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The Breath of Life

by Burroughs John

Outdoors & Nature » Ecology

Added by: Randall Richm...

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Description:

John Burroughs was a very prolific writer known as the author of more than thirty books and as the founder of a new genre in literature called the nature essay. Born in the Catskill Mountains, from his childhood he was carried away with the beauty of the nature and later depicted it in his novels. The Breath of Life is a bright example of such genre which teaches simple people to love and appreciate nature. Although it was published in 1915 but it does not seem to get old and would be equally interesting for modern readers.

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Read an excerpt:

...rubber, but from otherproducts of vegetable life. As soon as the four principal elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, andnitrogen, that make up the living body, have entered the world of livingmatter, their activities and possible combinations enormously increase;they enter into new relations with one another and form compounds ofgreat variety and complexity, characterized by the instability whichlife requires. The organic compounds are vastly more sensitive to lightand heat and air than are the same elements in the inorganic world. Whathas happened to them? Chemistry cannot tell us. Oxidation, which is onlyslow combustion, is the main source of energy in the body, as it is inthe steam-engine. The storing of the solar energy, which occurs only inthe vegetable, is by a process of reduction, that is, the separation ofthe carbon and oxygen in carbonic acid and water. The chemical reactionswhich liberate energy in the body are slow; in dead matter they arerapid and violent, or explosive and...