But however could the plants get hold of the gases, father?
Did it never strike you why God formed leaves?
It never did, except that I thought he did it to make the trees look pretty.
That is quite true, Willie. The good God loves beauty, and he has surrounded us with beauty of all kinds. But he made things for use as well as to be looked at. The leaves absorb or suck in gases from air and water.
Then I suppose the veins like that we see in leaves conduct these gases away into the plant.
Quite right, my boy. Where now shall we get the charcoal, or carbon, as the learned men call it?
That I cannot find out at all.
You told me, Willie, that smoke came out of burning wood. What becomes of it?
When I was a very little boy, I thought it went up to form clouds; but now I know part of it turns into soot in the chimney, and that looks like our charcoal or carbon.
It really is. As to that which comes out of the chimney, it passes upward, and gets gradually mixed with the air. The little particles of carbon join the oxygen, and become a sort of gas called carbonic acid gas, which is absorbed into the plant.