Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/36

 6 inorganic matter, mere earths, salts or airs, substances certainly incapable of serving as food for any animals, the latter only feeding on what is or has been organized matter, either of a vegetable or animal nature. So that it should seem to be the office of vegetable life alone to transform dead matter into organized living bodies." This idea appears to me so just, that I have in vain sought for any exception to it.

Let us however descend from these philosophical speculations to purposes of practical utility. It is sufficient for the young student of Natural History to know, that in every case in which he can be in doubt whether he has found a plant or one of the lower orders of animals, the simple experiment of burning will decide the question. The smell of a burnt bone, coralline, or other animal substance, is so peculiar that it can never be mistaken, nor does any known vegetable give out the same odour.

The Mineral Kingdom can never be confounded with the other two. Fossils are masses of mere dead unorganized matter, subject to the laws of chemistry alone;