in wisdom hast thou made them all!'"

"You certainly do put the study in a new and most pleasurable light,"
replied Alexander.

"The more you search into nature, the more wonderful do you find her
secrets, and, by the aid of chemistry, we are continually making new
discoveries. Observe, Mr Wilmot," said Swinton picking up a straw
which had been blown by the wind on the quarter-deck, "do you consider
that there is any analogy between this straw and the flint in the lock
of that gun?"

"Certainly, I should imagine them as opposite particles of nature as
well might be."

"Such is not the case. This piece of wheat-straw contains more than
sixty per cent of silica or flint in its composition; so that, although
a vegetable, it is nearly two-thirds composed of the hardest mineral
substance we know of. You would scarcely believe that the fibres of the
root of this plant were capable of dissolving, feeding upon, and
digesting such a hard substance; but so it is."

"It is very wonderful."

"It is, but it is not a solitary instance; the phosphate of lime, which
is the chief component part of the bones of animals, is equally sought
by plants, dissolved in the same manner, and taken into their bodies;
barley and oats have about thirty per cent of it in their composition,
and most woods and plants have more or less."

"I am less surprised at that than I am with the flint, which appears
almost incomprehensible."

"Nothing is impossible with God; there is a rush in Holland which
contains much more silex than the wheat-straw,