his microscope, hit upon one of the grains which was exactly shaped and wreathed like a shell, though it was no larger than the point of a pin. "It resembled the shell of a small water-snail, and had twelve wreathings, all growing proportionably one less than the other towards the middle or centre of the shell, where there was a very small round white spot." This gives us an idea of the existence of shell-fish which are invisible to the naked eye, and, consequently, smaller than a mite.

The variety of forms in which animal life appears, in those invisible departments of creation which the microscope has enabled us to explore, is truly wonderful and astonishing. Microscopic animals are so different from those of the larger kinds, that scarcely any analogy seems to exist between them; and one would be almost tempted to suppose that they lived in consequence of laws directly opposite to those which preserve man and the other larger animals in existence. When we endeavour to explore this region of animated nature, we feel as if we were entering on the confines of a new world, and surveying a new race of sentient existence. The number of these creatures exceeds all human calculation. Many hundreds of species, all differing in their forms, habits, and motions, have already been detected and described, but we have reason to believe, that by far the greater part is unexplored, and perhaps for ever hid from the view of man. They are of all shapes and forms: some of them like minute atoms, appear some like globes and spheroids, some like hand-bells, some like wheels turning on an axis, some like double-headed monsters, some like cylinders, some have a worm-like appearance, some have horns, some resemble eels, some are like long hairs, 150 times as

long as they are broad, some like spires and cupolas, some like fishes, and some like animated vegetables. Some of them are almost visible to the naked eye, and some so small that the breadth of a human hair would cover fifty or a hundred of them, and others so minute, that millions of millions of them might be contained within the compass of a square inch. In every pond and ditch, and almost in every puddle, in the infusions of pepper, straw, grass, oats, hay and other vegetables, in paste and vinegar, and in the water found in oysters, on almost every plant and flower, and in the rivers, seas and oceans, these creatures are found in such numbers and variety as almost exceed our conception or belief. A class of these animals, called Mudusa, has been found so numerous as to discolour the ocean itself. Captain Scoresby found the number in the olive-green sea to be immense. A cubic inch contained sixty-four, and consequently a cubic mile would contain 23,888,000,000,000,000; so that, if one person should count a million in seven days, it would have required that 80,000 persons should have started at the creation of the world to have completed the enumeration at the present time. Yet, all the minute animals to which we now allude are furnished with numerous organs of life as well as the larger kind, some of their internal movements are distinctly visible, their motions are evidently voluntary, and some of them appear to be possessed of a considerable degree of sagacity, and to be fond of each other's society.*

*The following extract from Mr. Baker's description of the hair-like animalcule will illustrate some of these positions. A small quantity of the matter containing these animalcules having been put into a jar of water, it so happened, that one part went down immediately to the bottom, while the other

In short, it may be affirmed without the least hesitation, that the beauties and varieties which exist in those regions of creation which are invisible to the unassisted eye, are far more numerous than all that appears to a common observer in the visible economy of nature. How far this scene of creating Power and Intelligence may extend beyond the range of our microscopic instruments, it is impossible for mortals to determine; for the finer our glasses are, and the higher the magnifying powers we apply, the more numerous and varied are the objects which they exhibit to our view. And as the largest telescope is insufficient to convey our views to the boundaries of the great universe, so we may justly conclude, that the most powerful microscope that has been or ever will be constructed, will be altogether insufficient to guide our views to the utmost limits of the descending scale of creation. But what we already know of these unexplored and inexplorable regions, gives us an amazing conception of the Intelligence and Wisdom of the Creator, of the Immensity of his nature,

continued floating on the top. When things had remained for some time in this condition, each of these swarms of animalcules began to grow weary of its situation, and had a mind to change its quarters. Both armies, therefore, set out at the same time, the one proceeding upwards and the other downwards; so that after some time they met in the middle. A desire of knowing how they would behave on this occasion, engaged the observer to watch them carefully; and to his surprise, he saw the army that was marching upwards, open to the right and left, to make room for those that were descending. Thus, without confusion or intermixture, each held on its way; the army that was going up marching in two columns to the top, and the other proceeding in one column to the bottom, as if each had been under the direction of wise leaders.

and of the infinity of ideas which, during every portion of past duration, must have been present before his All-Comprehensive Mind. What an immense space in the scale of animal life intervenes between an animalcule which appears only the size of a visible point, when magnified 500,000 times, and a whale, a hundred feet long and twenty broad! The proportion of bulk between the one of these beings and the other is nearly as 34,560,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. Yet all the intermediate space is filled up with animated beings of every form and order! A similar variety obtains in the vegetable kingdom. It has been calculated, that some plants which grow on rose leaves, and other shrubs, are so small that it would require more than a thousand of them to equal in bulk a single plant of moss; and if we compare a stem of moss, which is generally not above of an inch, with some of the large trees in Guinea and Brazil of twenty feet diameter, we shall find the bulk of the one will exceed that of the other no less than 2,985,984,000,000 times, which multiplied by 1000 will produce 2,985,984,000,000,000, the number of times, which the large tree exceeds the rose-leaf plant. Yet this immense interval is filled up with plants and trees of every form and size! With good reason, then, may we adopt the language of the inspired writers," How manifold are thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast thou made them all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! Marvellous things doth He which we cannot comprehend."*

* The figures of microscopical objects contained in the engravings Nos. I. and II., will convey a rude idea of some of the objects to which I have now alluded.

No. I. Fig. 1. represents the scale of a sole-fish as it ap

Even the cxternal aspect of nature, as it appears to a superficial observer, presents a scene of variety.

pears through a good microscope. CDEF, represents that part of the scale which appears on the outside of the fish, and ABCD, the part which adheres to the skin, being furrowed, that it may hold the faster. It is terminated by pointed spikes, every alternate one being longer than the interjacent ones. Fig. 2, is the scale of a haddock, which appears divaricated like a piece of net-work. Fig. 3, represents a small portion or fibre of the feather of a peacock, only of an inch in extent, as it appears in the microscope. The small fibres of these feathers appear, through this instrument, no less beautiful than the whole feather does to the naked eye. Each of the sprigs or hairs on each side of the fibre, as CD, DC, ap. pears to consist of a multitude of bright shining parts which are a congeries of small plates, as eee, &c. The under sides of each of these plates are very dark and opaque, reflecting all the rays thrown upon them like the foil of a looking-glass; but their upper sides seem to consist of a multitude of exceedingly thin plated bodies, lying close together, which, by various positions of the light, reflect first one colour and then another, in a most vivid and surprising manner. Fig. 4, 5, 6, 7, represent some of the different kinds of feathers which constitute the dust which adheres to the wings of moths and butterflies, and which, in the microscope, appear tinged with a variety of colours. Each of these feathers is an object so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye.

Explanation of the figures on No. II.—Fig. 1. represents a mite, which has eight legs, with five or six joints in each, two feelers, a small head in proportion to its body, a sharp snout and mouth like that of a mole, and two little eyes. The body is of an oval form, with a number of hairs like bristles issuing from it, and the legs terminate in two hooked claws. Fig. 2, represents a microscopic animal which was found in an infusion of anemony. The surface of its back is covered with a fine mask in the form of a human face, it has three feet on each side, and a tail which comes out from under the mask. Fig. 3, is an animalcula found in the infusion of old hay. A, shows the head, with the mouth opened wide, and its lips. furnished with numerous hairs; B, is its forked tail, D, its