But since no system of combination can be destroyed, except by the establishment of another order of attractions, how can the decomposition of vegetables reduce them to their simple elements?
MRS. B.
It is a very long process, during which a variety of new combinations are successively established and successively destroyed: but, in each of these changes, the ingredients of vegetable matter tend to unite in a more simple order of compounds, till they are at length brought to their elementary state, or, at least, to their most simple order of combinations. Thus you will find that vegetables are in the end almost entirely reduced to water and carbonic acid; the hydrogen and carbon dividing the oxygen between them, so as to form with it these two substances. But the variety of intermediate combinations that take place during the several stages of the decomposition of vegetables, present us with a new set of compounds, well worthy of our examination.
CAROLINE.
How is it possible that vegetables, while putrefying, should produce any thing worthy of observation?
MRS. B.
They are susceptible of undergoing certain changes before they arrive at the state of putrefaction, which is the final term of decomposition; and of these changes we avail ourselves for particular and important purposes. But, in order to make you understand this subject, which is of considerable importance, I must explain it more in detail.
The decomposition of vegetables is always attended by a violent internal motion, produced by the disunion of one order of particles, and the combination of another. This is called FERMENTATION. There are several periods at which this process stops, so that a state of rest appears to be restored, and the new order of compounds fairly established. But, unless means be used to secure these new combinations in their actual state, their duration will be but transient, and a new fermentation will take place, by which the compound last formed will be destroyed; and another, and less complex order, will succeed.
EMILY.
The fermentations, then, appear to be only the successive steps by which a vegetable descends to its final dissolution.