THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

2/7

Pror.tispiece.

FRUCTIFICATION OF VALUStfERIA.

See page I B4.

THE MICROSCOPE

AND ITS LESSONS.

A STORY OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD;

WITH

PICTORIAL DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS INHABITANTS.

BY

JAMES CROWTHER,

AUTHOR OF "THE HORSES OF THE SCN," ETC.

Wood section, magaified sixty-four times. Drawn from nature. See p. 265.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY GEORGE CAULDWELL,

55, 56, & 60, OLD BAILEY, E.C.

1891

"It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a
sentiment of piety from the works of Nature. Our
Saviour expatiates on a flower, and draws from it the
delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives
us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and
that the same heart may be occupied with all that is
serious in the contemplations of religion, and be, at the
same time, alive to the charms and loveliness of
Nature." — CHALMERS.

UL>

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION ... 9

CHAPTER H.
BEMIXISCENCES ... ... ... ... ... 26

CHAPTER IH.
ENTOMOLOGICAL ... ... ... ... ... ... S9

CHAPTER IV.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDEBS ... ... ... ... ... 05

CHAPTER Y.
BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDEBS ... ... ... ... 126

CHAPTER VI.
BOTANICAL : THE UPPER CLASSES ... ... ... ... 146

CHAPTER VII.
GEOLOGICAL ... ... ... ... ... ... 180

M356101

6 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.

PAGB

ANATOMICAL ... ... ... ... e«« ... 205

CHAPTER IX.

POND-LIFE 221

CHAPTER X.
MISCELLANEOUS ... ... ... ... ... ... 235

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FRUCTIFICATION OF VALLISNERIA ... ... Frontispiece

WOOD SECTION ... ... ».. ... ... Title-page

SATDBN, AS SEEN WITH THE TELESCOPE ... ... ... 14

JUPITER, AS SEEN WITH THE TELESCOPE ... ... ... 14

SUN-SPOT, UNDER A TERY HIGH POWER ... ... ... 16

A DROP OF WATER AS SEEN UNDER THE MICROSCOPE ... 16

ARACHNOIDISCUS, FROM NATURE ... ... ... ... 17

FORAMINIFERA, WITH SPONGE SPICULES ... ... ... 19

FOSSILS FROM THE CHALK ... ... ... ... ... 20

SPLIT SECTION OF ORBITOLITE ... ... ... ... 22

SINGLE SHELL OF FORAMINIFER ... ... ... ... 25

TONGUE OF HOUSE-FLY ... ... ... ... ... 30

FOOT OF HOUSE-FLY ... ... ... ... ... 31

LEAF OF PITCHER-PLANT ... ... ... ... 33

HIND LEG OF HONEY-BEE ... ... ... ... ... 34

COMPARISON OF EGGS OP INSECTS WITH SEEDS OF PLANTS ... <u
TRACHEA OF AN INSECT COMPARED WITH SPIRAL VESSELS OF PLANT 51

SPIRACLE OP DYTISCUS (BEETLE) ... ... ... ... 51

TRACHEAE OP A BEETLE ... ... ... ... ... 52

PORTION OF THE WING OP A MOTH ... ... ... 53

SCALE FROM MOBPHO MENELAUS ... ... ... 54

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

SCALE FROM POLYOMMATUS ARGUS ... ... ... ... 54

VARIOUS FORMS OP SCALES OF BUTTERFLIES ... ... 54

SECRETING ORGANS OF A CATERPILLAR ... ... ... 56

THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY ... ... ... ... 57

THE CONVOLVULUS SPHINX ... ... ... ... ... 60

A FAMILY VISIT ... ... ... ... ... 62

PROBOSCIS OF BUTTERFLY ... ... ... ... ... 63

DIFFERENT FORMS OF BUTTERFLIES' TONGUES ... ... 65

SECTION OF PROBOSCIS OF A MOTH ... ... ... ... 67

EGG-BOAT OF THE COMMON GNAT... ... ... ... 70

LARVA AND PUPA OF COMMON GNAT ... ... ... ... 71

TRANSITION: BURIED PUPA OF A HAWK MOTH ... ... 73

LOCUST ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 77

HEAD OF SPIDER ... ... ... ... ... 100

BRUSH AND COMBS OF CELLAR SPIDER ... ... ... 107

GARDEN SPIDER'S WEB ... ... ... ... ... 110

SPINNERET OF SPIDER ... ... ... ... ... 112

VISCID AND ORDINARY THREADS OF SPIDER ... ... 117

FERN, WITH FRUCTIFICATION ... ... ... ... ... 129

MOUTH OF THE CAPSULE OF A Moss ... ... ... 131

DIATOMS, SHOWN WITH DARK-GROUND ILLUMINATION ... ... 143

TRANSVERSE SECTION OF A NEW ZEALAND PLANT ... ... 148

PORTION OF LEAF, SHOWING CELLULAR TISSUE AND STOMATA ... 150

SKELETON OF BLACK POPLAR LEAF ... ... ... 151

SILICEOUS SKELETON OF DEUTZIA ... ... ... ... 153

SECTION OF OAK, EIGHTEEN YEARS' GROWTH ... ... 158

STAMENS, WITH POLLEN, OF MALLOW ... ... ... ... 161

FECUNDATION OF SUNFLOWER ... ... ... ... 163

CIRCULATION IN A LEAF ... ... ... ... ... 165

CELLS FROM THE PETAL OF GERANIUM ... ... ... 167

TRANSVERSE SECTION OF TOOTH OF MYLIOBATES ... ... 168

TRANSVERSE SECTION OF CHERRY-STONE ... ... ... 173

SECTION OF CHALK, WITH FOSSILS IN SITU ... ... ... 181

SECTION OF LIMESTONE ... ... ... ... ... 182

FORAMINIFERA, FROM SPONGE OF COMMERCE ... ... ... 184

FORAMINIFEB, WITH EXTENDED PSEUDOPODIA ... ... 185

FOSSIL DIATOMACILB ... ... ... 189

8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FACE

CUP SPONGE, HALF THE NATURAL SIZE ... ... ... 194

INTERIOR OF SPONGE CHANNELS ... ... ... ... 196

ENLARGED POLYPES OF BED CORAL ... ... ... ... 197

VARIOUS FORMS OF SPONGE SPICULES ... ... ... 199

ANCHORS AND PLATES OF SYNAPTA ... ... ... ... 200

A GROUP OF SPONGES ... ... ... ... ... 202

EXPULSION OF WATER BY A LIVING SPONGE ... ... ... 203

VERTICAL SECTION OF HUMAN SKIN ... ... ... 216

AIR-CELLS OF HUMAN LUNG ... ... ... ... ... 218

VOLUNTARY MUSCLE WITH TRICHINA ... ... ... 221

POND-LlFE, HIGHLY MAGNIFIED ... ... ... ... 228

GROUP OF VORTICELLJE ... ... ... ... ... 231

STAR-FISHES ... ... ... ... " ... ... 238

TRANSVERSE SECTION OF ECHINUS SPINE ... ... ... 238

A FAMILY OF CORALS ... ... ... ... ... 239

COMMON SPONGE, SHOWING THE OSCULA ... ... ... 240

SERTULARIA: A MARINE ZOOPHYTE ... ... ... ... 242

SILICEOUS CUTICLE or WHEAT STRAW ... ... ... 252

SMUT ON MAIZE ... ... ... ... ... ... 254

THE EFFECT OF POLARIZED LIGHT UPON MINERAL SUBSTANCE 259

PALATE OF SEA-SNAIL (TROCHUS) ... ... ... ... 262

PALATE OF SEA-SLUG (DORIS) ... ... ... ... 263

A PORTION OF THE TEETH OF GARDEN SNAIL ... , ... ... 263

GARDEN SNAIL ... ... ... ... ... ... 264

A PALM GBOVE ... ... ... ... ... , 286

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS,

CHAPTEK I.

INTRODUCTION.

" I have seen

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intently ; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy ; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences ! whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.

Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith."

WOBDSWOBTH.

HEN David wrote the nineteenth psalm he
directed the reader to the stars as a revela-
tion of God's handiwork ; and, after point-
ing to their silent eloquence, he led the
reader to the other revelation, in which
similar perfection would be discovered. This
inspired poem is divided into two nearly equal
parts, and is suggestive of the twofold revelation that God

10 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

has made of Himself — one appealing to the senses, and
the other to the soul.

It is about three thousand years since that hymn was
written, and what astonishing disclosures have been made
since then ! And it is not too much to say that, amongst
all the instruments which have led to greater revelation,
the telescope and the microscope are the chief ; for with
the one " a sun has been discovered in every system, and
with the other a world in every atom."

These two magnificent keys have opened the doors to
new worlds — have thus unveiled the secrets of the sky and
sea, the firmament above us and the earth around and
beneath us, as well as the mysteries of life within us;
and he who is the fortunate possessor of a really good
telescope and microscope, with the knowledge how, not
only to use, but to apply for the use of others what he
has had revealed to him, may surely claim to have " done
the state some service."

He who wrote the poem already referred to has, in
another place, given us three thoughts enwrapped in one
expression. He first declares that " the works of the Lord
are great ; " then, secondly, that they are to be " sought
out ; " and, thirdly, by " those that have pleasure therein ; "
and the pleasure and profit the author of this little volume
has derived during thirty-five years' study have suggested
to him the duty and privilege of offering to others a sip
from the full cup which has been to him a sweet source of
joy that no man can meddle with, and a healthy stimu-
lant to true devotion.

" The heavens declare the glory of God." A remark-
able assembly took place at Paris about four years ago,
when fifty-five delegates, representing fifteen different
nationalities, took part in the investigation of the star-
dust of heaven, with a combination of result that

INTRODUCTION.

11

makes us wonder what science may yet reveal to us.

12 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

eye has been telegraphed to the brain by the optic nerve,
the black pigment has absorbed the remainder of the
image, and that marvellous window of the soul is ready
for more work.

Amongst the countless host of the heavens there is a
constellation known to astronomers under the sign of
" Cygnus," the Swan. Fifty years ago, Sir John Herschel
wrote that one of the stars in this constellation was
among the most interesting he had seen. Its motion
is so extraordinary that Arago supposed its velocity
to exceed that of Mercury — the most rapid body of our
solar system — sixty thousand times. ~ The distance of
this swanlike group of stars known as Cygnus is
stated to be 657,700 times the radius of our earth's orbit,
or nearly 6272 billions of miles.

Supposing one of these distant worlds to be in a state of
conflagration, we should know nothing of it until a ray of
light reached our eye which had started on its journey,
travelling at the express rate of 192,000 miles every
second — ten years before we beheld it. To make this
more intelligible, a cannon-ball, rushing through space
at the average rate of five hundred miles an hour,
would require 14 millions of years to reach that star. So
insignificantly minute is the reflection of this atom, that
the delicate thread of a spider's web placed before the
eye of a spectator, supposing there to be one at this star,
would conceal from his view the whole orbit of the earth,
the diameter only of which is nearly 200 millions of miles,
the circumference nearly 600 millions ; but what is our
earth to the solar system? — the whole of which might
be hidden from the eye of the supposed spectator by a
single hair !

But what has this to do with the assembly at Paris ?
Much every way. Formerly this stellar witness to the

INTRODUCTION. 13

almightiness of God was declared to be composed of a
cluster of 170 worlds ; by the new stellar photographic
process no fewer than five thousand are " clearly im-
printed."

After many years of close observation, our astronomers
succeeded in making a great map of the Pleiades, referred
to in perhaps the oldest book in the world, the poem of
Job. That map numbered 671 stars, though to our un-
aided eyes there would appear but seven; by the new
system of stellar photography 1421 are visible. Thus it
appears that stars may be photographed which the tele-
scope fails to discover, but which the microscope reveals
after the subtle influence of light has been united to the
mysterious power of chemistry; and in this way it is
said that seven thousand nelulce, or clusters of stars,
have been discovered already.

David was quite correct, then, when he sang, "The
heavens declare the glory of God."

But what will the reader say if I tell him that I am
informed by a living authority of undoubted credibility *
that he had an astro-photograph, taken by one well-
known observer (Mr. J. Koberts), and examined by another
(Professor G. Darwin), on a small plate, covering an area
of only three inches and a quarter, which, on a careful
examination, was found to represent such a number of
stars for the area it imprinted, as, if held to be the
type of the distribution of the stars throughout space,
would show the existence of 175 millions? But this
was an exposure of one hour only ; there have been
exposures, he says, for four hours with an ever-increasing
number of star-disclosures on the plate so exposed. So that
it is only fair to say, he adds, that there are at present
within the reach of man's vision as many or more stars

* Dr. Dallinger.

14: THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Saturn, aa seen with the telescope.

Jupiter, as seen with the telescope.

INTRODUCTION. 15

in space than there are human inhabitants upon the
globe!*

I have referred to the new life, a life within a life —
may I be allowed to call it a holy of holies ? — which the
discoveries of the telescope and of the microscope have
afforded me during what I consider the best part of my
long life ; and now, having nearly reached its close, with
what deep and heartfelt thankfulness can I look back
and recall the many splendid opportunities I have had
and tried to use for the good of others in setting forth the
glory of God in the exhibition of His works, saying to
my younger friends, what I would say still, " Go and do
thou likewise " !

" Teaching, we learn ;" and if we will but use the little
we begin with for the good of others, we shall find assuredly
that that little will gradually increase.

How have I revelled when bringing out my telescope
to show my friends that wonderful belt of light which
surrounds the glorious planet Saturn, which is ten times
further from the sun than the earth is, and ten times
the earth's diameter; or, turning the instrument on to
Jupiter, revealed that world of light, the largest in our
solar system, whose solid contents are no less than 1428
times that of our earth, and whose path round the sun
requires upwards of fourteen of our years for it to journey,
— that is, that our earth makes 11 f revolutions round
the sun in the time that Jupiter takes to complete one
such revolution ! And when Jupiter's four moons, with
its zones and belts, opening and closing, through which
the body of the planet may be seen — as may the sun
through its spots — what exclamations of delight were
expressed !

Then, having the microscope in readiness, directing
* The population of the globe is generally estimated to be 1400 millions.

16 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Part of sun-spot, under a very high power.

A drop of water seen through the microscope, greatly magnified, showing
various forms of animal and vegetable life.

INTRODUCTION.

17

attention to the live-box, in which one tiny drop of water,
not larger than a very small pea, disclosed the presence
of myriads of living things, many requiring a magnifying
power of a million superficies to reveal the mystery of
their tiny lives; or, turning to that marvel of creation,
the skeleton of one of the smallest of plants, the Arach-
noidiscus, showing upwards of a thousand markings on its
spider-web face, attention was directed to the perfection
of the Architect, — then, what notes of exclamation !

Arachnoidiscus, drawn from nature.

These contrasts in nature bring with them, to a
devout mind, the strongest evidence of the power and
majesty of Him with whom we have to do, who, most
wonderful of all revelation, has condescended to describe
Himself as " our Father ; " but, alas ! how different is the
experience of too many in the exercise of the same
privilege ! One whom I know has lately told me his ex-
perience in working with the microscope. He is, he says,
getting tired of his work. If he has for his companions
in study any more advanced than himself, they only

6

18 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

make him look stupid, as he imagines, in their estima-
tion ; and if he -has others with less light than himself,
they look stupid in his; then they all get sleepy and
wearied with each other.

" Well," says my favourite author, " there is no harm
in being stupid, so long as a man does not think himself
clever ; no good in being clever, if a man think himself
so, for that is a short way to the worst of stupidity. If
you think yourself clever, set yourself to do something ;
then you will have a chance of humiliation." *

The door to knowledge is open to all, but there must
first be a disposition to enter. The things which are
temporal are parables of the things which are eternal.
"If any man's will is to do His will" (the Syriac of a
well-known text), " he shall know of the doctrine." f I
have heard of a farmer who, complaining to a brother
farmer of the " sourness " of his land, was advised to sow
it with salt, that is, cover it with it ; he did so, and the
result was an abundant supply of mushrooms, the spores
of which must have been long deposited either in the
earth or in the salt, but in either case they only wanted
to meet to produce growth.

Descending from the infinitely great to the infinitely
little, I am naturally led to what the late Dr. Carpenter
calls, with much reason, " the revelations of the micro-
scope." Truly they are revelations ; but of what ? and of
whom ?

Dr. Dallinger says that no instrument in the hands of
science had reached a higher perfection, endorsing the
late Dr. Lankester's statement, that it was "the most
perfect instrument in the world."

It is most encouraging to an amateur scientist to find
so great a man as Dr. Dallinger adopting precisely the

* Dr. George MacDonalcl, in " Mary Marion," t Julm vii. 17.

INTRODUCTION.

19

same means in interesting a large audience that I have
adopted for many years — descending from star-dust to
earth-dust. One of my own earliest experiments, as
characteristic of the almightiness of God in little things,
was with the chalk which abounds in my own neighbour-
hood. Weighing out exactly one grain of this material,
finely powdered, I counted in it 4066 separate fossils ; a
fourpenny piece I found to weigh just twenty-nine grains ;

Forarninifera, \vith sponge spicules. Five different forms composing
chalk, the average weight of each of the former being only the ^^ part
of a grain.

so that 117,914 of these animal animals, which once in-
habited the primeval seas, weighed no more than my
fourpenny piece. By an easy calculation, it was found
that one pound weight of this powdered chalk, therefore,
would contain 28,462,000 fossils. The learned doctor has
amplified this fact.

20

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Fossils from the chalk.

In one ounce of chalk from a tropical coast he
reckoned four millions of these lovely shells. In the
deep-sea beds, by the voyage of the Challenger, it was

proved that, in one square
mile, there must have been
sixteen tons of these living
creatures called foramini-
fera, their variety and
beauty being very wonder-
ful. Sixteen tons! How
many would go to a ton of
these living bodies, if between 28 and 29 millions of their
skeletons, when filled up ivith chalk, weighed, in my ex-
perience, one pound ?

To give some idea of numbers, and the difficulty of
comprehending high figures when we get beyond a
million, Dr. Dallinger states — and a remark made to
me while writing this chapter, by one who knows him
personally, may be here mentioned, namely, that he
" takes nothing upon trust or hearsay " — that, if a man
were to count as fast as ever he could beyond a hundred,
so as to avoid multiplicity of words, he could never
exceed ten thousand in one hour. At this rate, counting
night and day, without any time for sleep or food, he
would take four days and four hours to count a million.
But suppose he were required to count one million a
million times over — that is, a billion — it would take him
ten thousand years to do it.

Should any reader care to know the mystery of a
" 'billion^ I would advise him to consult the late Henry
Bessemer's curious calculation in my "Horses of the
Sun," pp. 125-127, in which are several elaborate illus-
trations, set forth in a manner suitable to any ordinary
mind, and very remarkable in their results.

INTRODUCTION. 23

The learned authority, already referred to, now the
President of the Quekett Microscopical Society, is very
eloquent upon the fossils which compose the great chalk
strata, and his clever photographs of recent foraminifera
faithfully delineate their great beauty ; but no words can
describe exactly the wonders of their structure. Our cut
represents a greatly enlarged specimen of one of the
typical and composite forms of the family — the Orbitolite,
split open to show the internal structure. Dr. Carpenter,
writing of this wonderful object, says, " Discs of a com-
paratively minute size (from the diameter of an ordinary-
sized pin's head to that of a small pea) are to be found in
almost all foraminiferous sands and dredgings from the
shores of the warmer regions of the globe, and have been
long known as a very abundant fossil in the Paris basin ;
from the quarries of which stone is taken for the erection
of the large buildings in that beautiful city."

Thus have I introduced the reader to "The Micro-
scope and its Lessons." The information it contains will
be drawn from the natural objects chiefly in my own
collection; the lessons to be learned will be only such as
would commend themselves to any ordinary intelligence.
I dare not hide from my readers the reflections which a
long and very careful study of the works of God have
produced both in my heart and my head, — my emotions,
that is to say, as well as my intellect ; and I am fully
convinced that we glorify Him when we are the willing
instruments of expounding the beautiful parables — not
" beautiful myths," as one has called them — He is always
teaching in the phenomena of what we call "nature."
Nor do I remember a greater compliment paid me —
though it was not intended as such — than when one said
of me, " Oh, he doesn't care for natural history unless it
illustrates religion I "

21 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I like that story which tells us how the gospel was
first introduced to the natives of the Sandwich Islands,
where, in 1778, our Captain Cook was murdered — illus-
trative as it is of how valuable a knowledge of the appli-
cation of nature- teaching is in religious life; and the
relation of this story will prepare the reader for the lessons
he may expect to meet with in the following pages.

The want of a good supply of water was a terrible
scourge to these uncivilized people, who, in my early life
— that is, considerably more than half a century ago —
were downright savages, as any one may see if he look
into the faces of their idols exhibited in our national
museum. Their greatest earthly want was drinking-water,
and when the Christian missionary first landed, he, too,
felt the same inconvenience; at last it occurred to him
to sink a well in his own garden, there hoping, at the sea-
level, to get fresh water. The people, never having seen
a well in their lives, came to the conclusion that he must
be quite mad, and imagined the world upside down,
indeed, to think of digging for water down in the dry earth.
Every day they gathered round and watched him digging,
though they were too much scared to render any help.
At last their old chief, who was more civilized than the
rest, spoke. " You must be mad, missi " (missionary), he
said ; " rain comes from the clouds here ; it does not rise
out of the earth."

Day after day went by ; but at last, at a depth of
thirty feet, there were signs of a spring.

Then the missionary told the savages that the next
day they should see water. On the morrow, in fear and
wonder, they came, and at thirty-two feet deep, lo ! there
was a spring of fresh water, which has ever since supplied
that particular island.

It was this which finally conquered the savages. The

INTRODUCTION. 25

chief gathered his people about him, and said, "We
thought the missi mad when he said he would go down
to the earth and find rain; but he has wrought and
prayed till Jehovah has given it him. Noiv, as there was
water in the earth beneath, so do I believe there is a God
in the skies above; and as the missi has removed the
earth and we have seen the water, so do I feel that death
will remove the mist which is before our eyes and we shall
see God. Bring out the idols, and let us destroy them ! "
This has been the result of rny own experience with
both the telescope in the examination of worlds in the
sky, and the microscope of the worlds within the world
we call earth ; for in each there is a sensible revelation of
that Supreme Being we call God, and as He speaks to me
through them, I would speak for Him in declaring Hi*
greatness, joining Addison in his hymn on the glories of
the heavens —

•* What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball ;
What though no real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found :
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing, as they shine,

hand that made us is divine.' "

I •' -.'V ''.•"• -W^ -* -** *

^^M

One of the foramiuiferous group (PolystomeUa crispa\
considerably enlarged.

CHAPTER II.

PERSONAL KEMINISCENCES.

"Human experience, like the stern-lights of a ship at sen, illumines
only the path which we have passed over."— COLERIDGE.

ALKING past a respectable shop in a
great city some time ago, and, like many
others, being attracted by the display of
the pretty things exposed for sale in its
\vindows, I said to the master on entering,
" It is quite a temptation to come in here ; "
when he quietly replied, " Yes, the secret of our
business is to create new wants, not to supply them."

That is a maxim I have endeavoured to practise all
my life, and which I sincerely desire to practise still. It
is good for the mind as well as the body that we leave off
with an appetite. " The joy of existence is that there is
so much to learn," and the chief object I have in writing
these pages is that I may stimulate some of my readers,
should there be any that need it, in the pursuit of know-
ledge, and help and encourage them in its constant
application. And surely, to a mind rightly constituted, no
happiness can be greater than that which arises from the
consciousness that it has been instrumental in advancing
the happiness of others.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 27

There are some minds beyond one's reach. I remem-
ber once arguing with a man on the revelations which
the microscope made, and he coldly made answer, " he
shouldn't care for it unless it magnified the balance at
his banker's." Others are incredulous, considering you
are an enthusiast, and "nothing more," — forgetting that
nothing great can be accomplished in which there is no
enthusiasm ; forgetting, too, that enthusiasm means
"inspiration," and that inspiration is indissolubly asso-
ciated with revelation. In what follows, it may be that, in
reviewing the records of many years, old scenes will be
revived and old stories remembered, some very likely to
provoke a smile, I hope not ridicule. To begin with one
of these stories, let me — in reminding him of the dis-
covery of the spring in the Sandwich Islands many years
ago, and what the result was — tell the reader something
about the wording of our title-page, how it came about,
and what it led to.

When I first began my microscopical studies I could
find no rest until I taught others. I commenced with
lecturing to the young men amongst whom I worked as
the superintendent of a Sunday school. My first lecture
was entitled " The House Fly and the Garden Spider."
I had some excellent diagrams drawn from the various
objects I began to collect. The attempt was singularly
successful : I was greatly encouraged. Since then — that
is thirty years ago — in various parts of London and the
country I have delivered about a thousand lectures upon
various branches of natural history, — a labour of love in
which I have freely given what I have so freely received.
And if I thus speak of myself, it is only that it may be
for the example and encouragement of others who may
work in the same profitable field, who will find, as I have
found, unquestionably, that if we know God in nature

28 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

and acknowledge and glorify Him in His works by
declaring His goodness and greatness, He will recompense
and glorify us in every condition and position of the life
in which He has placed us.

Once upon a time the young men of a literary institu-
tion, in connection with the aristocratic neighbourhood
of Belgravia, invited me to give them a lecture upon
some subject which would replenish their funds: the
secretary said that if I could give them an attractive
title there would be a large paying attendance.

I had done this for the poor in the workhouse, for the
deaf and dumb, and the blind, but this would be my first
appearance amongst the Belgravians.

I accepted the invitation.

Now, it happened that exactly at that time " the
Brothers " were exhibiting their so-called super-
natural manifestations, in which they professed to have
dealings with the spirits in the invisible world. Many
were their dupes who, paying a guinea each, were deluded
with the belief that, in the darkness of the room where
the seances were held, they really were spectators of what
was going on in another life. My friends, you see, wanted
a sensational title to attract the public and enrich their
treasury, so I gave for my subject —

"THE INVISIBLE WORLD;

WITH PICTORIAL DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS INHABITANTS."

Admission One Shilling.

My diagrams I took care to arrange before the doors
were opened, and the secretary said, when the end came,
" We thought it was all over with us when we saw how
you were going to treat the subject ; but ! " The

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 29

animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds were fairly repre-
sented in the pictures, and the result was a laugh — a
friendly adieu, and — a replenishing of the treasury. But
I have left the best for the last. To prove the truth of my
description of the circulation in a leaf, I took with me my
microscope, and, when the lecture was over, I showed this
deeply interesting object to a select few of the visitors,
amongst whom was a venerable minister— a dear old
man, with a face like that of an angel. Falling in love
with him at first sight, I said, " Well, how did you like
my story ? "

" "Very much," was the reply; "but— ' (oh, that
little word "b-u-t," how much it sometimes includes!),
" but how many superlatives you used ! "

" True," I answered : " who can help superlatives, as
you call them, when speaking of the works of the Most
High? Now, my dear sir, come and see, and tell me
what you have to say about the circulation in the leaf
now under my microscope."

He looked at it, then at me ; then the dear old eyes,
which long since have had something better to look upon,
looked brightly around, and when I said, " Well, what do
you think of it ? " " Think ! " he answered, " why, I think
it's perfectly ravishing ! "

" Well, come now," I exclaimed, " who ever heard me
use such a ' superlative ' as that ? "

On another occasion I was explaining to a friend the
wonders of my favourite object, the tongue of the house-
fly. He was one of the many unbelievers I have had to
deal with. He wouldn't believe what he couldn't under-
stand ; and I made a convert of him very speedily with
my silent tongue of Husca domestiea. When the exhi-
bition was ended, " Well," I asked, " how are you now ? "
" Perfectly flabbergasted!" was the exclamation. Then I

30

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

showed him the wonderful feet, with their booklets and
suckers, and he was more astonished than before. Singu-
larly illustrative of the impression made upon the mind
by only one well-used opportunity of witnessing some of

the objects in "the In-
visible World," let me
amuse the reader with
one result of my friend's
experience. Many years
afterwards he told me of
a dream he had, in which
there may be more
matter for consideration
than I must impose upon
the reader. My friend's
dream was this. He had
gone home to dinner on
his fiftieth birthday, and
after it was over, seated
in the conservatory smok-
ing his pipe, one of his
daughters, climbing up-
on his shoulder, caused
the tobacco - smoke to
get into his eyes, while
she remarked, " She did
not know another man
who, at his age, had so
few grey hairs." In the
course of the evening my name occurred in the conversa-
tion, which— after the exhibition just mentioned, namely,
the wonders of a house-fly— my friend always associated
with the microscope. And these four things, namely, the
smoke, the grey hairs, the instrument, and myself, all got

Tongue of the house-fly (Musca

domestica).

a, terminal sucking disc; &, aperture leading to
gullet ; c, lancets ; d, trachea ; e, maxillary
palpi.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

31

Foot of house-fly.

so jumbled up together in his mind during the night, in
his sleep, that he dreamed he had me under a microscope,
and could not succeed in focussing me because I was
smoking a pipe and blew all the smoke into his eyes !

From a course of so
many years in exhibiting
the microscope to people
at various social and other
meetings, it will easily be
believed that many amus-
ing stories might be re-
called; one or two may
serve to afford another
smile. At one I was ex-
hibiting my favourite ob-
ject, the aforesaid won-
derful tongue of the
house-fly. In the company forming an evening soiree,
there were two ladies who had evidently come to be seen
rather than to see. They looked down my magic tube,
and one said, " What may this be supposed to be ? "

" That," said I, "is supposed to be the tongue of a
house-fly."

" Oh, lor ! " she exclaimed, " what a horrid thing ! "

I, supposing she had altered the focus, good-naturedly
replied, " Perhaps you have not seen it properly. Allow
me to move the stage."

The slide was a very good one, but, like its owner,
rather old-fashioned. The object was encircled with
red paper, with a small scrawl printed in gold, and
by an accident, and in ignorance, I managed to place,
not the object, but the gilded paper, under the glass,
and, supposing it was a better view of the tongue,
" Now," said I, " perhaps you will see it better." I think

32 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I see that person now, as, calling her friend, she exclaimed,
" Oh, Elizabeth, come here — -here's a lovely thing ! "

Once, at a lecture in the country, having the worthy
vicar for a chairman, a very broad-speaking Scotchman,
when all was over, and he expressed to the people his
satisfaction and astonishment at what he had heard, he said
it reminded him of what happened in. his country, on
one of the lakes, when the first steamboat appeared upon
the water. An old Scotch woman, who had never seen a
steamer, and knew nothing of its motive-power, put up
her hands in amazement, shouting, " Eh ! the works of
God are great, but this beats 'em all ! "

At a working-men's meeting one evening I learned a
lesson never to be forgotten ; and I mention this in the
hope that should this book fall into the hands of any one
engaged in teaching, he or she may never be discouraged
should either often appear to "toil all night and catch
nothing." We do leave — we cannot help leaving — an
influence behind us, for good or for evil, every time we
speak, — that is my belief. From this meeting of working-
men I came home much discouraged. What did they
care for plants and flowers? Not a bit, it seemed to
me. I had my diagrams nicely exposed, but, when the
lecture was ended, feeling vexed, I rolled them up and
came home. Not many days after, a City missionary
called upon me, and said —

"You gave a lecture a short time since, sir, to the
working-men at ? "

" Yes," I replied, " I know I did. What about it ? "

" Well," he answered, " there was one man there who
was an atheist, and your illustration of design in the story
of the pitcher-plant has made him very uncomfortable,
and he asked me if I would beg the favour of his coming
to see you."

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

33

" Made him uncomfortable ! " I exclaimed. " Would
that I could make others so. By all means tell him to
come ; I shall be delighted to see him."

Well, the man, dressed in his Sunday best, came, and
I found myself, for the first
time in my life, face to face
with an intellectual fellow who
had the — what ? heroism? no !
cowardice ? — no!— foolishness ?
yes ! to say there was no God.
And this is about what trans-
pired that evening as we sat
down together.

"You see, sir," he began,
" my father would not believe
in a God, and I was taught to
believe that what was good
enough for him was good
enough for me. But I have
never been happy. I have
often wondered, as my business
exposes me to danger, what
would become of me in case of sudden death, and your
story of the wisdom and goodness of God as shown in the
designing of that pitcher-plant has made me more uncom-
fortable than ever ; and I have come to ask you, if there
is a God, how may I find Him ? "

What followed I may leave the reader to imagine. He
came again, and the result must be left to Him whom
he had so recently denied.

A similar, but less serious story may be told of another
meeting of working-men. I was illustrating and en-
deavouring to prove the existence of a Designer from
the fact of design meeting us very strikingly in insect

C

Single leaf of the pitcher-plant
(Nepenthes).

p, winged petiole, which becomes nar-
rowed and then expands, so as to form
the pitcher by being folded on itself;
I, the lid, open, formed by the blade of
the leaf and joined by a hinge to the
pitcher.

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

life; and, that night, I was specially devoting an hour
upon the structure of my little friend, the honey-bee. I
had one or two diagrams to make all plain, and, when it
was over, I said to the men, that if any wished for
further information I should be pleased to give it, or to
chat with them upon the subject; and I particularly
addressed myself to one man, saying, "Well, how did you
like my story ? "

" Oh," he said, " I liked it very well ; but how about
that bee's leg ?"

" Well," I replied, " what about that bee's leg ? You
don't believe it, I suppose ? "

" No, sir," he answered, " I shouldn't like to say
that."

" Why not ? " I rejoined. " I never expect everybody
to believe all I say. But, come now, — next week, all well,
I shall be here again, and then if you don't
believe when I show you, with the aid of
the microscope, the real leg of a bee with
the pocket open and the spring in its
place to keep the pollen from falling out
— I won't say what I think of you ! "

Next week came, and, remembering
that one should never know the meaning
of " trouble " when good has to be done,
I took my microscope, and again met
the workmen, and, at the close, I showed
my friend the bee's leg. He had said
something to justify his incredulity on
the previous occasion about the story
being very "queer:11 now, it was my turn ;
so, watching him closely as he looked
upon the object, I quietly said, "Very
pretty, isn't it?" But the man made no answer; he

Hind leg of the
honey-bee, with
the bread-pocket
open.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 35

first looked down the microscope, and then at me, and
only said, as he gave my hand a firm grip, " All right,
sir ; good night ! "

Now, my friend, if you should be so happy as to be a
teacher (but, stop ! "IF" / — we are all teachers, and can-
not help it), here's a lesson for your encouragement.

Weeks after this, a dear friend came up to me, saying,
" Oh, I say, Crowther, what have you been doing ? "

" Doing ! " I answered ; " many things. Why ? "

" Well," he said, " there's a man employed in Deptford
dockyard, and he's going about amongst all the men
talking about nothing but ' Crowther ' and bees' legs ! "

Sometimes a different result has attended the labour
of love, but often spiced with what may reasonably
provoke a smile, although it be of graver sort.

Once, after a severe affliction, when I was over-sensitive
and easily unnerved, I received an enigmatical letter
from a very dear friend, whom I truly loved and would
not wound for the world — a clergyman, who had formerly
been my pastor. He lived at some distance. I said to
myself, "There's something between the lines in this
mysterious note, and I shall have no peace till I know
what it means ; I shall go and find out for myself." Reach-
ing his London residence, I found him absent. I stayed
till he returned, and then we had some such conversation
as this : " My dear Mr. A., you have written me a note
which reads like a mysterious riddle. There's more in it
than is expressed — what is it ? What have I done that
appears to have offended you ? " " Oh, nothing very
particular," said he, " nothing very particular ; only — only
— that lecture you've been giving at Mr. Spurgeon's ! "

Now, the truth was this : I had been giving one of my
entomological talks to the children at Stockwell, belong-
ing to Mr. Spurgeon's orphanage, and a favourable report

36 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of it found its way into the newspapers, and my friend
had been reading the same. When I discovered the key
to the riddle, I fear I was rather naughty as I remembered
the unrest my good friend's note had occasioned me, and
I said rather sharply, " Mr. A., I was called to give the
lecture at Mr. Spurgeon's Orphanage, and I went; and
I would go and lecture on a dust-heap if only I thought I
could do any good on it." " Yes, dear Crowther," said my
friend, with a seraphic smile, "that would be all very
well, provided only it were a Church of England dust-
heap!"

Many other curious results, ending -in the production
of these books — this forming the tenth volume — might be
mentioned. One, the best of all, must close this chapter,
which may have been too selfish.

Eight or nine years since, while staying at a very
dear friend's house in the most lovely part of Kent, —
where, for many years, I had been in the habit of lending
a helping hand in instructing the people in a handsomely
furnished lecture-room, which my large-hearted friend
had built, — he said to me, " It is a great pity you should
not publish your stories. What is to become of them,
when you are gone ? "

" Ah,H I said, " no one would care to read such lectures

as mine."

" Wouldn't they ? " he replied. " I should ! "
On my way home I thought it over, and the result
was that, having the very highest esteem for the Sunday
School Union, for which I had many times lectured, I made
the committee the gratuitous offer of all my stories, to
be rewritten by myself in a popular form, so that they
should make a readable book for the public, and at the
same time contain the matter necessary for the lecture
committee to continue the stories with my own diagrams

PERSONAL EEMINISCENCES. 37

as illustrations, when I shall have other work to do in
heaven, or be unfitted to continue the work on earth.

This volume is the last of the series ; the first, " The
Five Barred Gate," published in 1881, I am glad to see,
has reached a sixth edition.

A few illustrations of ridiculous misprints in advertise-
ments and reports of these stories may close this chapter
on personal reminiscences.

Imagine my horror, then, one evening, on entering
a lecture hall at the West End, the subject being the
" Life and Adventures of a Gnat," to find large posters on
the doors, announcing the subject as " The Life and
Adventures of a Goat I " What a difference may one
single letter make !

In a lecture once given at Chichester, a long report
of which attracted my attention in the West Sussex Gazette,
where I said the cockchafer had 8820 lenses, making so
many hmdles of compound microscopes, the report made
out that I had stated them to be so many " bushels " of
microscopes.

" The Horses of the Sun " was very recently noticed
by a Keviewer as " The Houses of the Sun."

Lastly, let me say that some of my best and dearest
friends are those gained in the pursuit of my favourite
study ; a study, for the great privilege of enjoying and
pursuing of which I desire to thank God with my whole
heart. It has been to me — and, my reader, may it be to
you — an introduction to a new world, — a world, I mean
within a world,— bringing with it a gradually increasing
accumulation of true riches ; leaving always a thirst for
more, with the assurance that, if we see God in all His
mighty works here, we shall see all His works in Him,
no longer " through a glass darkly," but face to face ; and
let us never once forget that while we are looking into

38 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

what we may call the secrets of "the invisible world,"
we are looking, through them, up to Nature's God ; and
let us listen to the beautiful words of a modern writer
who says, "If you would listen to Nature's wonderful
tales, or see her marvellous treasures, you must not trifle
with her; you must not talk as if you rummaged her
drawers and cabinets as you pleased. You must believe
in her; you must reverence her; else, although she is
everywhere about the house, you may not meet her from
the beginning of one year to the end of another." *

And then, when the end is coming, and we look back
upon a well-spent life, as we stand on the border-line of
two worlds, we shall be reminded of the beautiful lines of
an old writer —

" Clouds of affection from our younger eyes \
Conceal that emptiness which age descries ;
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks which time Lath made."

* Dr. George Macdonald.

CHAPTER III.

ENTOMOLOGICAL.

" In these beings [insects], so minute, and as it were
Such nonentities, what wisdom is displayed,
What power, what unfathomable perfection 1 "

PLINY (A.D. 60).

OME, then, and sit with me while we busy
our minds over the exceedingly little things
of nature ; and, while we travel through
pleasant fields of study together, let us
never forget the many lessons they were
intended to teach, since "all matter is radiant
with spiritual meaning," and the Great Teacher
is still educating every devout mind with parables.

Do you ask me to explain our instrument, and tell
you about its cost and power of magnifying? Well,
first you may have a tolerably good microscope for
about five pounds — good enough, that is, to begin with.
Remember, the value of the glasses depends not so much
upon their magnifying power as their power of penetra-
tion and definition. The human eye is, perhaps, of all the
senses, the easiest to educate ; and constant practice with
the low powers — that is, those which magnify least — will
strengthen the sense of vision, and gradually prepare the
eye for the higher powers. The glasses we shall presently

40 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

use will vary from what is called a four-inch objective to
a sixth inch : these are terms used by the makers to denote
the focal distance of the field-glass from the object. My
lowest power, the four-inch, with the "A," that is the
lowest eye-piece, magnifies only ten diameters — that is, one
hundred superficial times. True, it is only a "magnifying
glass," but it may be greatly increased at the upper end
with other eye-pieces, till, with the fourth eye-piece, it
may be brought up to thirty-two diameters, or 1024 super-
ficial times. This glass is invaluable to the lover of flowers.
If I show you a blossom of mignonette you will never
forget it ; while, looking into the indescribable beauty of
a heartsease will astonish you. I have found the most
useful of all the glasses to be a good three-inch with the
use of the drawer- tube and the deeper eye-pieces ; but we
shall need all our object glasses in the delightful work
before us, and I must not stop to weary you with figures,
for which probably you' have no interest. Our lowest
magnifying power, I have told you, costing thirty shillings,
will only magnify at the most 1024 superficial times; our
highest, a so-called sixth, — that is nominally a sixth of an
inch from the field-glass to the object, — with the deepest
eye-piece and the draw-tube extended, will give us fully
nine hundred diameters — that is, about a million of super-
ficial times. " Good eyes see light through the smallest
chinks," but your eyes would require to be educated that
you might know how to appreciate these wonderfully
perfect specimens of magnifying glasses. I have found
the lower powers and the draw-tube to be the most useful,
I repeat, for educating the eye. I have frequently been
told that I could see more with my one eye than others
could with their two ; but everything depends upon the
right management of light, in which we shall find our
first " lesson."

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 41

Dr. Carpenter rightly calls the microscope a revelation.
Every Bible-reader knows who it was that once said, " I
thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes ; " and who that knows
anything practically of that revelation is ignorant of the
fact that " Light I light ! more light ! " is the constant cry
of every devout student, and that " the True Light, that
lighteneth every man, has come into the world," and is
the Sun of Kighteousness ?

The so-called bull's-eye lens for transmitted light,
the mirror for reflected light, and a good spot-lens for
dark-ground illumination, with the lower powers, and
condensed light with the higher, are the chief instruments
necessary in the management of light ; and with these,
in practised hands, wonders may be done. But, I will
not tire your patience with what, I fear, may have
no interest for you, but at once introduce you to our
cabinets.

You will remember that in the " seances " of the so-
called spiritualists there was a cabinet in which the cheat
was " got up ; " no light, of course, was there ; all the
cleverly contrived tricks were performed in the dark.
Our " seance " is made clear with light, either natural
or artificial. We shall see the truth of that saying that
" all things are made manifest by the light, for whatso-
ever doth make manifest is light." * We may and shall
have difficulty in comprehending some of the figures
connected with the measurements of several of our higher
class of objects. Were all truth made perfectly clear
to my mind I should doubt the truth of its being
divine. I have found the two revelations — namely,
nature and the Bible— to be an exact representation one
* Eph. v. 13.

42 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of the other. The more I magnify an object the more, as
a rule, I can see ; and the more I believe, the stronger my
spiritual vision.

Once, in doubt as to the meaning of facts in relation
to figures, it struck me that there was a short and ready
way to an explanation : the figures appeared in the
" Micrographic Dictionary," by Messrs. Griffith and Hen-
frey. I knew nothing of the authors personally, but it
occurred to me to go direct to them * for an explanation ;
I did so, and I received it almost by return of post.

What a lesson for the Bible student is taught in this
simple story !

The Dictionary above referred to is, perhaps, the
most valuable that has ever been written upon the micro-
scope. It contains upwards of seven hundred pages, and
is illustrated by upwards of forty full-sized and beauti-
fully engraved plates, each containing very many figures,
besides about nine hundred wood engravings.

The Introduction covers forty pages, giving a full
description of the instrument and its apparatus, the best
way of managing the light, and the general method of
determining the structure of the various objects before
us, the cost of which objects varies from one to twenty
shillings each — the best investments I have ever made.
Here are sections of the tongues of flies and spiders, cats
and dogs, and, of course, human tongues ; all parts of the
human body, internal and external, from the hair on the
head to the nail on the toe, from the optic nerve of the
eye to the nerve of the foot and the skin of the heel, the
brain and muscle, bone, and teeth, — all are here, awaiting
our examination.

Flowers and leaves, fruit-stones and wood from all the
wonderful variety of trees, — seeds of all kinds from various

* See John vi. 68.

Comparison of eggs of insects with seels of plants (see p. 94). DrawnTrom
nature by W. J. Norman. '

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 45

parts of the world, — are here, carefully numbered and
classified, requiring the long life of a Methuselah to study
them all.

And here, too, are geological specimens of various
strata: from the Himalaya mountains, the Mounts of
Olives and Sinai ; also of the Pyramids of Egypt and the
Yocal Sphinx, and from the old primeval forests of past
ages, with their curious contents of fibre and spores ; as
well as curiosities of chemistry and photography — the
choice collection of thirty years. Are you willing that I
should be your guide ? I have many valuable credentials;
much experience; some enthusiasm, devotion, and love
both for my favourite study and the happy work of bring-
ing it to the notice of others; and thorough sympathy
with David's words, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad
through Thy works, and I will rejoice in giving praise
for the operation of Thy hands."

But, in the short time we shall have at our disposal,
you must only expect to have " a sample of the bulk," as
business men say. I shall have done something for your
good, my imaginary companion, if I can so reach the
source of your hunger after knowledge, as to make you
leave off with an appetite; and you will discover that
sixty minutes over the microscope will make very con-
siderably less, apparently, than one ordinary hour.

Where shall we begin ?

Life begins with the egg; so, as it is best to
begin at the beginning, let us begin with the eggs of
insects.

What beautiful things they are ! Whatever God does
is always done well. See, here are the eggs of a nocturnal
moth, Noctua nigrum. To what shall we compare them ?
minute domes, they are ribbed from the centre to the
bottom, and almost exactly resemble the echinus shell.

46 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

These eggs once enclosed the caterpillar of a stint-bodied
moth, which is said to assume the colour of the lichens
on which it feeds, being grey when it feeds on a grey
one, and yellow when it feeds upon a yellow one; the
change of colour being intended by Providence, it is
supposed, to conceal it from its enemies, as it is very
difficult to distinguish it from the lichen upon which it
is feeding.

Have you ever thought what wonderful things eggs
are ? — of the variety of colour, as in those of birds ; their
beauty of design, as of insects; and their remarkable
resemblance to seeds?

" It was a notion of [Erasmus] Darwin's," says Kennie,
"(much more plausible and ingenious than his meta-
morphosis of shell-fish into birds), that the colours of
many animals are adapted to concealment from their
natural enemies."

May we not see in this one of the many parables of
nature ? Is it not a riddle which any devout student will
easily discover ?

The suggestive remarks of many celebrated entomo-
logists respecting the change of colour in the caterpillar
as it varies its food, applies to several species in the
variety of colour in its egg ; in several cases it is
precisely similar to the part of plant upon which the
egg is laid. And then, too, how regularly and orderly
they are laid ! not deposited anyhow, one upon another,
but neatly and beautifully packed side by side, as with
rule and compass.

The eggs of insects have a thin transparent shell
enclosing the germ of the caterpillar, exactly as the seed
encloses the embryo of the plant ; and a comparison of
one with the other will give us much matter for reflection
on the beginning of life in animals and plants. Both

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 47

contain a supply of food stored up for the young, which
is gradually exhausted as the young develop. The
carbo-hydrates and nitrogenous materials in the seed are
consumed by the young plant just as the yolk of the egg
is consumed by the hatching of the chicken.

Some insects lay an incredible number of eggs.
Many people are heard to exclaim, " Where do the flies
come from ? Bother the flies ! " Let us follow the calcula-
tion of a student of this branch of natural history,* who
tells us that Mistress Musca domeslica, the common
house-fly, for example, deposits eighty eggs at a sitting,
and that she performs this operation four times during
her life ; and he shows, in a curious table, how, in one
season, one single female may thus be the progenitrix of
upwards of ten millions of flies !

You must see the eggs of some of the parasites which
infest various animals, and you will be surprised at their
beauty and variety. Now compare the egg of the house-
fly with that of the domestic bug ; the former is exactly
like the exquisitely carved ivory boxes of the Chinese,
while the latter glitters with exquisite chasing as on
mother of pearl.

You will change your mind, I think, when we come
to our story about the house-fly's enemy, the garden
spider, if you think there is nothing to admire in the
latter. But let us dismiss this brief reference to the
beauty of insects' eggs by taking a peep at those of a
spider. You will observe that they are perfectly round,
without any of the external sculpture which renders the egg
of an insect so beautiful. Eemember that the spider is
not a true insect any more than a scorpion is ; both belong
to the same family, but more of that presently.

The germ of spider-life in the egg appears in the
* Keller, quoted by Samuelson.

48 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

form of a minute white point immediately under the
shell, and in the centre of the circumference. I have a
story for you respecting the hatching of spiders, which
will illustrate and, I hope, justify the title page of our
book, in respect of the " lessons " which our microscopical
studies are calculated to teach.

My friends have inundated me with presents of one
kind and another, and I may truly say with Dr.

Watts—

" Not more than others I deserve,
Yet God hath given me more : "

and, among them, a lady once presentedr me with a spider's
nest, taken from its place of concealment in her garden.
It was that of the Epeira diadema, the common garden
spider. It was taken in the time of winter, months before,
in the natural order of hatching, the young would have
been produced ; and the bag was cleverly concealed by
the mother in a snug nook in the garden fence. I put
the nest, or egg-bag, into a small box, which, all the cold
winter day, I carried about in my pocket, and, ia the even-
ing, I proceeded to examine its contents with my micro-
scope. To my surprise, I discovered that the heat of my
body had hatched the eggs, and some were broken. I
counted one hundred and seventy perfect eggs, most
cleverly packed in a bag of silk — not your common web,
such as the creature spins to entrap insects, but genuine
silk of a different sort. I put one of these tiny eggs
in my live-box, and observed the nucleus through the
thin shell, the diameter of the nucleus being one third
the entire egg, the remaining two-thirds beiug the yolk
and white, very like that of a fowl. I estimated the size
of each egg to be about one-sixtieth of the size of the
head of a doll's pin. In a former work * I have told
* "Solomon's Little People."

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 49

how, at the conclusion of this experiment, I was astonished
to find, secreted at the bottom of this cleverly contrived
nest, the body of a fine fat blue-bottle, which the self-
denying mother had concealed for the purpose of afford-
in g food for her numerous family until they were strong
enough to find their own food, she no longer being in
the land of the living ; but I have not there told the result
of an experiment I made that evening with one of her
artificially hatched babies, so I will complete this story
while we are looking at our object.

I put one of these little creatures, born in my
trousers pocket remember, in the live-box, and watched
the beating of its pulse, and I counted thirty-five pulsa-
tions to the minute, against my own fifty-eight.

Whether from heat from the reflection of the lamp
through the condensing lens, or from confinement, or
excitement, I cannot tell ; but I know that, while my own
pulse increased, being not a little delighted with my experi-
ment, my baby's pulse rose from fifty-eight in the minute
to 150 ! I laughed at the idea of feeling a spider's pulse ;
but when I read, afterwards, that Hunter, the celebrated
anatomist, was similarly employed in counting the pulsa-
tions in the body of my little friend, the house-fly, I
considered I followed good example in an interesting
experiment.

You know, of course, that the first form of the living
insect, when liberated from its prison-house, is the cater-
pillar. Here is a very fine specimen of the larva of
the Vapourer moth. Let us look first at larvx, then the
pupde, then the imago.

If you have read the volume preceding this, on " Solo-
mon's Little People," a story about the ants, you will not
need to be reminded that these scientific terms signify,
first a mask (it doth not yet appear what the thing, so

D

50 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

formed, is to be) ; then a pupa or mummy > which it very
much resembles ; and lastly, an imago, that is, a perfect
image or representation of the creature,

First, let us examine the eggs of the Yapourer — a
common moth, whose care for her young may teach many
a mother a lesson ; for, out of the warm pupa-case
from which she has escaped so recently, she contrives to
make a silken bed for her young. Here they are ; look
at them. Could you have conceived such perfection ?
Observe how they are fastened to each other in neat and
orderly fashion. " This custom of fastening the eggs to
the web in a constant method is so peculiar to this
species of insect, that I have never observed it in any
other kind; like a prudent housewife she never leaves
her habitation, but is always fixing her eggs to the
surface of the web, out of which only a few days since
she made her escape." *

No doubt this is to keep them warm in winter ; and it
is suggested that, the bed being made of silk, its non-con-
ducting property, both with regard to heat and electricity,
must be of great benefit to the concealed embryo in the
egg, in preserving it during the winter, in the branch of
the tree where it may have been deposited.

Now look at the baby larva with its six legs, with
which you may have seen it feel its way as it fastens on
to the tree on which it feeds with the other ten. Observe,
the fore legs are altogether different to the hind legs (also
called claspers) ; one minute booklet terminates each of
the former, and about fifty each the latter. This enables
the creature to hold on securely while it feels its way
from leaf to leaf. But look at the forest of hairs, which
cover its body, bristling up like an armoury of spears; and
there at the mouth, is the opening of the spinning-machine
* Swammerdam, quoted by Kenuie.

ENTOMOLOGICAL.

51

with which it works the silk, made from vegetable matter,
which once suggested to a thoughtful Persian the beauti-
ful proverb that " time and
patience will convert the
mulberry leaf into satin."
This is a typical caterpillar,
and we must content our-
selves with its study, though
a large family await our
examination.

Observe its exquisitely
formed tracheae and spira-
cles, the organs through
which it receives the outer
air, passing through its en-
tire body. What care has
been bestowed on these tiny openings — called " spiracles,"
from the Latin spiro, "I breathe" — running along the
sides of its body ! There are six pairs, and there is reason
to believe they open and shut just as our lungs contract

Trachea of an insect (a) compared
with spiral vessels of a plant (&).

Spiracle of Dytiscus (water beetle), greatly enlarged.

and expand every time we take in and give out the air
we breathe. But what a marvellous display of wisdom is
here ! Look at the trachese — so called from the Greek
for " windpipe," Coils and coils of fibre secure a safe

52 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

passage right down to the end of the tongue of the per-
fect insect, keeping the long air-tubes from collapsing,
and providing a safe passage for the life-giving air,
which would appear to be sifted from all impure sub-
stance before entering the body by the sieve-like spiracle,

Trachea; of a beetle.

and then, when thus purified, supplying this humble
creature with the first element of life.

Now behold the pupa, which, observe, has just escaped
from the very admirably contrived pupa-case. It is no
stretch of the imagination to call this empty cell a coffin,
and the " transition " a veritable resurrection. There are
the shrivelled remains of life number one attached to the

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 53

shroud in which it was buried, in part composed of the
silk made from its own body; and, because it needed
strengthening, you see, just as we mix cotton and silk in
one fabric, so is it here. This cocoon is made partly of
silk, produced from leaves by digestion, and partly from
the curious hairs which it must have removed from its
own body previous to what we call " death."

Now for the imago ! What a sight ! " Do you mean
to say this splendid moth, with its countless featherlike
scales on its four exquisite wings, and its branched an-

Portion of the wing of a moth, showing the points where the scales were

removed.

tennse, having two hundred joints in the pair, each joint
of which is covered with hairs, invisible to our eyes
without our instrument — that this wonderful thing came
from that empty tomb ? " You may well ask the ques-
tion. Quite true, indeed it is ; but is it not strange, being
true, that so little is seen in the sublime lesson it teaches ?
and do you not think I truly have described this section
of the cabinet, " Resurrection at Sight " ?

Of course you know that these scales are to the insect
just what feathers are to the bird — organs of flight; and

54 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

one is just as wonderfully constructed as the other. Do

Battledore scale from wing of Poly-
Scale from wing of Morpho Menelaus ommatus Argus (butterfly).
(butterfly).

5

\l \J

Various forms of the scales of butterflies.

you know that there arc about four hundred thousand of

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 55

these exquisite scales on the wing of a butterfly, all so
beautifully marked — I had almost said sculptured — that
the very highest powers of our instrument will be neces-
sary to detect them ? Dr. Eoyston-Pigott, F.K.S., says,
as an example of delicate measurement, the focal thick-
ness of one of these butterfly " feathers " was, by the aid
of a colleague, three times measured at the 1,250,000th
of an inch.

Here is the choicest entomological specimen I have
seen in any one's cabinet, showing what human ingenuity
can accomplish, and illustrating the truth of the proverb
about time and patience. It is a bouquet of flowers, in an
exquisite vase, around which a group of gay butterflies
are apparently enjoying themselves. There are fuchsias,
roses, and, for a centre, a sunflower. And all this beau-
tiful, although artificial arrangement, consists of nothing
else whatever — flowers and leaves, vase and flies — all
arranged, remember, according to their natural colour —
but the dust, or scales, or " feathers," whichever you like
to call them, taken from the wings of insects, the total
number of scales amounting to twelve hundred.

You observed the mouth of the caterpillar of the
Vapourer, where the two openings of the spinning-
machine were, from which the fine silk was drawn out
which formed the raw material for its coffin, when it
passed into its intermediate state. Let me now show
you the secreting organs, which will open your eyes, I
hope, to the revelation of God in this humble creature,
and remind you of the words of an old writer,* who, had
he the optical advantages you and I possess, would have
used stronger language than he did: "It is not only,"
he says, " in the creation of the heavens, of the earth, of
the sun, and the sea; of elephants and camels, horses'

* Jerome, A.D. 380.

56

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Secreting organs of the

caterpillar.

AA, Bilk eecretors; A', their
excretory ducts; s, the spin-
neret ; c, throat ; D, stomach.

and oxen; of tigers, bears, and
lion?, that the Creator is to be
admired. He is not less great in
the production of the smallest
animals, such as ants, flies, gnats,
and other insects which we know
better by sight than by name.
The same power and the same
wisdom are remarkable in all."

This admirably contrived spin-
ning-machine here shown will
apply to that of- the common silk-
worm moth caterpillar, and will
enable us to draw your attention
to the extreme fineness of the
material which is converted from
the mulberry leaf into satin.

A communication to the Society
of Arts by Miss Henrietta Ehodes,
not very long since, and sent to
me by a scientific friend, stated
that one line of the silkworm when
unwound measured 404 yards, and,
when dry, weighed three grains.
Hence it follows that one pound
avoirdupois of the thread as spun
by the worm may be extended
into a line 535 miles long, and
that a thread which would encom-
pass the earth would weigh no
more than forty-seven pounds.

Curiously spiny is the cater-
pillar of the peacock butterfly, the
perfect insect having remarkably

ENTOMOLOGICAL.

57

beautiful spots — all, remember, formed of nothing but a
countless host of " feathers," so small as to measure only
the 1,250,000th of an inch in thickness — which give to
it the name of " peacock." The underside of the wings
is very dark, and, when they are closed over the back, the
fly looks more like a flat piece of brown paper than an

Peacock butterfly.

insect ; but when this " child of the sun " is feeding with
its glorious wings unfolded, what blessed thoughts does
it suggest as it reminds us of Kogers* beautiful lines —

'58 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

"Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept ;
And such is man, soon, from his cell of clay,
To burst a seraph in a blaze of day ! "

Our next object shall be an ant, fancy it so dissected
that all its muscles are to be seen, by which you may
learn how it is that this little model of perseverance can
accomplish such astonishing feats of strength. I need not
do more than describe to you the object, having told you
all I know of ants in " Solomon's Little People," but I
may tell you a useful story I recently heard of an ant.
Its home had been broken up, and in tke crash its leg was
broken. It was a nurse, and had the charge of the babies,
and, though it could only crawl along with difficulty, it
never forsook its charge ; and this poor wounded creature
actually succeeded in carrying away ten of the baby ants
to their new settlement before the repairs were completed.
Learn from this that, however weak or unfortunate we
may be, there is always something, either in service or
suffering, that we can do for the good of others.

Now observe its muscular structure. Muscles ! Do
you know that the body of a caterpillar I had presented
to me one day, that of the great goat moth, contained
about ten times the number of muscles that were to be
found in my own ? It led me a pretty dance. Coming
to me carefully imprisoned in a deal box, I laid it on
our hall table, and, shortly after doing so, I was about to
experiment on the creature, when, on opening the box,
to my surprise, it had discovered the weakest part of the
wood, and had eaten its way through. I hunted every-
where, and, several days after, I found it snugly concealed
in the seat of a sofa, in a room separated from the hall
by a number of stairs and a long passage : it had six-
teen legs, and it knew how to use them — but its muscles!

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 59

Lyonnet, the famous entomologist, counted 228 in the
head, 1647 in the body, and 2186 around the intestines,
giving a total of upwards of 4000. To the right use of
these muscles may be ascribed the amazing strength of
this singular caterpillar, which generally builds its tomb
in the willow trees.

The author of "Insect Transformations" gives a
striking description of the uses to which these four thou-
sand muscles were once applied in the removal of a
body very many times its own weight. " We put the
caterpillar of the goat moth," he writes, " under a bell
glass which weighed nearly half a pound, and of course
more than ten times the weight of the insect, yet it
raised it up with the utmost ease. We then placed over
the glass the largest book we had at hand, 'London's
Encyclopaedia of Gardening,' consisting of about fifteen
hundred pages of strong paper, and weighing four pounds;
but this did not succeed in preventing the escape of the
animal, which raised the glass though loaded with the
book, and made its exit."

In the human body there are about four hundred and
fifty muscles ; in the proboscis of an elephant forty thou-
sand, 'tis said,* but how many in the proboscis — that is, the
tongue, properly speaking — of a butterfly ! Here is one, it
is that of the sphinx genus — the Convolvulus, a hawk moth,
which, after feeding upon green leaves in its first life, in
its perfect form sips the nectar contained in the bottom
of the cup of flowers. One of these moths, in the act of
feeding upon the flowers from which it takes its name,
is represented in our cut. Nothing in all nature surely
can be more suggestive or illustrative of human life than
the metamorphoses of this creature — one of the largest
of our garden caterpillars : its grave, made by itself, as

* Cuvier.

CO

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

well as the coffin in which it lies concealed, in a striking
manner will remind us of Longfellow's beautiful lines —

" There is no death — what seems so is transition ;

This life of mortal breath
Is but the suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call < deatli ' 1 "

The Convolvulus Sphinx.

But, reminding you of what has been said of muscular
power, do look at this wonderful tongue of the Convolvulus
Sphinx. Compared with the forty thousand in the proboscis
of an elephant, how incalculably greater is the number of
muscles in this sucking-pump, which measures from three
to four inches in length — and it is only one half of the
tongue either, for this half folds on to, and into, the
other balf, the two conjoined forming a tube down which

A family visit.

ENTOMOLOGICAL.

63

the sweet nectar is received into the insect's body, the
two halves, when laid open, presenting the most wonder-
ful and beautiful object, properly illuminated, that can
be conceived. Take a common white butterfly, and,
holding it gently in your left hand, and, making good
use of your eyes, look to-
wards its head ; then, with
the right, take a pin and
begin to uncoil the watch-
spring-like coil which is
rolled up in the front of the
head ; that is the proboscis,
similar to that I am now
showing you.

When visiting the family
of a scientific friend some
years ago, "My children,"
said he, "have something to
show you." Presently, what
they had to show me con-
sisted of a cigar-box turned
into a butterfly's house, the front covered over with thin
gauze, the removal of which revealed the tenants. The
children proceeded to feed their pets with saccharine
matter; and they unrolled their long sucking tongues,
and feasted before me for my special entertainment and
instruction.

Nothing of this extremely complicated tongue-like
or pneumatic machine appeared in the first life — the
caterpillar of the creature; still less in the entombed
chrysalis. The sharp mandibles of the mouth answered
every purpose in the animal's former life, which mandibles,
or jaws, were just as different to this wonderful sucker as
a pair of pincers would be to a watch-spring. Surely it

Proboscis ot butterfly.

64 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

is evidence of design, and of the care of the Creator for
the supply of the wants of so humble a thing as a fly,
rather than the "fortuitous concourse of atoms," which,
happening to fall together, as some advocates for evolu-
tion would lead us to believe they do, produced such a
marvel of workmanship as this !

To what different conclusions do both Kirby and
Spence and Eennie arrive in their admirable works on
entomology ; to these experienced and popular authors
I would refer the reader for the most reliable infor-
mation in his entomological studies; each and all are
allowed to be first-class expositors of insect life.

In his work on "Insect Transformations," in the
chapter on "The Generation of Insects," Kennie writes
that "Darwin, taking the hint from Epicurus, fancies
that animals arose from a single filament or threadlet
of matter, which, by its effort to procure nourishment,
lengthened out parts of its body into arms and other
members. For example, after this filament had im-
proved itself into an oyster, and had been by chance
left dry by the ebbing tide, its efforts to reach the
water again expanded the parts nearest the sea into
arms and legs. If it tried to rise from its native rocks,
the efforts produced wings, and it became an insect,
which in due course improved itself by fresh efforts
till it became a bird, the more perfect members being
always hereditarily transmitted to the progeny. The
different forms of the bills of birds, whether hooked,
broad, or long, were," he says, "gradually acquired by
the perpetual endeavours of the creatures to supply their
wants. The long-legged water-fowl in this way acquired
length of legs sufficient to elevate their bodies above the
water in which they waded. A proboscis," he says, "of
admirable structure, has thus leen acquired by the l)ee, the

Different forms of butterflies' tonguea. (See p. 94.)

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 67

moth, and the humming-bird, for the purpose of plundering
flowers" *

I desire to call your special attention to this wonder-
ful tongue, because it is as fully demonstrative of design
as the setting together of the type of this book. It is
composed of two filaments, fastened together by a curious
seemingly mechanical contrivance.

The celebrated naturalist, Reaumur, tells us that the
section of this proboscis discloses three small rings, and
that there are three canals in the trunk, and in his
inquiry as to whether these three were used in sucking
the juice of flowers, suggesting the
idea of the suckers of a pump, he
says, when taking the portrait of a
moth while sucking a lump of sugar,
"I held in one hand a powerful
magnify ing-glass, which I brought
near to that part of the trunk I
wished to examine; I was some-
times half a minute, or nearly a
minute, without perceiving any-
thing after which I saw clearly a Section of proboscis of

, « -,. .j ,. moth, highly magnified,

little column of liquid mounting

quickly along the whole length of the trunk. Often this
column appeared to be intersected by little balls, which
seemed to be globules of air which had been drawn up
by the liquid. This liquid ascended thus during three or
four seconds, and then ceased. At the end of an interval
of a greater number of seconds, or sometimes after an
interval as short, I saw some fresh liquid mounting up
along the trunk. But it was straight up the middle of
the trunk that it seemed to ascend.

* Darwin's " Zoonomia," 1801, quoted in Rennie's "Insect Transfor-
mation."

68 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

" The Author of Nature has given to insects means of
working which, though very simple, we cannot divine,
and which often we are not even able to perceive.
Whilst I was observing the trunk of our butterfly, be-
tween the columns of liquid which I saw ascending, there
were times when I saw, on the contrary, liquid descending
from the base of the trunk to the point. The descending
liquid occupied half or two-thirds of the tube. It was no
longer difficult to perceive how the butterfly is able to
nourish itself on honey, the thickest syrup, and even the
most solid sugar.

"The fluid it sends down is very -liquid; it drives
against the sugar, moistens, and dissolves it. The butter-
fly pumps this liquid up again, when it is charged with
sugar, and conducts it along as far as the base of its
trunk, and beyond it."

Amongst all the wise sayings of that deep thinker,
Dr. Macdonald, none is greater, in my opinion, than this :
" Until we see God as He is, and are changed into His
likeness, all our beliefs must partake more or less of
superstition; but if there be a God, the greatest super-
stition of all will be found to have consisted in denying
Him ; " * and as that other deep thinker, John Foster,
says, " He who explodes His laws, denies His existence." f

As I have already told you, having devoted some
time to ants in another work, I will only now remind
you of the remarkable use these little " people " J make
of their brains, as illustrative of the best uses which
big-brained animals may make, by the right application,
of theirs ; and the anecdote I will use will remind us of
another — about an elephant who once left the waggon he
was drawing, and whose keeper supposed he had bolted

* From "Paul Faber." t Foster's "Essays."

± See Prov xxx. 25.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 69

into the woods through which they were passing, when,
presently, to the driver's surprise, the big-headed brute re-
turned with a huge branch of a tree, which he had broken
off, using it to thrash his fellow, who would not do his share
of pulling the load over the road they had been passing.

In all the remarkable stories told by Sir John Lub-
bock about ants, and which he has kindly authorized me
to repeat, I know of nothing in reference to instinct that
can surpass the following. I can fully believe the truth-
fulness of the story, however incredible it may appear,
having witnessed a similar scene in my own garden. I
take it from the cutting of a periodical sent me by an
anonymous friend, who only wrote outside, "From one
interested in your lectures." It is headed —

"FUNERALS AMONG ANTS.

" There are ants which bury their dead, a fact which
was discovered by accident. A lady had been obliged to
kill some ants, the bodies of which lay about on the
ground. Presently a single ant found its dead com-
panions, and examined them and then went off. Presently
it returned with a number of others, and proceeded to
the dead bodies. Four ants went to each corpse, two
lifting it up, and the other two following, the main body,
some two hundred in number, following behind.

" The four bearers took their office in turns, one pair
relieving the other when they were tired. They went
straight to a sandy hillock, and there the bearers put
down their burdens, and the others began immediately
to dig holes. A dead ant was then placed in each grave,
and the soil filled in. The most curious part of the pro-
ceeding was that some six or seven ants refused to assist
in grave-digging, upon which the rest set upon them,
and tumbled them unceremoniously into it."

70 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I will now show you the pupa of a gnat. It is one
of the most useful of all my best objects, for which I
have the greatest regard. Before I ask you to see in it,
amongst examples of a higher nature, an illustration of the
truth I have already reminded you of, that the more we
magnify the more we see, let me repeat one or two facts in
the gnat's life with which, probably, you are not acquainted.

I wonder how many people know that the gnat in the
first two parts of its life is aquatic — that it lives in the
water ? Mrs. Gnat is a boat-builder, and she knows that,
although in her perfect form — that in which you are
best acquainted with her — water would-be death to her,
any other element but water would be death to her off-
spring. So, seeking some bit of weed or any floating par-

Egg-boat of the common gnat.

ticle which she may find on the pond or running stream,
you may, during the summer-time, see her and her busy
companions actively occupied in skimming over the water.
They are seeking some substance, whatever it may be, upon
which they may securely deposit their eggs. Having
decided what it shall be, one after another is laid upon
it, until about two hundred and forty may be counted.

Now, in what form do you think this beautiful
creature has been instructed to build up its kind of
floating nest for her interesting family, who are to live,
remember, not as she does in the air, but in the water ?
Well, it is a boat; exactly in the form of a Thames
" wherry " — a boat without oars, but which can never be

ENTOMOLOGICAL.

71

upset, and which can float upon the stream without injury

until the vivifying sun brings them all to life. Our objects,

remember, are the pupa and the larva, both intermediate

states of the creature.

The larva, which I will

show you, bears very

little resemblance to the

pupa, and neither the

slightest resemblance to

the life which is to come

of them. Here is a true

likeness of the former (fc),

beside another of the

latter (a).

Observe at A a small
pipe extended: I know
only a few animals that
breathe through the tail.
At B is seen the com-
mencement of the breath-
ing-tubes, which convey the air to all parts of the body
Its chief business in life number one is to eat, it has
nothing else to do ; its food is whatever it can find in the
water in which it lives. It throws off its exterior covering,
its outer skin, or jacket we may call it, several times
before it passes into its mummy form, when it becomes
entirely changed. Its eating-time is now over, and the
object we are looking at is that which I am describing.
Not partaking of food, it has no digestive organs. Its
organs of respiration are likewise changed: it has lost
the little tap-like tail with which it came to the surface ;
yet, filling its body with air by jumping up to the sur-
face, it repeats its leap for a similar purpose every time it
needs a fresh supply, and then it breathes through the

Larva of the gnat.

A, entrance of the air-
pipe ; B, the tracheae.

Pupa of the gnat.

72 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

two little ear-like appendages you may see projecting
from its big head.

There is a crisis in its little life-history, just as there
will be in yours and mine ; and that crisis is when it is
passing away from the life that now is to that which is
to come, when it is no longer to live in water, but air.
When the time of this crisis arrives, or when the time of
this pupa would have arrived had it not been taken and
prepared for our inspection, it would have reposed very
quietly on the surface of its watery bed. In a moment
its outer skin, which, in its former state, became detached
from its body several times as exuvia3, would have split
from one end of the body to the other, and presently the
"imago," the final and perfect form of the gnat, would
have appeared. This is what it has been preparing for ;
it is the last chapter in its curious life, and so this is
what I chiefly want you to see and to think about.

Let me first tell you what happened when I fortunately
came into possession of this precious object. I looked at
it with a low power, and saw nothing but a big-headed
creature, having nothing in particular to attract atten-
tion, and I put it into my cabinet between the larva and
imago of its fellow in the division on which I have told
you I have written, " Resurrection at Sight." One day
I looked at this pupa with a greater magnifying power,
when I no longer recognized it as the same object; I still
further increased my aid to vision, when, to my inde-
scribable delight, for the first time in my life, I saw the
future life mysteriously wrapped up and concealed in the
object before me.

It appeared too marvellous to be true, and as I saw the
doubled-up feet, six in number, and the embryo wings,
even to the minute scales (one of the test-objects for
high magnify ing-glasses), my heart leaped up within

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 73

me at the thoughts which rushed into my mind, as I said,
" If this be not a dream or delusion, I see the phenomena
of my own mortal life; for, if the 'Great First Cause'
has bestowed this threefold being, and given me the
privilege of seeing it typified in one of the humblest of
His creatures, why may I not reasonably look within and
discover the internal evidence of my own grand future,
partly exhibiting itself in my spiritual longings now ? "

Afraid lest my enthusiasm should carry me beyond
the realms of truth, I hurried off to the mounter of my
cherished object. I asked him to take down his micro-
scope and look at it. He only employed a low power, the

"Transition : " st-lf-buiied pupa of a ha\vk-mut!!.

object being a large one. « Yes," he said, " it is the pupa
of a gnat ; that's all." " Increase your power," I said ;
when, nearly as much surprised, but not half so delighted
as myself, he confirmed my belief that it really showed
the future life of the gnat concealed within the pupa.

Surely there is a suggestive parable in nature as we
look upon the transition in and transformation of an
insect, as it lies wrapped in its grave waiting the sweet
influence of the sun to awaken it to its newness of life on
its resurrection morning ! Verily all things " are double
to that which is " ! *

* Job xi. 6.

74 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I came home that day a wiser, and, I hope, a better
man.

May I venture to tell you what some of my reflections
were? First, that if there be a future life it appeals to
our reason that it must have some connection with our
present condition.

In the object to which I am directing your attention,
it certainly appears— doesn't it ? — tbat everything around
it and within it was preliminary and preparatory to a
future state, — a segment only of a circle, and not the
whole. Then, if all this wisdom has been displayed in
the life of so humble a creature as a gnat, is it not most
reasonable to believe that it will find its completion in
the life of a man ? Then naturally follows the question,
If we, too, are preparing for something in a future life,
should we not ask ourselves, What is it ? Clearly the so-
called "death" of the first stage in the life of the insect
was not ceasing to be, but only ceasing to be in that stage.
The imago — that is, the final state of a gnat's life — is the
putting on of a new existence for which the two pre-
paratory states were fitting it. The decay of the old body
was necessary in order that the final state might be
reached. The future life, you see clearly, was myste-
riously wrapped up in the chrysalis, only waiting to be
unrolled. The gnat received with its earliest being t':e
germ of all that it was to be hereafter ; and do you think
all this would have been bestowed upon an insect and not
given to a man, therefore to such as you and me ?

Do you not see what splendid possibilities are within
u=?, and, therefore, what tremendous responsibilities are
around us ? The whole record of our immortality is laid
up within us now; and it is only the mortal envelope
that encloses it, which prevents it being visible. But the
Almighty One has lovingly given us spiritual truth in

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 75

such a sensible picture as this, and all it needs is a
spiritual eye to perceive it, and a spiritual understanding
to receive it.

When we arrive at such a reasonable conclusion as
this, the eternal world is brought wondrously near to us,
and every part of our mortal nature becomes irradiated
with it, while it lifts up and adorns every sphere in which
we live, and, as an eloquent author adds, some of whose
thoughts I have been interweaving with my own, " what-
ever our place, if we are doing our work well, earth
becomes the ante-room of heaven, and we are breathing
in hallowed air."

There is no greater boon which God bestows upon us
than these sunbright illustrations and convictions, which
make the present and future life meet and blend together.
He who possesses it cannot live without lifting up, every day,
a hymn of praise for that existence whose line stretches,
unbroken, through the endless avenues and towards the
mellowing radiance of the city of God ; and he cannot lie
down to the last agony without feeling the strength that
gives him wings to rise above it, as with the last motions
of his lips he says to the world in which he has lived,
"Goodnight."* "

No better object than this shall we find that will
illustrate our subject — "a story of the invisible world;"
and no other instrument than the microscope, which is to
the mind what faith is to the soul, would enable us to
see it.

Now, be pleased to look at the final state of our friend.
Here is a beautiful specimen of what you see marked as
" The Culex pipiens " — the piping gnat, that is the name.
Such a creature would have come from such as you have
just been looking on.

* Abridged from " Foreglcams of Immortality."

76 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

The great French naturalist, Keaumur, says, " The gnat
is our declared enemy, and a very troublesome enemy it
is. However, it is well to make its acquaintance, for if
we pay a little attention we shall be forced to admire it,
and even to admire the instruments with which it wounds
us. Besides which, throughout the whole course of its
life it offers most interesting matter of investigation to
those who are curious to know the wonders of nature."

Observe the remarkable beauty of its wings, covered,
in an orderly manner, with a number of delicate scales,
similar to those on the moth of the silkworm, where four
hundred thousand have been counted; -the head present-
ing the most astonishing armoury of lancets and tubes,
preceded by the most beautiful of plumose antennaa, and
enlightened with twenty-four thousand lenses.

Surely all this will suggest to you something of the
phenomena of another life, and bring to your remem-
brance the words with which we all are familiar, " It doth
not yet appear what we shall be."

Here is a specimen of that terrible family of insects,
the locusts. It is a relation of our English grasshopper ;
and this will enable you to appreciate the blessing we
enjoy in being delivered from such a scourge as, in Africa,
is still called " the eighth plague of Egypt."

All who are familiar with country life are familiar
with the chirp of the grasshopper, but, happily, all are
not acquainted with the features of a live locust, because
it is rarely seen in England.

Among my presents, I once had a live locust sent me,
and I was struck with its remarkable resemblance to a
horse ; but were the strength of the horse proportionate,
in respect of its size, to that of the locust, what a veritable
giant would it be in the power it would possess !

Our instrument reveals to us the secret of this strength.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 77

You. see it is in the muscular power of the two hind legs :
they form a solid compact mass of muscular fibre, every
bit of which is a true mechanical spring, enabling the
creature to make those remarkable leaps which is cha-
racteristic of the class of insects belonging to what the
entomologist calls Orthoptera, signifying " straightwing,"
on account of the manner in which the under wings are
folded below the upper.

I believe it was a German author who, writing about
the house-cricket, described it and the class to which it

Locust.

belongs, which is the same as Locusta, as " praising the
Lord by rubbing their legs together : " it was very true,
if very strange, language. Let us compare the wing-case
of the cricket with others of its family. See, here is one ;
it is that of the male, who uses his musical instrument,
like a good husband as he is, to please his wife. On the
wings of the grasshopper you may count upwards of fifty
tooth-like keys, which are very similar to those on the
cricket.

It seems reasonable to believe that the variety of
sounds produced by insects are intended for signals to

78 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

their companions, who, of course, must possess organs of
hearing.

"I will tell it softly,
Yon crickets shall not hear it, ' —

these words are from our poet Shakespeare, whose remark-
able acquaintance with the secrets of natural history
often appears to approach inspiration. We notice these
musical keys in the wing of the male cricket only, not
the female, — for, as the celebrated entomologist, Swam-
merdam, remarks, in confirmation of Rennie's statement
that " it is the males alone of crickets who are musical, —
the females make no noise," but in that -part of the male
wing-case which is folded horizontally over the trunk,
there is a round plate made of a very fine transparent
membrane, resembling the tympanum of the human ear ;
it is surrounded by a strong and prominent nervure,
concealed under the fold of the left wing-case; and
Eennie, who is a most reliable authority, writing upon
the subject of noises produced by grasshoppers and
crickets, adds it is exceedingly probable that the quick
motion with which these insects rub these nervures
against each other produces a vibration in the mem-
brane, whence the sound is augmented, so that it is
literally true that crickets do " praise the Lord by rub-
bing their legs together."

A whole chapter might be devoted to this part of our
story. We might tell of one who took so great a fancy to
the merry chirp of the house cricket that he was accus-
tomed to keep them, for their music's sake, in a box in
his study. Some fancy they presage misfortune ; others
that it is unlucky to kill them : we prefer very much to
have them silent, and nicely spread out before our eyes
under the microscope.

If a chapter might be devoted to the story of our

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 79

domestic friend, the house cricket, how many might be
devoted to his foreign relation, the true locust — that
tropical pest, which is worse than an invading army in
the devastation it produces, and which, — though, thank:
God, it is very rarely seen in England, and then only an
accidental importation — is sometimes seen in the suburbs
of Paris, but is frightfully destructive in some parts of
Turkey, also in Asia and Africa.

Here is one example. The present Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Goschen, when he returned from Con-
stantinople in 1881, from his work in the city of the
Sultan, whose finance, like our own, he had been endea-
vouring to improve, said, at a public meeting in London,
in justification of his sympathy for the Turks, " I am not
placing this picture before you simply to harrow your
feelings ; but I did wish to give you a picture of some
of the troubles which were weighing upon the Turkish
Empire — some of the disasters which seemed to add to
the complications that were pressing on the Government
of Turkey. I am sorry to say that 1 have not exhausted
the list. A plague of locusts came on the western shores
of Asia Minor and laid low the crops ; only this morning
I received a letter from a government officer telling me
that the plague had reappeared, devastating the crops
and corn — that 1700 tons of young locusts had to be
buried in his district alone." You may examine the
undigested contents of a locust's stomach, if you please,
from a specimen I have recently had sent me. You will
find its large capacity completely filled with parts of the
bodies of insects and little bits of leaves. It was e\ idently
a first-rate gourmand, wasn't it?

Here is a description of the ravages these instruments
of desolation will make, which is confirmed over and over
again by all Eastern travellers : " 'Wherever they alight

80 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

they change the most fertile country into a desert. They
are seen coming in innumerable bands, which, from afar,
have the appearance of stormy clouds, even hiding the
sun. As far and as wide as the eye can reach, the sky is
black, and the soil is inundated with them. The noise
of these millions of wings may be compared to the sound
of a cataract. When this fearful army alights upon the
earth, the branches of the trees break ; and in a few hours,
and over an extent of many leagues, all vegetation has
disappeared ; the wheat is gnawed to its very roots ; the
trees are stripped of their leaves; everything has been
destroyed, gnawed down, and devoured. When nothing
more is left, the terrible host rises, as if in obedience to
some given signal, and takes its departure, leaving
behind it despair and famine. It goes to look for fresh
food — seeking whom, or rather, in this case, what it may
devour." *

In one year they covered a vast surface of Africa;
when the wind blew they were driven into the sea, and
their carcases occasioned a plague which laid a whole
country waste.

One kind sometimes comes near to our own shore.
In France rewards were offered for their larvae, and a
curious calculation has been made as to the number
collected in one season, when a hundred and fifty tons of
locusts were thrown into the Khone from only three
departments of France, whose numbers were estimated to
have been 5250 millions — that is, nearly four times the
population of the whole earth.

We, in England, are sorrowfully connected with the
Arabs of the Soudan, where the good General Gordon lost
his devoted life. There the Soudanese endeavour to
frighten the locusts by savage yells. In the Middle

* " The Insect World," by Louis Figuier.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 81

Ages the children of superstition in Ethiopia employed
exorcism against an immense host^of these destructive
insects. A celebrated monk thus describes the cere-
mony. Having made the natives form in procession, he
ordered them to sing psalms, " Thus chanting," says
he, " we went into a country where the corn was, which,
having reached, I made them catch a good many of these
locusts, to whom I delivered an adjuration, which I
carried with me in writing, by me composed the pre-
ceding night, summoning, admonishing, and excommuni-
cating (!) them. Then I charged them in three hours'
time to depart to the sea, or else to go to the land of the
Moors (!) leaving the land of the Christians. On their
refusal of which, I adjured and convoked all the birds of
the air, animals, and tempests, to dissipate, destroy, and
devour them; and for this admonition I had a certain
quantity of these locusts seized, and, pronouncing these
words in their presence, that they might not be ignorant
of them, I let them go, so that they might tell the rest."

The Arabs are said to have an infallible method of
ridding themselves of the locusts ; and in relating both
these stories, we may well consider how the legends of the
Papacy are reflected by those of Mahomet, who one day is
reported to have read in Hebrew character on the wings
of a locust these words : " We are the troops of the Most
High God ; we each lay ninety-nine eggs ; if we were to
lay one hundred, we should devastate the whole world."
Upon which Mahomet, who is said to have been greatly
alarmed, made an ardent prayer, in which he begged God
to destroy these enemies.

In answer to this, the angel Gabriel told him that a
part of his prayer should be answered; and since then
this answer, as a reminder, we suppose, written on a piece
of paper and enclosed in a reed, is planted in a wheat-

F

82 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

field or orchard, which has the power of turning away the
locusts.

In our New Testament we read of locusts forming
human food. The Arabs still eat and are very fond of
them. One was asked his opinion of the insect as an
article of food. Expressing his admiration of locusts, he
is reported as saying, "I only wish I had a basketful of
them, wouldn't I scrunch them ! " English travellers who
have tasted locusts in ignorance, have owned the flavour
is agreeable.

Locusts are not only mentioned literally in the New
Testament, but metaphorically in the -Old, and it is to
the latter the student of natural history must go for a
description of these destructive creatures ; and especially
do we meet with them in the prophecy of Joel. The
darkness and gloominess mentioned by the naturalist is
referred to by the prophet ; * the fierceness and speed of
the creatures, their noise and regularity of march, the
obscuration of the light of day by their number and
flight, and the consternation and distress they bring
wherever they settle ; — all is clearly and exactly described,
although used as a metaphor.

Let any reader, who is tempted to listen to the voice
of one opposed to the inspiration of Holy Writ, compare
the evidence of an unbeliever with the words of a prophet,
and then say what he thinks of that wonderful book we
call the Bible. And first having carefully read the chapter
in Joel already referred to, then let him read Yolney's
" Travels through Egypt and Syria." He writes : " Syria
as well as Egypt, and almost all the south of Asia, is
subject to those clouds of locusts so often mentioned by
travellers. The quantity of these insects is incredible to
all who have not witnessed their astonishing numbers.

* Chap. ii.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 83

The whole earth is covered with them for the space of
several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the
trees and herbage may be heard to a great distance, and
resembles that of an army foraging in secret. The
Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than
these little animals. One would imagine that fire had
followed their progress. Wherever their myriads spread,
the verdure of the country disappeared, as if a covering
had been removed. Trees and plants, stripped of their
leaves and reduced to their naked boughs and stems,
caused the dreary image of winter to succeed in an instant
to the scenery of spring. When these clouds of locusts
take their flight, to surmount any obstacle, or to traverse
more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may be literally said
to le obscured by them.'9

In Dr. .Kitto's notes on this chapter, from which
Volney's words, just quoted, are taken, there are the
following words, confirming my own remark as to the
striking resemblance between the locust and the horse.
Referring to the fourth verse in the chapter mentioned,
namely the second of Joel, where the words occur, " The
appearance of them is as the appearance of horses," he
writes, " The first time we saw locusts browsing with their
wings closed, the idea of comparing them to horses arose
spontaneously to our minds, as we had not previously met
with such a comparison, and did not at the time advert to
the text. The resemblance in the head first struck our
attention ; and this notion having once arisen, other
analogies were found in its general appearance and action
in feeding. We have since found the observation very
common." The Italians, indeed, from this resemblance,
call the locust Cavaletta, or "little horse." Sir W.
Ouseley reports: "Zakaria Cazvini divides the locusts
into two classes, like horsemen and footmen, mounted

84 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

and pedestrian, which will recall to the recollection of a
biblical reader some passages from Joel and the Apoca-
lypse." Niebuhr says that he heard from a Bedouin, near
Basrah, a particular comparison of the locusts to other
animals ; but as this passage of Scripture * did not occur
to him at the time, he thought it a mere fancy of the
Arabs, till he heard it repeated at Bagdad. He com-
pared the head of the locust to that of a horse, the
breast to that of a lion, the feet to those of a camel, the
belly to that of a serpent, and the tail to that of a
scorpion.

If the reader will compare these ^remarks with the
verses in the Bible, he will be forcibly struck with their
family likeness ; and then if he turn to the passage re-
ferred to in the Apocalypse, there he will find that the
invading Arab is referred to, he whose progenitor's hands
were to be against every man, and every man's hands
against him. The star falling from heaven may mean the
founder of Mohammedanism ; and the habits and ravages of
the locust are descriptive in a very remarkable manner of
those of the Arabs, of which Mahomet was the chief. As
" the sun and the air were darkened " by the former, so
was the world filled with the darkness and error of the
latter. The people of Arabia are compared to " locusts "
or " grasshoppers for multitude," t for in the original the
word for both is the same. If the reader, like the
author, is at all interested in these references to the dear
old Bible, let him compare these three descriptions of the
habits of the locust with what the learned Bishop Newton
so carefully and fully explains as characteristic of the
Arabian followers of Mahomet, and he will find that the
structure of the insect and its terrible rapacity are very
remarkably characteristic of the race of Ishmael to this
* Bev. ix. 7- t See Judg. vii. 12.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 85

very day; and he will see that not real, but figurative
locusts were here intended, and he will be reminded of a
similar figure in that remarkable prophecy of Moses,*
where, before the children of Israel entered Canaan, the
punishment which would follow their disobedience was
said to be by sending the hornet to drive them out and
destroy them, and, as we here have a carefully prepared
specimen of the hornet, we may close these Biblical
remarks with its examination.

Yes, it is quite true, I do like to associate the works
of God with His Word. They are to me, exactly what
the most scientific of my books are, complete in this
respect, that all the letterpress is confined to one volume,
and all the illustrations to the other.

Now, if you will just look on the label of our object,
the hornet, you will find it marked "Vespa" this
being the entomological name for the insect ; but vespa
is only an abbreviation of Vespasian, meaning the same
thing, as " Tom " is an abbreviation for " Thomas." And
was it not after the Israelites had reached the height
of wickedness, when they killed the Prince of Life, that,
in A.D. 70, the Emperor of Eome, Vespasian, destroyed
their city, which from that time to this has never been
restored to them ?

The hornet is the largest European species of the
family of the Vespidse, to which the whole tribe of wasps
belong. We may almost read the character of theKoman
Emperor, Vespasian, in Webster's dictionary, where, in
explaining the word "waspish," we may read "petulant;
irritable ; irascible ; quick to resent any trifling afront : "
to which he might have added, " cruel," for a greater act
of cruelty was never performed by any one human being
upon another than what is said Titus, Vespasian's son,

* Deut. vii. 20, compare with Numb, xxiii. 56.

86* THE MICROSCOPE AtfD ITS LESSONS.

performed upon a young Jew whom his daughter loved,
chiefly on account of his beauty. The son inherited not
only his father's indomitable courage, but his " waspish-
ness," and, during the memorable siege of Jerusalem,
A.D. 70, the father, discovering his daughter to be really
in love with one of his enemies, sent for him, and gave
his daughter a present — not as a token of his approval of
the match, but of his views of what all beauty consisted
in, — and it was the young Jew's skin !

Forgive me for here repeating a reference to the
prophecy of what should follow the disobedience of the
Hebrews, as made by Moses before the people entered
Canaan : " The Lord shall bring a nation against thee
from far, fro mi the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle
flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ;
a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard
the person of the old, nor show favour to the young "
(Deut. xxviii. 49, 50). And then think how literally this
was fulfilled in this story of Titus, one of many which is
bitterly remembered by every religious Jew in the syna-
gogue, even to this day — that is, about 3400 years after
the prophecy was made, and 1800 after it was literally
fulfilled — when the " black fast," commemorative of their
beloved city's ruin, is celebrated.

Look at the hornet's sting, — what a sharp two-edged
sword it is ! With this sword it will cut open the body
of the honey-bee when it gets into the hive in search of
honey, and, if the bees do not take to flight, suck all the
sweets out of their bodies. And with such a sword did
the Kornan soldiers cut open the bodies of the Jews in the
sacking of the city, when Titus dug his famous trench
around it, as the carcase lay exposed to the figurative
"eagles," who surrounded the coveted land of Canaan.
For what purpose, do you ask, were these sharp swords

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 87

thus so cruelly used ? For the extraction of the small
golden coins, which, in their love of money, the captives
had swallowed, to secure their safety.

Look at the hornet's tongue, and learn a lesson while
comparing it with that of the bee. How different its
structure ! how different the lives of the two insects,
though of the same family ! How like to human life ;
what singular difference may be observed in different
members of the same household ! How active, busy, and
thrifty one ! how sweet the temper_of another ! but, alas,
how waspish a third !

Here is a wasp-fly, so called from its striking outward
resemblance to that insect. Look at its remarkable tongue,
exceeding in beauty even the tongue of the house-fly.
Now observe those sharp lancets with which the female
deposits her eggs, after the manner of an ichneumon, in
the bodies of its prey. Its number of lenses in its eyes,
too ! Only think of these all being acquired by a grub,
which, in one family of the forty genera and upwards to
which this creature belongs, the Syrphidde, lives in a
state of water and mud while in the first stage of its
threefold life, it is provided with a long slender tail,
through the extremity of which it respires, something
like the larva of the gnat.

The family to which this insect belongs, like many
parasitical creatures has for its life-work the destruction of
other tribes of insects. And I was much amused and in-
structed, in a recent visit to a scientific friend in Gloucester-
shire, while watching the habits of another group, the
wood-wasps in his garden.

Wishing to afford every accommodation to these insects
who fed upon the caterpillars which destroyed his plants,
and observing their liking for open crevices in the bark
of trees, or any quiet corner where they might construct

88 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

a home for their children, he cut down the stems of hem-
lock, growing in the field, which, being hollow, afforded
a snug place for the deposition of the wasp's eggs.
Eeducing these stems into lengths of about a foot each, he
then made a small entrance, stopping up the two ends.
His friends were thus anticipated in their wants, and were
spared the trouble of building for themselves. Now, you
must know that, amongst the solitary or wood genera
to which the wasp belongs, some have a fancy for one
class of animal food and some another. The whole species
frequent flowers and woods, and they are appointed to
keep down the excess of other insects ;- and, in the case
mentioned in my friend's garden, were some curious
illustrations of the marvellous instinct employed in their
work, and the provision they make for their offspring.

Cutting open one of these stems of hemlock vertically,
a curious scene presented itself. From top to bottom
were a number of compartments, very neatly and cleverly
contrived, each for accommodating the grub that would
come from the parental egg. But each of these grubs
would require food as well as lodging, and it was certainly
very striking to observe how all these ends — namely, the
destruction of destructive insects, the fashioning of a
dwelling for a future group, which the fond parent, who
fed, not upon animal, but vegetable life, herself sucking
with that exquisite tongue the sweet matter found in
flowers, would never behold — were accomplished.

Feeding upon my friend's plants were a number of
very small, newly born, pea-green caterpillars, the larvae
of some lepidopterous species. Seizing one of these cater-
pillars, the wasp, with her sharp ovipositor, dropped into its
body, through the minute opening, one egg ; then, grasp-
ing the prey with her feet, away she flew to her hemlock
home, and deposited that living caterpillar in one of the

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 89

chambers of its dwelling. And one after another of
these unlucky caterpillars became the victim, until at
last we counted sixteen living caterpillars in two cells,
one containing ten and the other six. When the eggs so
deposited became hatched, the inner grub would feed
upon the outer, until the whole were destroyed, when the
perfect wasp would emerge from the intermediate state —
the pupa, that is — and escape through the open door.

My friend, whose eyes are always open for such
interesting facts as these, gave me a description of how
one of the ichneumon flies managed recently to obtain
possession of one of those curious insects which, in the
caterpillar state, constructs its dwelling by rolling a
leaf around itself, in which to hide from its enemies.
The ichneumon, making the best use of its many thou-
sands of eyes, espied the caterpillar carefully concealed
in its leafy bed, while attempting to enter; the other,
frightened, endeavoured to escape at the back entrance,
which the enemy, anticipating, instantly discovered,
securing its prey, when the fatal egg was deposited in
the victim's body to hatch in due time.

How many books have been written upon instinct ! In
what respect is it like intelligence? how often is the
former superior to the latter ! For some time this troubled
me, knowing that many insects seem far wiser than myself;
and I wondered whether this remarkable instinct, which
is mysteriously associated with mind, would die out when
its possessor was done with, until I knew that to the
intellect of man there is added a spiritual nature, which is
included in the passage with which we are familiar, " And
God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of lives,
and man became a living soul." *

* Gen. ii. 7. The Hebrew for life, when applied to man, is, in the
Bible, always in the plural.

90 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Are you tired with our work ? Shall we change the
subject, and pass from our examination of the very large
family included in Insecta to what is so very intimately
connected with it — the examination of some of the equally
interesting works of God as seen in the stems, leaves, and
flowers of our woods and gardens ?

The relation of insects to plants is one of the most
interesting chapters in the study of nature. We owe
many variations of flowers and plants, doubtless, to the
large tribes of insects who, carrying the pollen grains
from one plant to another, produce that charming
variety which so beautifully characterizes the vegetable
kingdom.

These visits of insects are chiefly for feeding upon
the honey which is found therein, for the extraction of
which we have already seen so remarkable a provision
is made, in the proboscis or sucking pump. The sweet
scent and bright colours are another source of attraction,
and "the lines and circles on the corolla guide them to
the right spot." *

Not only for the purpose of producing a variety of
changes in the same species of plants, — not in the genus,
remember: no one but the Creator could do that, any
more in plants than in animals; no heartsease, for
example, by the instrumentality of an insect, could
acquire the stature and property of a sunflower, nor by
the visit of a hunible-bee would the red clover become
anything else but clover, though without such visit it
would be a nothing but leaves ; " — not only, I say, are
insects useful to plants in the formation of their variety,
as in- that wonderful family, orchidacea3, but they are
sometimes busily employed in defending the plant upon
\\hich they live from the depredations of other insects.

* Lubbock.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 91

Sir John Lubbock mentions an instance : " Thus a species
of acacia, if unprotected, is apt to be stripped of its leaves,
not directly for food but to grow mushrooms on. The
acacia, however, bears hollow thorns, and each leaflet
produces honey in a crater-formed gland at the base, and
a small, sweet, pear-shaped body at the tip. In con-
sequence, it is inhabited by myriads of a small ant which
nests in the hollow thorns, and thus finds meat, drink,
and lodging all provided for. These ants are continually
roaming over the plant, and constitute a most efficient
body-guard, not only driving off the leaf-cutting ants,
but even rendering the leaves less liable to be eaten by
herbivorous mammalia."

In a similar manner, while the ea,x-wig (which, by the
way, should be eax-wing, from the striking resemblance
the inner wing of this insect bears to the outside — the
auditory chamber — of the human ear) is often busy seek-
ing to devour the aphis which feeds upon the sweet
nectar found upon our garden plants, the ant protects
the aphis, proclaiming war against the ear-wig ; and, in
return, the aphis allows its friend, the ant, to suck the
sweet juice out of its body which it has first taken from
the plant. This kindness is again returned by the
ants taking the aphis into its nest, and providing for
it there in the winter season. And thus we may see,
if we will but use our eyes, that this principle of giving
and taking is to be found running throughout every
department of nature, whilst the higher and grander
principle of vicarious suffering — that is of substitution,
or, one thing dying in order that another may live —
runs through the whole world from a caterpillar to
the highest type of mankind.

This deeply interesting subject would well repay you
to follow by consulting a deeply interesting little book,

92 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

profusely illustrated, by Sir John Lubbock, on " British
Wild Flowers considered in relation to Insects." In it,
referring to my friend the honey-bee, whose self-told
story may be read in " the Autobiography of an Acorn,*
he says, " To them — that is the bees — we owe the beauty
of our gardens and the sweetness of our fields. To them
flowers are indebted for their scent and colour ; nay, for
their very existence. Not only have the present shape
and outlines, the brilliant colours, the sweet scent, and
the honey of flowers been gradually developed through
the unconscious (?) selection exercised by insects; but
the very arrangement of the colours, the circular bands
and radiating lines, the form, size and position of the
petals, are all arranged with reference to insects, and in
such a manner as to insure the grand object which these
visits are destined to effect."

Nor do these remarks in the least help the hypothesis
of evolution, in my humble opinion. The variety and
beauty to which the author of the book refers are simply
and solely caused, not by any artistic or creative act on
the part of the visiting fly, but by the interchange of
pollen from one species to another, thus improving but
never exchanging or advancing one plant to the genus of
another plant. Our well-known author would appear
to confirm this in his saying, "Every one who has
watched flowers and has observed how assiduously they
are visited by insects, will admit that these insects
must often deposit on the stigma pollen brought from
other plants, generally those of the same species ; for it
is a remarkable fact that in most cases bees confine them-
selves in each journey to a single species of plant ; "
and, in examining our prepared specimens of honey-bees
for microscopical examination, in their stomachs you

* Sunday School Union.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 93

will observe the pollen grains consist of one species of
flower only.

Our field flowers, we have thus been told, owe their
variety and beauty to the constant visits of insects ; in
one instance no less than 118 different insects have been
counted visiting one flower ; in another wild flower, out
of every hundred insects visiting it no less than 58
were bees and 27 butterflies or moths.

You will understand more about plants when we look
into our botanical collection of specimens, all, you will see,
are carefully assorted according to their various structures,
and from their minuteness fully justifying our title of
inhabitants of the invisible world, being truly beyond our
mortal vision without the aid of the microscope. But, ere
we enter upon this very large field, and before we depart
from our chapter on insects, which might have occupied
us for many a long evening, for their name is legion, we
cannot omit calling your attention to one which is well
known, and erroneously considered as belonging to the
same family as bees and butterflies in the great and
important insect family, namely the spider. But because
I shall have much to say to you, and some profitable
"lessons" to suggest, as we journey together over
Spider-land, it will be better to devote an entire chapter
to this interesting subject : so, " lend me your ear," as
Shakespeare says, while I unfold to you a few of the
mysteries of some of the family which boasts the grand
title of "Arachnida,"

94

THE MICEOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

COMPAEISON OF EGGS OF INSECTS WITH SEEDS OF

PLANTS" (see p. 44).

This admirable cut was drawn from nature expressly
for this work, by Mr. W. J. Norman, and the following is
his description of the group of figures upon it : —

Seeds, represented in the four corners ; A. Nemesia versicolor, a species
of snap-dragon ; B. Lynaria cymbalaria, or the ivy-leaved toad-flax ; c.
an umbellifer, allied to caraway seed ; D. Petunia.

Eggs of Butterflies, etc.

1. The Ked Admiral.

2. Cabbage (large white, B.)

3. Wood Fritillary.

4. Brimstone Butterfly.

5. Meadow brown Butterfly.
C. Large heath Butterfly.

7. Copper Butterfly.
8-9. House-fly (front and side
view).

10. Tree bug.

11. Bed bug.

12. Sedge bug.

13. Parasite of pheasant.

14. Parasite of peacock.

15. Parasite of ground hornbill.

16. Parasite of mallee-bird.

17. Parasite of a duck.

18. Egg of the Boat-fly.

19. Ditto the Belle moth.

20. Veneer moth.

21. Clematis Emerald moth.

22. Cabbage moth.

23. Canary shouldered Thorn

moth (front and side view).

24. Swallow-tail butterfly.

25. Yellow Shell moth.

26. Waved umber ditto.

27. Pink Bar ditto.

28. Flea of man (pulex).

DIFFERENT FORMS OF BUTTERFLIES' TONGUES (see p. 65).

Fig. 1. Head of Large White Butterfly magnified about eight
diameters.

Fig. 2. Proboscis of the same, magnified about 25 diameters.

Fig. 3. A portion of the centre of same, about 100 diameters.

Fig. 4. Extreme end of same, about 100 diameters.

Fig. 5. Extreme end of the proboscis of the Small Tortoiseshell
Butterfly, about 100 diameters.

Fig. G. One of the lobes of the same, about 150 diameters.

All drawn from nature.

CHAPTEK IV.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS.

u If tbou intendest to vanquish the greatest, the most abominable, and
wickedest enemy, who is able to do thee mischief, both in body and soul,
and against whom thou preparest all sorts of weapons, but cannot overcome,
then know that there is a sweet and loving physical herb to serve thee,
named Patientia." — I/OTHER.

HAT is our lesson here — patience and perse-
verance. See, here is a fine specimen of the
garden spider awaiting both your patience and
perseverance in a careful examination of its
curious body. It is nicely laid out on the
glass slip, and first examining it with a low
magnifying power and then gradually increasing the
power, which we must always do in our microscopical
studies, — for, remember, it is alike true in nature as it is in
faith : the more we magnify, the more we see ; and the
more we believe, the more is revealed to our spiritual
eyes ; — we shall be astonished at the wisdom displayed in
the life of a spider.

I told you that it was in my belief an error to include
spiders in the great family of insects. The spider is not
an insect : that word comes from the Latin insecta, to
divide ; and the spider's body is not so divided as are the
bodies of true insects.

96 THE MICEOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Spiders belong to a group which includes three
divisions — scorpions, various mites, and spiders proper;
and these are all included in the generic name " Arach-
nida ; " so, if you wish to remember this, you may put
them together thus : —

The cheesemite, scorpion, and the spider
Do form the tribe of Arachnida.

I suppose there is some relation between this very
aristocratic denomination and the legend told us in
Grecian mythology of the goddess Minerva, by whom the
distaff — the ancient spinning machine — was said to have
been invented, to which the Latin poet Virgil refers thus : —

*' To Pallas' arts her hands were never trained,
By th' spinster's trade she gets her livelihood."

The spider, like Minerva, lives to spin and spins to
live ; but, unlike Minerva, the true Arachne is a reality,
while the Grecian goddess was an imposition.

You must know, then, that, according to the pagan
story, although Minerva so much excelled all others in
spinning, yet Arachne, a young lady of Lydia, very
skilful at spinning, challenged her in this art : but it
proved her ruin ; for the goddess tore her work and
struck her forehead with one of the spokes of her wheel.
This disgrace drove poor Arachne into despair, so that
she hanged herself ; but Pallas, which is another name
for Minerva, out of compassion, brought her again to life,
and turned her into a spider, which still continues its
spinning. You will allow this story to be really a beau-
tiful myth, but yet how unlike our Bible stories !

Should you be inclined to listen to a further bit of
gossip, while we look at our spider, let me tell you the
origin of our English word " spinster ; " it signifies, you
know, an unmarried woman.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 97

Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers in summer brought home
the fleece to be spun into woollen cloth during the winter,
and the daughters of our Saxon kings and princes were so
employed long before the Norman conquest. Alfred the
Great, in his will, calls the female part of his family the
spindle side ; and it was a regularly received axiom with
our frugal ancestors, that no young woman was fit to be a
wife till she had spun for herself a set of body, table, and
bed linen. Hence the maiden was termed a " spinner," or
" spinster," and the married woman a " wife " (from the
Saxon " ii'if" to weave), that is, one who had been a spinner.*
How many lessons have others before us learned from
spiders ! You remember that passage in the poem of Job
— the oldest perhaps in the world: "Ask now the beasts and
they shall teach thee," — wisdom, that is. Kobert Bruce,
the brave Scotch king, did this in his extremity ; for, fail-
ing in his opposition to the King of England, it is said
that he owed a final victory to a spider, which, failing just
as many times as he had done in its endeavour to reach
its object, made one effort more and succeeded ; and from
this incident in Brace's history no one in Scotland of the
name of Bruce will ever kill a spider. The motto of a
spider is that which you and I would do well to take for
the motto of our lives in everything we do : " If at first
you don't succeed, try again." " Preliminary failure is
often necessary to ultimate success." These words were
spoken to me many years ago, and ever since I have made
it the business of my life to love a difficulty for the sake
of conquering it, finding that, with too many, boasted
strength is nothing but undeveloped weakness.

Now, then, for a sketch of some few of our spiders ;
for I believe there are upwards of three hundred species
in Britain.

* From « The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," by Dr. Brewer.

G

98 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Kernember, a spider is not an insect: first, it is
utterly destitute of wings ; secondly, it never undergoes
any transformation ; thirdly, the head is not separated
from the thorax as those of insects are, but is united to
it, there being only two great divisions of the wrhole
body, instead of three; fourthly, the eyes, which are
generally eight, are of a totally different character to
those of insects, which are often compound. In the
dragon-fly, for example, we are told by a competent
author,* there are no less than 36,000 separate lenses,
measuring a little more than only a thousandth part of
an inch in diameter, each being really a separate and
distinct organ, with its own crystalline lens in front and
microscopic telescope behind, running back to the retina.
But, having given a pictorial description of this in another
place, I need not do more here than remind you of the
difference of structure and number between a spider's
simple eye and that of an insect ; perhaps, as we get
further on in our story, we may come across the truly
wonderful eyes of some spiders, which will astonish yon
by the perfection of their workmanship, and you will
exclaim something more pleasing than did a very raw
countrymen to one, to whom I am indebted for many
interesting facts in natural history, who, while exhibiting
parts of insects, just as I am now supposed to be doing
to you, heard him exclaim, "Lor, don't they get 'em fine
in Lunnon, eh ? "

How very different to the exclamation of a poor
African slave-boy, who, falling into the hands of our
sailors a few months ago while our war-ships, acting in
conjunction with Germany, were off the coast of Zanzibar,
when rescued and received on board one of our big
steamers, as he was led from one part to another, was
* Henry Walker, F.G.S., in the Leisure Hour, April, 188G.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 99

heard to exclaim, "This could not have been made, it
must have been created ! "

There is a fifth reason why the spider should not be
classed with insects: it has eight legs, while ordinary
insects have six. The nervous system, too, is far removed
from that of insects, as I will show.

That spiders have existed on the earth from a very
remote period, is evident from the fact that various
fossil specimens have been found in the coal formation
of Shropshire. The nervous system is their distinguish-
ing characteristic. In man the seat of sensation is in
the brain, and consists, as we shall see when we come
to our anatomical study, of a number of convolutions,
each of which, says the phrenologist, has its own par-
ticular function to perform in the phenomena of our
lives. "What we call brain in man consists, in insects, of
a series of knotted nerves called ganglia, which extend
to every part of the body. Insects generally have from
six to ten of these little brains, or ganglia, diffused
through their entire forms; spiders have only two, but
they are more like the true brain with which we are
familiar, as being more concentrated: consequently,
spiders are of a higher order, and we shall see what good
use they make of their two brains, as we may with our
double lobe if we will.

Another very striking difference between insects and
spiders is to be seen in the circulation of that life-giving
fluid we call blood. In man the pumping-machine for
this vital fluid is the heart, which involuntarily beats
against our ribs day and night as long as we live, at each
stroke reminding us of our mortality. Spiders are pro-
vided with a true heart, unlike insects, and this heart is
furnished with arteries and veins, giving it, as in the
higher animals, perfect circulation.

100 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Then, again, spiders breathe in a manner more re-
sembling higher animals than insects, intricate and
singularly characteristic of creative wisdom as they are.
Though a few of them breathe by tracheae, the majority
do so by pulmonary sacs.

Now, after this long preamble, let us take a peep
down our magic tube, and see
what there is to be seen with
our own eyes.

"Eyes" Look here! How
they stare at you ! How I pity
a poor fly directly the spider
" eyes " it ! Each o£ these eyes

Head of a spider. look» for a11 the world» like

the bull's-eye lens of a police-
man's lantern, with the dazzling light glaring through
the glass covering.

That good man, and able naturalist, whom we have
recently lost, Philip Gosse, thus describes the mechanism
and occupation of spiders : " The whole tribe," he says,
"is sent into the world to perform one business — they
are commissioned to keep down what would otherwise be
a ' plague of flies/ They are fly-butchers by profession ;
and just as our beef and mutton butchers have their
slaughter-house, their steel, their knives, their pole-axe,
their hooks, so are these little slaughterers furnished
with nets and traps, with caves, with fangs and hooks
and poison-bags, ready for their constant work."

Our specimen is taken from the great garden spider.
Its eight eyes are placed on the top of its head in such a
position that, as the Irishman's gun was so fashioned that
it would " shoot round the corner," so they can see in every
direction. The four middle ones form nearly a square,
and the two on each side have the power of survey which

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 101

brings the image in. contact with the rest. It is not a
little remarkable that the disposition of spiders' eyes is
exactly proportioned to their several habits ; so that in
no sense have they been acquired according to the theory
of evolution.

Now fancy I am showing you the eyes of the large
jumping spider, scientifically known as Salticus tardi-
gradus, retaining their natural form and brilliant colour.
You see they are prepared without pressure, in glycerine,
and give you all the appearance of life, being mounted in
a deep cell, which contains the whole head of the spider.
Did you ever see such eyes! Why, they shine like so
many globes of pure opal ! Observe the combination of
optic mechanism for the perfection of vision, the arched
cornea and spherical lens, its concave-convex body, and
cup-shaped retina, with its layer of pigment. "How
wonderful!" you say. Truly so. These shining hemi-
spheres, we are told, are, in each case, covered with a thick
cornea, a continuation of the skin, which is perfectly
transparent, and thrown off in the process of moulting ;
for I must tell you that as spiders increase in bulk their
outer garments do not increase with their inner growth,
and they throw them off as exuviaB. I shall show you
presently one of these cast-off coverings, exhibiting the
entire outside form of the spider just before it would have
appeared in its new dress. But to think of these beau-
tiful eyes ! Let us take one more striking than the rest,
and, following the admirable description of a reliable
author,* very carefully observe the wisdom of God dis-
played in this act of creation.

The centre of its inner surface is deeply excavated
for the reception of a crystalline lens, which, you will
observe, is globular in form, and which rests behind on

* The late P. H. Gosse, F.R.S.

102 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

the front surface of a hemispherical vitreous body, with-
out sinking into it. The space between this body and
the sides of the lens forms a ring-like channel which is
filled with an aqueous humour, and into this projects a
circular process of the thick pigment-coat, which corre-
sponds to the choroid, thus defining the pupil of the eye,
and at the same time confining the lens to its proper
situation. The margin of this pigment-ring may be con-
sidered as an iris, and is of various colours, as red, green,
or brown, which are active by daylight, while, at the
lack of the eye, it is black.

Now do just reflect again at the important lesson taught
us here. Those spiders which hunt in the light of day
have their eyes fashioned according to their necessities,
while those who hunt at night have an altogether different
adaptation to their varying instincts. Does not this
suggest to us something beyond an "acquirement"? The
black pigment found in day-hunting spiders does for the
spider what the pigmentimi nigrum (black pigment) in
your eye and mine does for us ; that is, exactly what the
black pigment in the camera of the photographer does
for him — suggestive of the idea that the eye acts like a
photographic camera, — namely, absorbs the superfluous
pencils of light after they have made their impression of
the outer object brought to the " sensitized " surface both
of the eye and the camera ; but were the same structure
observed in the eyes of such spiders as usually hunt at
night, that is in the dark, where would they be? So,
what do we see in night-hunting spiders' eyes ? Why, a
luminous curtain reflecting a bright metallic lustre,
making them glare in the darkness like those of cats,
whose eyes they resemble.

Surely here is clear evidence of creative wisdom, and
not merely of a " fortuitous concourse of atoms." What

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 103

greater evidence could be afforded of the wisdom of God !
what greater proof of design! How much do we owe
to the invention of an instrument which so clearly and
unanswerably demonstrates the existence of the Deity
and His care for all His creatures !

Now you will learn why spiders are not classed with
insects. Among other reasons, their eyes are not only
entirely different in their structure, but altogether dif-
ferent in their number.

Following the various parts of the body of our object,
look at its mouth. Did you ever see such a tremendous
weapon ? Observe, first the size of these so-called " man-
dibles " (from the Latin, meaning t: a jaw "). They close,
when striking the prey, like the blades of a clasp-knife.
Their minute points, where they terminate, are hollow;
and, through a very minute aperture at their extremity,
a poisonous fluid is ejected into the wound made by the
sharp point, from a little sac in the upper joint, where the
intense poison is kept, the injection of which immediately
so stupefies the victim that it probably ceases to feel while
it is being despatched. Just think now : from the same
raw material, namely, dead flies or other insects, the
spider contrives to manufacture in that big workshop of
hers — first, food for the preservation of life, and the
increase of growth and strength; then, secondly, a
preparation of the most subtle and fatal of poisons ; and,
most wonderful of all, that curious web, which we shall
presently look at and cry out, saying, " My word ! "

" My word " indeed ! But what does " Mij Word " say
about spiders ? for does not it say something about every-
thing ? What does " My Word " say about a spider ?

" Bide a wee, and do not weary," was a little Scotch
child's definition of faith : let it be ours of works. We
shall see presently.

104 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Now for a peep into another part of the invisible world
which should not only astonish but delight you. "My
Word" says something about a spider's hands.* Just
"put on your thinking-cap," as some say when they are
about to exercise their brains in a weighty matter, — think.
The garden spider has to make a geometric web upon
which it means to catch flies. It is, perhaps, one of the
most curious of all habitations, and vastly different to
the bee's, though equally illustrative of design : but how
can there be design without a designer ?

When I made a large diagram for my lecture upon
the garden spider, I had to employ the compass with
wtrch to draw a circle. How did the spider "acquire"
her knowledge of that? Then, secondly, a spider's net
surely is not the easiest of all floors to walk over, for,
slipping through the absolutely countless divisions, the
poor creature would soon come to grief on the earth
below, and become food for the birds. Some kind of con-
trivance, therefore, must be necessary to prevent this for
the foot which has very hurriedly to run over the web in
order to secure food.

Again, the garden spiders, called the geometric spielers,
make their lines equidistant. With what tool can they
do this ? Where there is contrivance, there must have
been a contriver. What has been contrived for the
spider's foot, and who contrived it? Has it, after all,
been simply acquired ? Never ! Then, again, the web,
as we shall very presently see, is a much more compli-
cated affair than is generally supposed. It is covered
with viscid globes, made by the spider, upon which some
smaller insects — many far too small for your eyes and mine
to see without our microscope — are secured. In dusty or
windy weather these globes are liable to be damaged, or
* Prov. xxx. 28.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 105

covered with dirt and dust, or altogether destroyed by
wind. Would not some suitable instrument be good
with which the creature should be enabled to clean its
curious house ?

Now, please, behold the garden spider's foot. " Why,'*
you exclaim, " it's a comb, and what a number of hooks
and spears are attached to it ! " True, quite true ; but
let us think a bit while we examine with a higher power
this most astonishing display of wisdom.

Here is a foot exactly in the form of a comb. The
teeth resemble exactly the fingers of your hand, and are
used precisely in the same manner ; and you did well to
exclaim just now "My word!" — an exclamation expres-
sive of astonishment ; for " My Word " says, " The spider
taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces," * —
teaching us, by a natural parable, that if we are to dwell
in the King's palace of heaven we must first take hold of
the way He has provided for us on earth, f

These combs number about twenty teeth each, and,
though they are quite invisible to the eye, the micro-
scope reveals them so distinctly that you may easily
count them. Then, as it is wise to have a duplicate in-
strument when the first is likely to suffer damage, observe
there are two combs to each of the eight feet. I can
only suppose these duplicate combs have been wisely
given to the spider for the purpose of supplying that loss
which these animals often sustain in their battles one
with another, for spiders are terribly pugnacious. Observe,
these teeth are so evenly and so closely placed that just
room enough between each allows one strand of web to
lie, so the spider has secure footing in its curious house,
and cannot fall between the meshes of its net. Then,
again, this admirably contrived foot is a perfect gauge
* Prov. xxx. 28. * Matt. xi. 29 ; John xiv. 6.

106 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

with which its geometric web is measured, and so, thus,
it is a foot to walk with, a conib to clean, and a gauge to
measure.

Now, while endeavouring to learn a lesson from what
naturally belongs to the invisible world, let me show the
foot of another spider, that you may compare it with that
of the garden spider.

Spiders, just like many men, have their own reasons
for dwelling, not only apart, but in different spheres and
different localities. Some prefer to float in the air, like
a balloon ; others are fond of the water, and live in a
most wonderful air-proof house in the midst of what you
would say must drown it. Some prefer our company
in our houses; others the fields; many we know of in
our gardens ; and one branch of this very much abused
family has a peculiar fondness for the cellar. The extra-
ordinary large webs to be found in some cellars almost
suggest combined effort.

Here is the leg and foot of a cellar spider, which has
astonished and delighted many a beholder. May you be
reckoned among the number !

Now, an animal that lives in a coal-cellar is subject
to be in a constant state of dirt ; and because the spider
who thus lives must subsist only upon what it catches
there, and because it has one way only of catching flies,
upon which alone, like its numerous relations, it can feed,
it needs especial instruments, not only to keep its body
but its habitation clean ; for if it have no web it can have
no fly, and without a fly it can have no web. What do
you say ? " Why, here are not only combs, but brushes
too ! " Just so ; and " not only combs," as a dear old lady
once exclaimed when I showed her this deeply interest-
ing specimen, " but tortoise-shell combs also," — in allusion
to their transparent colour, which you see is a reddish

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS.

107

brown. But what about the brushes ? There they are,
all neatly arranged behind the combs, thus providing a
necessary apparatus in so disagreeable an abode as a
coal-cellar.

Now, just conceive a man going into a hairdresser's
shop. His object is to have his hair cut, and perhaps, if
it be a hot day, " shainpoo'd." The attendant puts a
circular brush into the band of a machine, which, by a
mechanical contrivance invisible to the visitor, is worked
by human machinery overhead ; he may never have seen
this novel contrivance before, and is perhaps struck with

Brush and conibs of a cellar spider. Drawn from nature.

its admirable application, and asks, very politely, to be
informed who was the inventor.

" Inventor ! " replies the attendant ; " it was never in-
vented : (< we acquired it, simply because we required it."

Would it be very naughty for our inquiring friend
to say to himself, " What a fool ! " ?

I was once invited to interest a large company of
working men and women at a big tea-meeting. I was
begged to take my microscope and a few interesting
objects, and the vicar of the parish asked me to address the
company, which consisted of from four to five hundred.
I thought the best address I could make would be a short

108 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

description of the objects I had brought to exhibit ; so,
after a few words, I began the exhibition with the foot of
this spider, and so intensely interested were these people,
and so completely " flabbergasted," — to repeat my friend's
exclamation, — that beyond this object I could not get ; it
afforded matter for new thought to all who saw it. Will
it do so to the reader, I wonder?

Now, after this story, let us proceed to examine the
spider's web. This is mounted so that we may see
it both as a transparent and opaque object. The latter
is preferable, so we use our bull's-eye lens and see it by
transmitted light. " Why," said my precious wife, the
first time she saw it, "it looks just like golden beads
on silver strings," — alluding to the viscid globes sus-
pended on the lines of web. Now you will understand
why the combs are necessary to keep these exquisitely
delicate threads from encumbrance. Verily, I know not
where to begin when I attempt to express my thoughts
about the spider's web. Our poet Pope says, in refennce
to the creature's fine sensitiveness of touch, —

" The spider's web, how exquisitely fine,
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

And Shakespeare, in reference to the healing property of
spiders'-web— that is, the weaver spider, for while some
are spinners, others are weavers and rope-makers, — says,
" Good Master Cobweb, if I cut my finger I will make
bold with thee." Another of our own poets, Dryden, is
less gentle in his dealings with our friend, and writes —

" The treacherous spider, when her nets are spread,

Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,
And ft els lav off the trembling of her thread,

Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly ;
She .issues forth and runs along her loom,

Eager to sci/e the captive in her net,
And drag the little wretch in triumph home."

Part of garden spider's web, drawn from nature; the lower portion an
enlargement of one portion of the upper figure.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. Ill

Among all the uses to which the spider's web has
been applied, I know of none more striking in the con-
trasts of nature than that seen in the fact that in the
" finder " — the small tube attached to the best of tele-
scopes— there are divisions made, a cross appearing in the
circle, thus cutting it into four equal parts, so that such
a mighty sun as Sirius, that is said to be more than 13
billions of miles from us, shall be fixed by the finder for
the bigger instrument, — that these divisions are obtained
from the thin, fine web of the garden spider, that being
said to be the finest line that can be formed, and so used
by the astronomer for the observation of worlds in the sky,
many thousands of times larger than the earth, and at a
distance beyond all human comprehension.

Here is an exact copy by a clever artist of this very
object, exactly as it appears to you. Observe, these viscid
globes have the thin line running through them; then
note, in one or more instances, the thread passes down and
through, and then takes a contrary direction, passing up
to join another line : it is actually a pulley, and can be so
employed when the net has been slackened by weakness.

A large common garden spider will begin and finish
a net of fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter in about
three quarters of an hour, which contains 120,000 of these
viscid drops.* How are all these thousands of " golden
beads " made — that is the question ?

When the lines are first thrown out of the spinnerets,
they have been found to be free from them ; after a short
time undulations have appeared along the filmy lines,
and, subsequently, at the most regular distance, the viscid
matter becomes formed into alternating large and small
globules by a process of molecular attraction. f

* P. H. Gosse, quoting Mr. Blackball,
f The late Richard Beck.

112

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Spinneret of a spider.

The next part of our object to which I must direct your
attention is the said spinneret. At the end of the rounded

body you will see four
or five teat-like protube-
rances, and, if we increase
our magnifying power, we
shall perceive a number of
very minute apertures in
each. The total number of
these spinning-tubes varies
greatly, according to the
species of- the spider, and
the sex and age of the indi-
vidual, being more than a
thousand in some cases and

less than a hundred in others.* It is through these
microscopical orifices that the persevering creature throws
out the hundreds or thousands of liquid lines which, with
its wonderful " hand," it twists into that one minute
strand, just as the little fibrous bit of flax is made into the
bit of string, so that each fine thread that you see in the
beautiful net of a garden spider really consists of thou-
sands of threadlets of fluid made in that big workshop of
its stomach, which, when united by the workman, become
comparatively a cable, both in strength and structure.

But, observe, the net of such a spider as we are now
looking at consists of two different kinds of thread, though
each thread is formed from the same raw material. Were
our specimen uncovered, and the lines fresh from the air,
you might put your finger upon those which radiate from
the centre to the circumference, and they would not
adhere to it ; but were you to do the same with the long
spiral line which is supported upon that delicate frame-
* Dr. Carpenter.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 113

work, then you would find the viscid globules, which stud
the whole of that wonderful circle, would stick to the
finger.

When a spider wishes to pass from one side of a
locality to another, where there is danger, as, for ex-
ample, a country lane or a garden path, it makes a bridge
of these threadlets, upon which it may safely trust
itself, taking care to pull the cord with its "hand" before
trusting itself upon it, to ascertain whether it has adhered
to the opposite side ; then, venturing, it takes good care
to make another bridge, so that, in the event of one fail-
ing, it may beat a retreat back to its home by the other.

Amongst all the lessons we may learn from this in-
habitant of the invisible world — partially invisible, that
is, in the work it does and the tools it employs, without
the aid of the microscope, — I know of none greater or
more worthy of our imitation than the lesson of economy
which it employs. When the net is complete, the radiating
lines, which are the rafters of the building, after adherence
to some outside object, have their fag-ends hanging from
their extremities. Commencing the long spiral line, she
walks quietly round the outer path, and, carefully cutting
off the loose pieces, swallows them like so many boluses,
making fresh material for renewed work. Here is a re-
minder of the Divine words, " Gather up the fragments
that remain, that nothing be lost." Fragments ! why,
all our lives are made up of fragments !

" The moments fly, the minutes come ;
The minutes fly, an hour is run ;
An hour is fled, the day is here, —
Thus flies a week, a month, a year.

" A year, alas ! how soon 'tis past
Who knows but this may be our last ?
A few short years, how soon they're fled,
And we are numbered with the dead ! "

114 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Every time the clock ticks it speaks to us in a
fragmentary second ; the pendulum is solemnly vocal.
" Now ! now ! now ! " it says ; and another voice silently
joins in the sound — " Passing away." * " Economy " ! —
let me give you an illustration. One evening I was
sitting in my study, very busy a-thinking. I saw a very
minute spider descend from the ceiling, lowering itself
by the rope it let loose out of its spinneret. That little
creature was no bigger than a grain of sand. When it
came within my reach I mischievously sent a whiff of
tobacco-smoke over it. For a moment it seemed stupe-
fied, but, directly recovering itself, it rushed upwards
along its rope, taking care, hoivever, to haul it up after it ;
and I have no doubt that, could I have seen what was
going on aloft, it would have been found to swallow the
rolled-up thread and have been immediately employed
in its remanufacture.

How many lessons may we learn from this remarkable
creature, which for centuries, nay ! for ages, as we have
said, has been silently preaching to our race ! Will you
think I am going a little too far in teaching you a
lesson of heavenly-mindedness from such a humble thing
as a spider ? Let me try.

I told you that there are water-spiders — that is, those
who have a fancy for building their dwellings in ponds
and streams, where they may safely rear their young.
You may have seen the human diver going down into
the water, while from dry land a pump supplies him
with air to enable him to carry on his dangerous work
below : well, the aquatic spider is a diver, but the method
she employs is far cleverer than that of the human diver ;
for, under those eight little legs of hers, she contrives to

* Motto over the large clock in the South Kensington Museum.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 115

convey into her sub-aqueous nest, where she means to
lay her eggs, little globules of air, which, as she passes
from the upper world, shine in the water exactly like
globules of quicksilver. "The shining appearance,"
says one,* "proceeds either from an inflated globule
surrounding the abdomen, or from the space between the
body and the water. The spider, when wishing to inhale
the air, rises with its body still submerged, and only
the part containing the spinneret just appearing at the
surface, when it briskly opens it and moves its four
teats. A deep cone of hair keeps the water from approach-
ing or wetting the abdomen. It comes up for air about
four times an hour or oftener." Another author, De
Geer, tells us how "this species of Arachnida spins in
the water a cell of strong, closely woven white silk, in the
form of half the shell of a pigeon's egg, or like a diving-
bell. This is sometimes left partly above water, but at
others it is entirely submerged, and is always attached to
the object near it by a great number of threads. It is
closed all round, but has a large opening below, which,
however, I found closed on the 15th of December, and the
spider living quietly within, with her head downwards.
I made a rent in this cell and expelled the air, upon
which the spider came out; yet, though she appeared
to have been laid up for three months in her winter
quarters, she greedily seized upon an insect and sucked
it."

" What has this to do with ' heavenly-mindedness ' ? "
did you say ? Let us see. These water-spiders gather the
air around their bodies, and then descend into the stream,
retaining still their aerial garment as their safe protection.
So should the Christian be in the world: his spiritual
life is derived from Him who is the life, and this spiritual

* Clerck, quoted by Reimie,

116 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

life, so derived, is intended as a protection from the
destructive influence of the world, preserving around him
who will receive it the atmosphere of heaven.

I have told you how the spider tests the strength of
its rope before trusting its body upon it : another thought
here affords a good text for a homely lesson ; but how
does it know that such extreme tenuity is sufficient to
sustain its own weight ?

To ascertain the strength of a rope, we more advanced
animals, who once upon a time, some a3ons of ages ago,
were "not human " * (!) multiply its circumference in
inches by itself, and the fifth part of the product will
express the number, say of tons, the rope will carry. For
example, if the rope be six inches in circumference —
6x6 = 36 — the fifth of which is 71 ; we thus ascer-
tain a rope of six inches in circumference will sustain
a weight of seven tons and a quarter. It were a curious
calculation to ascertain whether this law applies to the
finest home-made thread in the world, and whether the
line placed in the elaborate scale of an analytical chemist,
which will tell the weight of a human hair, would corre-
spond relatively with the weight of the creature who
made it.

To form some idea of the circumference of a spider's
web, let me tell you that in some species, which are not
larger than a grain of sand, so very finely drawn are the
lines, that four millions have been reckoned as not
exceeding the circumference of a human hair; and yet
this extremely fine rope is a compound of so many smaller
threads, that in the six spinnerets of one full-grown spider
one thousand in each have been counted, from which the
liquid matter has been thrown out for the purpose of
making the curious net with which the clever workman
* According to some jnodern lights.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 117

si i all take his captive fly. These lines of web give us an
idea of a telegraph-wire. Hiding in a hole very near her"
dwelling, the spider fastens one of the lines to her web,
and attaches it to herself in her hiding-place, and directly
the message comes for which she is waiting, she rushes
down upon her victim just like a cat upon a mouse.

I have likened the spider's web to a telegraph-wire,
believing it to answer a similar purpose, namely, the
conveyance of news. While these pages were in manu-
script, that is in the autumn of 1889, I visited the busy
city of Antwerp, and crossing one of its thoroughfares by
the side of the river, to my great delight I saw a novelty
in the telegraph-wires, and this cut represents it.

VL,cid thread, A, and ordinary thread, B, of garden spider. The former exactly represent*
the Antwerp telegraph-wire.

Now, where do you suppose I found this very figure ?
In the late Dr. Carpenter's work on "The Microscope
and its Revelations," p. 685.

It is very interesting to see what pains the spider
takes in ascertaining the completion of her work. When
it is finished she pauses, surveys it, tugs hard at each
thread, then shakes her body hard and plump to test it,
breaking off with the thumb of her "hand" any loose
parts, and actually replacing defective strands, and then
running a number of small circles in the centre of the
net closer to each other. Thereafter comes a storm or
some rude hand and sweeps all away, and she has nearly
emptied herself over that precious net. WThat will she
do ? Give up ? Never ! " Never give up ! " is a spider's
motto ; why should it not be ours ?

118 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS

" Never give, up ; it is wiser and better

Always to hope than once to despair ;
Fling off the load of doubt's heavy fetter
And break the dark spell of tyrannical care.

" Never give up, or the burden may sink you ;

Providence kindly has mingled the cup :
And, in all trials and troubles, bethink yon,
The watchword of life must be ' Never give up.9

" Never give up ; there are chances and changes

Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one ;
And, through the chaos, High Wisdom arranges,
Certain success if you'll only hope on.

" Never give up ; for the "wisest is boldest,

Knowing that Providence mixes the cup ;
And, of all maxims, the best, as the oldest,
Is the true watchword of —

'NEVEE GIVE UP!'"

How many very striking instances of wisdom have
been registered connected with such a very ordinary
thing as a spider's web ! Some years ago, one had built
her beautiful nest just outside our sitting-room window,
thus affording me a capital opportunity for observation.
Presently a fine specimen of what is commonly known as
" daddy-long-legs," or crane-fly — scientifically, Tipula —
dashed into the snare, poor thing ! I knew she had taken
her last flight. Down rushed the spider, and the first
thing it did was to bind its rope round the large wings
so that escape would be impossible ; and the next to bind
the legs so that the net should not be broken. Then
began the meal, and, in a very short time, nothing but
the skeleton of the victim was to be seen — a warning
to those who do not keep a distance from all who are
watching whom they shall devour.

The following incident was witnessed by a corre-
spondent of the Times newspaper, and communicated to

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 119

it some time ago. A boy removed a small spider to
place it in the centre of a big spider's web which, was
hung among foliage, and distant some feet from the
ground. The larger animal soon rushed from its hiding-
place under a leaf to attack the intruder, who ran up one
of the ascending lines by which the web was secured.
The big insect gained rapidly upon its desired prey ; but
the smaller creature, when barely an inch in advance of
its pursuer, cut the line behind itself, so that the bigger
one fell to the ground, affording time and opportunity
for an escape along the ascending rope of the web, — thus
indicating that a spider's instinct may almost, if not quite,
equal what we call reason.

One of my entomological friends, who knows how to
make the best use of his eyes, once told me of a hunt-
ing spider, living in the earth, in a solitary cell, having
no web like our garden spider, that was accustomed to
weave a net over the door of its house when it went out
searching for flies, so that its meal might be ready on
its return in case its search had been in vain elsewhere.

That prince of entomologists, Kirby, tells us that
one day he placed a spider on a tall stick set up in a
vessel of water. It dropped from the top of the stick, not
by a single but by two separate threads, distant only one-
twelfth of an inch from each other, guided, as usual, by
its hind feet. When it reached theVater it stopped short,
finding it was in danger of its life; then it broke off one
of the threads close to the spinneret, which, still adhering
to the top of the stick, floated in the air, and was so light
as to be carried by the lightest breath: at length its
glutinous nature caused its adherence to some distant
object, which the creature discovering, climbed up the
stick, tugged at the extended thread, and, when it had
satisfied itself of its sufficiency of strength, it walked

120 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

down its self-made bridge in safety, strengthening it by
another strand in case it might want to return.

A big volume might easily be written upon the
wisdom displayed by this persevering creature, so much
abused because it happens to have a reverse side to that
which I have thus briefly described for your edification
and imitation; but what living creature is there that
lias not two sides to its character ? The nearer we aim at
tbe bull's-eye of the target, the surer we may hope to
reach the centre ; but, alas ! there are too many who go
very wide of the mark simply from having taken what
is called " a lad aim."

" Cunning and fierce,
Mixture abhorred 1 "

writes Thomson, describing a spider's life rather harshly
in his poem of " The Seasons." Here is one illustration of
the poet's truth. When the honeymoon of Mr. and Mrs.
Arachne is over, the husband has to make the best use of
his eight eyes, or Mrs. Arachne will make short work
of him by chawing him up to make cobweb ; so he,
fully aware that his short-lived happiness may meet with
an untimely end, and knowing that the carnivorous
propensity of his spouse declines dead animal matter,
assumes all the characteristics of defunctation, and, roll-
ing up his eight legs as in death, lies still, knowing, from
the superior bulk as well as speed and strength of his
wife, that escape is hopeless. Taking " a last long linger-
ing look behind," she leaves him to his melancholy fate ;
but, directly she has disappeared, new vigour possesses
the animated male, who shows us that his big brain,
eight eyes, and as many feet were not given him in vain.
As a set-off to this cannibalism as exhibited by one
sex toward another, let me tell you of the extreme love
the spider has for her children. In no respect do spiders

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 121

show their wisdom more than in the building of their
egg-bags, the material of which, though made from the
same animal matter as the web, in the same loom, and
with the same apparatus, is of a totally different descrip-
tion, the latter resembling cotton and the former silk.
The egg-bag of the spider, — which, as we have already seen
in the case of some garden spiders, may contain so many
as 170 eggs — is a very clever contrivance, being made
entirely of silk, and carefully concealed in some out-of-
the-way corner in the garden. She knows perhaps that
these children of hers will never be seen by their parent,
and yet she has been taught to love herself last, so that
they who will survive her may have sufficient food to last
them till they are old enough to find it for themselves.
Among all the quaint epitaphs which may be read upon
some of our older tombstones, I know of none more so
than one erected to the mother of twenty-one children,
which runs thus : —

u Some have children, some have none, —
Here lies the mother of twenty -one."

Did the mother of that thrice-perfect number display
the same maternal love that this spider would have done,
whom you might have roasted alive, firmly clutching in
its hands its baby-bag, choosing rather to perish than
leave go its hold ?

One lesson to be got in the study of spiders is to
avoid their quarrelsome disposition. It was thought at
oue time that spiders' silk, if its production could be
cultivated, might enter into competition with silkworms',
and for this purpose breeding spiders upon a large scale
i^as attempted; but in vain. The bad tempers of the
family bred nothing but quarrels, which ended, as some-
times they have ended in the quarrels of another family

122 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of animals, fatally. From the spinnerets of a spider the
wheel of a toy steam-engine has drawn out 150 feet per
minute, continued for from three to five minutes; and
some years ago, from one spider 18,000 feet of silk were
thus drawn, resembling spun glass, and measuring one-
fifth less in diameter than that drawn from a silkworm.
The quantity of silk equal to that drawn from a silkworm
would require the work of more than six spiders; so that,
as it takes 3500 silkworms to produce one pound of silk,
nearly 23,000 spiders would be required to produce the
same quantity. A pair of stockings is said to have been
made from this silk,* and there was a report in the news-
papers not long ago of a present of a dress, from the
Emperor of Brazil to our good Queen, made entirely from
the silk of 17,000 Brazilian spiders. What a curiosity !

I have already said something about the spider's
quarrelsome disposition, but I have not told you one very
remarkable illustration of a spider's wisdom when it has
paid the penalty thereof in the loss of a limb. When
one leg has been bitten off in the struggle with an
adversary, the damaged spider will quietly retire into
seclusion, and, with the sharp jaws of its own mouth,
separate the injured member from the joint, when it will
grow again.

There are some good people who think that by self-
denial they can cure the body of its evil propensities.
Everybody knows what this too often leads to when the
" fast " is ended. So is it with spiders. One kept under
glass for ten months, without food, when released attacked
another spider, and carried off limb after limb. During
its imprisonment it had eaten three of its own limbs,
each stump being properly removed at the joint, re-
appearing in the new growth.

* Kirby and Speuce.

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. 123

Said a good friend to me, "I cannot see what pleasure
you can have in the study of such vermin as these. What
is the use of spiders and worms ? " I tried to explain to
him the value of the earthworms, in that every bit of
garden-mould has been produced by them, and that long
before the creation of man worms were the humble
instruments which God used in the preparation of the
soil for the seed which man should be employed in
sowing. " What's the good of spiders ? " They preserve
the balance of life ; thus affording food for the birds ; the
nightingale finds both food and medicine in poor Arachne.
A fine plump garden spider is said to be- an effectual
voice-lozenge for the sweetest of singers, while the merry
and almost omnipresent sparrow finds in the spider the
necessary and gentle purgative for the greedy nature
of its appetite. It is computed that a pair of sparrows
will destroy upwards of three thousand caterpillars in a
week, and when they have thus indulged we may easily
believe they may suffer from indigestion ; but a few small
spiders put them right in their over-indulgence of appe-
tite, and a good fat one or two correct serious conse-
quences, and produce convalescence.

In some parts of the world the natives are blessed
with spiders about an inch in length, which they catch
and eat after roasting. One young lady is reported as
having such fondness for raw spiders that she put them
into her mouth, cracking them like nuts, which she said
they nearly resembled.* Not one whit worse was this
than the fancy 'the Eomans had for roasted caterpillars
or grubs, spread, as we have butter, upon dry toast ; but
"there is no accounting for taste." Shakespeare, who
knew almost everything, has already reminded us that
the web of a spider is goo.d for a finger-cut.

* Kirby.

124: THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

But if we go on at this rate we shall spend all our
time in the study of nothing but spiders. We have seen,
now, something of the spider's web in one " revelation ; "
let us conclude with a reminder of what is said about it
in the other.

The spider is mentioned three times in the Bible:
first by Bildad (Job viii. 13 —15), which, following the
original, reads thus : —

" Such are the ways of all that forget God !
So perisheth the ways of the hypocrite !
Thus shall his support rot away,
And the building of the spider be his reliance ;
And upon its building shall he lean, but it shall not stand."

Then, secondly, by Isaiah (lix. 5), where the wicked are
described as " weaving the spider's web," — building, that
is, upon something which the slightest disturbance will
destroy. And then, lastly, by Agur (Prov. xxx. 28), where
we are taught to blame ourselves for the consequence of
self-neglect, and our despising the worth of the things
that are small.

By the first two references I am singularly reminded
of the truth of the Bible, in a remarkable instance of a
spider, whom its Divine Author employed as an instru-
ment of retribution ; an illustration not only of the two
texts above quoted, but another, namely, "Be sure your
sin will find you out " (Numb, xxxii. 23).

A man who had a secret desire to get rid of his wife,
determined to destroy her with poison, which he intro-
duced into her food at one of their meals ; but not having
the courage to sit at the same table with her while she
swallowed the fatal meal, he left for a few minutes. In
the mean time a spider found its way on to the table, and
crawled upon the poisoned food; and the wife brushed
it away, not caring to eat that which the creature had

LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS.

125

touched, and, supposing that her husband would know
nothing of it, changed the food from her own plate to
his; and on his return he actually swallowed the poison
which he had prepared for his wife, and thus became the
victim of his own wicked design.

Let us interweave the three references already quoted
into one pattern, and, refusing to believe in what is called
"chance," remember the fourth, and believe rather with
our great dramatic poet, that

" There's a divinity lhat shapes our ends.
Rough-hew them how we will."

:

CHAPTER V.

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS.

" Reject the society of the vicious ; shim the agreeable infidel and the
accomplished profligate. Lay it down as a fixed rule, that no brilliancy
of connection, no allurement of rank or fashion, no agreeableness, no wit
or flattery, shall tempt you to associate with profligate or openly irre-
ligious men. Make this an absolute rule. It is impossible not to suffer
by its neglect. If you do not fall into their vices, still your heart will be
estranged from the love of God." — GKESLEY.

E are again literally "embarrassed with
riches," and when we look at the drawers
in our cabinet marked "Botanical" we
are puzzled to know where to begin ; but
as all life begins in an egg, and an egg
and a seed have been seen to be so very nearly
alike, not only in principle but in structure, let
us renew our comparison of one with another. We have
already thought upon this in our brief reference to the
eggs of insects ; let us now think more about it in our
inspection of the beautiful structure of the outside of the
seeds of many of our humblest plants.

An old writer says, " There is a strong analogy between
insects and plants. The latter originate from a seed which
is nothing but a husk, in which plants, however large they

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 127

Inay be when grown, are found entire ; insects issue from
an egg enveloped in its shell, which encloses them in all
their proportions. Plants grow daily by the accession* of
alimentary particles; insects are developed, swell, and in-
crease by means of a nutritive juice. Plants at first put
forth a stem, and afterwards clothe themselves with leaves;
insects begin by appearing in the form of a worm, and
then acquire wings. The leaves of plants are full of
nerves, which divide into a multitude of ramifications;
the wings of insects have likewise a vast number of
similar nerves. Leaves differ from one another in form
and in the sinuations of their margin ; wings likewise
are varied by their configuration, and by the manner in
which their extremities are indented. Plants push out
flower-buds ; insects become nymphs and chrysalids. As
those buds, after having flowered, give fruit in their
maturity ; nymphs and chrysalids, after a certain time,
produce perfect insects. Lastly, as fruit contains the
seed proper for perpetuating the species of plant which
produces them, insects, when arrived at their state of
perfection, carry also within them the seed from which
similar insects are to be generated." *

Many of our common garden-flower seeds might well
be placed in comparison or contrast with the eggs of some
of the commonest of our moths and butterflies. As a
good judge will always tell the name of the painter
when he looks upon one picture on comparing it with
another, so the same handiwork is visible and the same
artist recognized in the exquisite sculpture which these
beautiful eggs and seeds have for the external envelope
which encloses the germ of a future life.

Seeds belong to flowering plants ; but plants that are
flowerless, and do not, therefore, bear seed properly so

* M. Lesser (1799), in « Insecto-Theology."

128 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

called, bear instead, in the most exquisitely contrived
envelopes, "spores" (from the Greek spora, "a seed"):
these are minute grains, the beauty of which could never
have been discovered but for the aid of our microscope.
The spores perform the function of true seeds, amongst
ferns and mosses, and many cryptogamic plants, which,
with mushrooms and other fungoid growths, compose the
lower orders of vegetable life, often bearing fruit more
than a thousandfold, yet without producing any apparent
blossom.

And that we may begin at the right beginning of our
chapter, let us pause as we learn a lesson from what we
may call "the natural history of the lower orders of
vegetable life."

The " lower orders " have always played a conspicuous
part in the interest of life, to whatever species they may
have belonged. From the various specimens before us we
shall learn much that, while it attracts our attention and
astonishes our minds with the care God has taken for the
humblest work of His hands, has also a lesson for us to
learn; for just as there are "tongues in trees," so are
there voices from the lower orders coming to us equally
with those of a higher and nobler family, all speaking
the same language as the stars, and joining in their
grand Hallelujah chorus, " The hand that made us is
Divine."

Look, then, at the spore-case of a garden fern. The
edge of the frond is ornamented with a yellowish-brown
border neatly running from the base to the tip. We
have taken a small piece of this frond to show you the
process of fructification. We put it in our stage forceps ;
then, placing the forceps in the appointed place, throw a
strong light from our lamp through the bull's-eye lens on
to the stage. Behold I

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 129

Ah ! you may well exclaim, as a pious astronomer once
did on surveying the starry heavens, "What omnipo-
tence ! " The power of God is seen just as much in the
formation of a seed as in the formation of a sun ; for, after
dll, is not a seed a tiny world ? And is not the embryo
contained in it its inhabitant, " whose seed is in itself,"
mysteriously wrapped up, generation after generation, so
that generations yet unborn do lie concealed under that
exquisitely sculptured envelope ?

" Nothing can be more ungrateful," says worthy Mrs.
Trimmer, " than to pass over the works of God without
consideration. To study them is among the highest grati-
fications the human mind can enjoy, provided the study
is conducted upon religious principles.
The book of nature is open to all. On
every leaf, ' Creator, God/ is written."
If our clear poet Wordsworth could
write, looking upon London as seen
from one of its bridges —

" Dull would he be who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty" —

much more may we be affected in con-
ternplating the works of God, which,
He says, " ought to be remembered,"
and which, in the lowest and meanest
and humblest conditions of life, as
well as the noblest and highest, give
such unmistakable evidence of design.
Now, look closely upon the spo-
rules, that is, the spore-cases, of our
fern. The heat, condensed by the con- Fern (Polypodium),
vex side of our lens, has produced what with f™tifi<*ti
may be called artificial hatching. Look! the case

I

130 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

burst, and its contents are scattered in all directions.
How was this effected? What secret spring was em-
ployed for this purpose?

Look at this preparation of one of these spore-cases
from a small frond of Adiantum. The fleshy parts of the
envelope which contains the spore-case have been care-
fully removed, and the empty cases, in their true colour,
are seen ; and there, concealed in the centre, are the
mechanical springs— twenty we count in one case, not the
twentieth of an inch in diameter, each spring containing
upwards of twenty coils of exquisitely contrived material ;
and it is the sudden yielding of this, which is held to-
gether by glutinous matter, that, releasing the spring,
sends the beautifully shaped spores in any direction the
wind may take them.

The two beautiful families of ferns and mosses, you
must know, are not to be included in the lowest orders of
plant life. Ah, no ! they are of a much higher order, but
are mentioned here as giving you a practical illustration
of the admirable contrivance in such plants as have no
woody tissue, and which therefore require some special
arrangement for the dispersion of their seeds. The
motions in plants afford to the student of nature one of
the most interesting of all the chapters in the study of
botany ; and we cannot have it better illustrated than in
ferns and mosses ; and while we are so doing let us show
you how this operation is performed.

Here now is the spore-case of one of the commonest of
our field-mosses, Funaria liygrometrica ("a measurer of
moisture"). The spore capsules of this species are closed
at their summits by what are called Opercula (from the
Latin operio, " I cover over ") ; and a more beautiful
object for the microscope, or a better illustration of
design in so humble a thing, it is difficult to conceive.

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 131

The spores are held in the case by a beautifully contrived
peristome, as it is called (from two Greek words, peri,
" round about," and
stoma, " a mouth ").
Our object is mounted
in a deep cell, and
covered with a mov-
able glass lid, so that,
when uncovered, the
light from our lamp
can be thrown on to
the object; and from
the convex character

Of the lens, with the Mouth of tbe capsule of a moss (Funaria),
, , ' t , showing the orifice of seed-vessel.

increased light, there

is an increased amount of heat. Now, what this little
moss would have required in its living form for growth
and fructification was light, heat, and moisture. I wish
you to know that it is fully five and twenty years since
this specimen was mounted for me, and yet its motion
has been, and still is, preserved. Let me show you what
I mean. While you look down our magic tube, I will
gently breathe into the capsule, and you will find the
toothed mouth gradually open to disperse its hollow con-
tents— always ready, you see, for its work. My breath,
you know, contains both the properties, namely, heat and
moisture, the moss would have required ; and it is very
remarkable that, after so long a time, this speck in crea-
tion should be so ready for its work. It reminds us of
the motto of Lord Napier, " Heady ! ay, ready ! "

One more illustration of the admirable arrangement
by which the embryo of the plant — the future life, that is,
wrapped up and concealed in the seed — is protected, and
the means employed for its release,

132 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Here is a small seed of a garden plant called Collomia.
Moisture, again, is the necessary element employed for
the release of the embryo, which lies in the body of
the seed hidden as the soul does in the body of man.
Now, let me remove a very small portion of this little
seed, and, placing it on a slip of plain glass, while you
are looking down the microscope, put one small drop of
water on the slide. Immediately it comes in contact with
the embryo, a vast number of mechanical springs begin
to uncoil themselves, leaping out from the surface of the
seed. These springs are about the one five-thousandth
part less in size than they now appear to you to be. The
fibre of which these perfect pieces of mechanism are con-
structed is of the finest possible description, and the
workmanship and contrivance are singularly characteristic
of the most profound wisdom. Verily the works of the
Lord are " great," but they must be " sought out," and
that not by any careless observer, but by "those who
have pleasure therein."

Now we shall get some small idea how it is that spores
of plants, which compose what we have called the lower
orders of vegetable life, are conveyed into the strange
places in which they are discovered.

Have you ever observed a house-fly fastened on to a
pane of window-glass during the latter part of summer ?
Did you wonder at its prolonged position ? and did you,
on going close to it, find it quite dead and fastened on to
the glass, surrounded by a faint halo of greyish matter?
That fly, a poor Musca domestica (the common house-fly),
was destroyed by a vegetable, the spores of which, enter-
ing its body, multiplied with such amazing rapidity, that
at last, living upon the fly, the end came ; and then the
animal making a last effort to live, as is so commonly
done, it clung to the glass with its sucking tongue, while

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 133

the fungus, filling the animal's body, burst through the
tldn wall that concealed it, forming that ring which en-
circled the victim. This Empusa muscte, as botanists call
it, is one of the poorer classes, in the lower orders, that is,
of vegetable life — a parasite, that loves to feed at the
expense of the common house-fly. So rapid is the growth
of some of the members of this family, that 4000 millions
of them are produced in one hour, each one, though a
simple and invisible cell, being a perfect plant.

You will be much interested during the autumn if
you look out for this, our first illustration, upon the glass
panes of your house windows. You will find the dead
body of our friend so friable when you touch it that it
will immediately crumble into dust, and yet, just before
you do so, you will scarcely believe in its death — it so
retains the attitude of life. You will observe that,
unlike dead insects, who usually draw up their legs just
before dying, crossing them beneath their bodies, the fly
you are looking upon is supported upon its outstretched
legs, its feet retaining their adhesive property in the
exercise of the peculiar suckers with which this class of
insects is able to hold on to glass; and, most remarkable,
the wonderful tongue, to which your attention was directed
just now, is extended, the empty shell being fastened to
the window beneath it. The halo of whitish dust surround-
ing the body is composed of the spores of the fungus,
which have so burst through the abdomen of the fly that
the rings composing it are actually separated from each
other — with such force did these curious things, with
their united strength, release themselves. This dust
which surrounds the body, with the aid of the microscope
is found to be a true mould, and a fair specimen of that
large class of unicellular plants to which so much atten-
tion is now being directed in the scientific world in

134 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

respect to the diseases to which we ourselves are sub-
jected.

Now, let me show you another of my curiosities,
which, had it a tongue, as Shakespeare fancies others of
its family have, this is something like the story it would
tell us: —

"'What am I,' did you say? Both vegetable and
animal. I am a very small portion of a gift from New
Zealand, made to my present owner, who is exhibiting
my poor remains to you this evening, many years ago.
Two of us came over in one ship : this is all that remains
of myself. My brother shared a worse fate ; for he suffered
death twice, but I only once. Listen ! In the land in
which my family live there grows a wild fruit called by
the natives Jcumerea, or sweet potato. We feed upon it,
and we like it because of its sweetness. One day, while
I was busily employed over one of these potatoes, the
spore of a fungoid plant, which rejoices in the name of
Spliseria Eobertsii, having as great a fancy for my body
as I had for the potato, found its way into my stomach
with the food I was devouring. That one simple plant
made not the slightest difference to me ; I took no notice
of it. But from what small beginnings do some fatal end-
ings come ! That one invisible thing very quickly gave
birth to millions of others, and in a very short time the
fleshy matter which came from the potato, and which had
accumulated under the integument of my body, ceased to
be. This formed a capital nidus for the growth of my
enemy, and after that was consumed, all the softer parts
were progressively consumed also, or assimilated, all which
once formed the vital portions of my body ; and these
united and microscopic vegetables, after completely de-
stroying my life, and so entirely filling up every nook
and cranny under my skin, burst through it at the

BOTANICAL: THE LOWEE OEDERS. 135

weakest point — for, remember, caterpillars have their weak
points, just as other animals that I could name have
theirs — and, then, as if in triumph, seeking the outer air,
the plant formed a strong woody stalk, rising above the
surface, developing the spores which were dispersed in the
air and then fell to the soil, prepared to take advantage
of any other caterpillars who might, unfortunately, fall in
their way."

Such would be the story of this "vegetable cater-
pillar," as the natives call it, which is a common object
in New Zealand, and very well known there, belonging
to a moth of the genus Hepialus.

"A romance," do you call it? Yes; but you have
only heard one-half of the story. Let me tell you the
other half.

First, let me prove to you the truth of what you have
heard. Now, we place this section of this vegetable
caterpillar under a low power. See, that long spiral line
forming a mechanical spring, so freely running over the
object in every direction, is all that is visible of its
animal remains, except that darker spot ; and these two
are verily the trachea and spiracle of the caterpillar, for
which, I suppose, the plant had no fancy. But the romantic
part of this story has yet to be told. Many years after
I received these two caterpillars, having fastened them
up securely in a pasteboard box, tying it round with
string, one day I thought I would have a peep at them,
when, on opening the box, to my astonishment, while one
was perfect, exactly resembling the outward form of the
creature whose body was a vegetable museum, its fellow
had gone to dust, in which were some broken bits of the
outer skin.

No one had touched the compartment of the cabinet
in which the box had all these years been lying. How

136 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

could the dust have come there ? and what could have
become of the body? That was the question. So I
exposed this apparently inanimate dust to my microscope,
and you may guess the surprise I felt in beholding this
dust to be a mass of microscopic beetles. Like good old
King George when he saw the apple in a poor woman's
dumpling, I couldn't help asking myself, "How did it
get there?" I can only suppose that the eggs from
which these almost invisible beetles came must have been
deposited in or upon the potato, passing through the
various stages of life and growth, just as seeds do, which
so nearly resemble insects' eggs, not only in form but in
their life-history ; and that, for all the intervening years,
this colony of brothers and sisters, and fathers and
mothers, and grandfathers and great-grandfathers, from
whom they came, had been feeding upon that vege-
table caterpillar. But the romance in this story of
vegetable life is not even yet ended. I took one of these
living beetles to a very dear friend, now in heaven, to
whom I have been greatly indebted for some of the
beautiful diagrams which have been so helpful in my
lectures, and whose friendship was one of the many
precious results of those lectures, just for the purpose of
having its portrait taken ; and you may guess its extreme
minuteness and delicacy when I tell you that my friend
accidentally killed it, after taking a drawing of it, by
simply turning it over with the soft brush of a camel-hair
pencil. But that is not all.

In Dr. Carpenter's valuable book already referred to,
"The Microscope and its Eevelations," there is an in-
teresting description of such fungoid vegetation in insects
as I have described, with woodcuts showing what things
there are in the world that are not dreamt of in our
philosophy; and he mentions a case under examination hi

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 137

which such beetles as I have described, on being opened,
have been found to be inhabited by a still smaller fungus.

Nor must we think that we ourselves escape. What
is diphtheria, ringworm, what we call "consumption"
(phthisis), cancer, and other fatal diseases? Dr. Car-
penter tells us, in the work I have mentioned, that a
disease of the scalp, in which yellow crusts are formed,
consists almost entirely of the mycelium, receptacles,
and spores of a fungus, and that the like is true also of
those white patches on the lining membrane of the mouth
of children which are known as " thrush."

It will amuse you if I relate a story in which I was
the chief actor — one of the many singular results of my
adventures in lecturing. Some years ago a doctor who
attended my family invited me to give one of my
lectures to the members of a well-known dispensary —
now a hospital — in my own neighbourhood. I declined,
remarking that it was simply presumption; but he
pressed so hard that I accepted the invitation. The
subject required was to be one that should bring all the
members, every one of whom were doctors of medicine
or surgeons, together ; so I gave out the subject with a
highly attractive title, adding that it was an argument
fur the further use of the microscope in disease. Well,
the evening came, and I, taking care that I would say
nothing I could not prove, armed myself cap-a-pie with
diagrams and microscope, and, when all was over, a well-
known M.D. said he had an interesting case of death the
day before. A child had died of diphtheria, and he
thought it a good opportunity to examine the disease
with iny instrument ; and, neatly folded up in a napkin,
he had brought down some matter for my examination,
t.iken from the trachea.

I wished that I was anywhere but in that lecture-

138 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

room that night, I assure you. However, remembering
that " nothing venture, nothing have/' I thought I would
look into the disease. A well-known M.D. prefixed his re-
marks by saying, " I don't think you will find any organic
formation at all in it." So, spreading out some of what
bore the appearance of clotted cream on a slip of gla*s,
and using the highest magnifying power I have, namely,
the very best one-eighth, that magnifies 400 diameters,
that is, 160,000 times, it appeared to me that between
this disease and these fungoid plants to which I have
been referring there was little, if any, difference, each
ultimate particle — invisible, of course, to the eye without
the aid of the microscope — being a small circle with
another generation inside ; that, in fact, it was nothing
but or ganie formation ; and I said so. A smart discus-
sion followed, and the end was that I discovered they
took me for an M.D., and in their happy ignorance, in
which I, mischievously, did not undeceive them, they
made me an honorary member of the dispensary !

Innumerable instances might be here recorded of one
thing living upon another ; and while describing the very
interesting illustration of the vegetable caterpillar, I
remember a similar case of the mysterious way in which
eggs, like seeds, find their way into places and things
that puzzle our minds exceedingly.

Some years ago I was shown a large case of various
descriptions of flies deposited, for safe keeping, in the
hands of one of the first opticians in London, during
the owner's absence abroad. The case, when I saw it,
represented its appearance on the owner's return when he
went to claim the property, on which he set great value.

What a scene ! Swinging on the pins on which the
specimens had been so long impaled, fastened to the cork
below, were nothing but their skeletons ; the Dermestes,

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 139

commonly known as the "bacon-beetle," had somehow
or other got into the box, and had produced such an
enormous family that the entire collection was destroyed,
leaving the remains as a witness of what may be the
consequence of a single act of incaution.

Again, I remember, among many other instances,
how that one whom I well knew was surprised at find-
ing the boards of the floor in his little parlour lift up the
carpet which covered them; and, on removing both, he
found, to his amazement, that the soft heads of some
rhubarb plants, waking up to their usual spring-time
work, had been left in the earth which formed the
" foundation " of the house, the boards being laid only
a foot or two from it, and they were actually the cause
of the removal of the floor.

Again, in the city of Gloucester, it was observed that
the thick paving-stones of one street of the city were, one
after another, split, as if some mischievous fellow had
wantonly damaged them while men slept. On lifting
them up, guess the surprise on finding the stone-breaker
to consist of a vast number of fungoid microscopical
plants, whose united strength had produced the breakage.

But still again ; another friend, a shipbuilder, came
to me one day, and said he had noticed the gradual
removal of the big logs of timber that lay in the yard,
and after wondering what could have shifted them from
their position as they lay on the bare earth, he changed
the place of one, and found beneath a white mass of
soft fibrous matter growing, which, when he brought me
a specimen, I found to be a mass of fungoid plants, so
firmly joined to each other that their interwoven mass
resembled thick grey felt.

Do you know what "dry-rot" is? Another of my
friends, standing on the naked boards of his kitchen, sud-

140 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

denly disappeared below, the boards letting him down.
The woody tissue had been entirely eaten up by the
small plant which feeds upon it, and is commonly called
" dry-rot."

I do not know, in all my experience, of better illus-
tration of the importance of little things than may be
found in the ravages occasioned by this microscopic
vegetable, known to botanists by the name of Merulins
laclirymans, which in a few years will destroy some of the
best and most solid-looking of houses. "The ships in
the Crimea suffered more from this cajuse than from the
ravages of fire or the shot and shells of the enemy. So
virulent is its nature that it extends from the woodwork
of a house even to the walls themselves, and, by pene-
trating their interstices, crumbles them into pieces." " I
knew," says Professor Burnett, " a house into which the
rot gained admittance, and which, during the four years
we rented it, had the parlours twice wainscoted, and a
new flight of stairs erected, the dry-rot having rendered it
unsafe to go from the ground floor to the bedrooms. Every
precaution was taken to remove the decaying timbers
when the new work was done ; yet the dry-rot so rapidly
gained strength that the house was ultimately pulled
down. Some of my books which suffered least, and
which I still retain, bear mournful impressions of its
ruthless hand; others were so much affected that the
leaves resembled tinder, and, when the volumes were
opened, fell out in dust or fragments." *

Surely these are solemn "lessons" to be read in such
a revelation as this, which only the microscope could
have explained.

Dr. Carpenter mentions that in the neighbourhood of
Bas;ngstoke a paving-stone, measuring twenty-one inches

* Quoted by Rev. H. Macmillun.

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 141

square, and weighing eighty-three pounds, was com-
pletely raised an inch and a half out of its bed by a
mass of toadstools (which are fungi); nearly the whole
pavement of the town being upheaved by the same cause.

The author of " Footnotes from the Page of Nature "
tells us that "countless millions of the subtle seeds of
fungi, invisible to the naked eye and light almost as the
particles of vapour around them, are continually floating
in the air we breathe, or swimming in the water we drink,
or lying in the impalpable dust and sand of the soil,
waiting but the combination of a few simple circum-
stances, the presence of warmth or moisture, or a suitable
matrix, to display their vital energies, and to burst into
full, free, independent life. Hundreds of thousands of
the minute germs of the various moulds which approach
us in our very houses, and fasten upon different articles
of domestic use, might be, and often are dancing about
in the air-currents of our apartments, though invisible
to us; but could we sufficiently magnify them, as a
sunbeam darted in at our windows and illuminated their
bodies, they would appear like so many cannon-balls
moving rapidly up and down, and in every direction.

"These countless myriads, then, of invisible seeds
which continually float in our atmosphere, ever ready to
alight and spring into life as the advanced heralds of the
plague and the pestilence, may well strike us with
astonishment, if not with awe. Above us, about us, and
in us they roam like vigilant spirits, seeing after our
physical constitution, but gladly availing themselves of
the slightest flaw to work our destruction.

"Although fungi are in an especial manner capable
of universal dissemination, yet we find that in their
geographical distribution they are as much restricted as
other plants."

142 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Now, having preached a sermon to you, let us think of
what may be almost called the comical side of our illustra-
tions. Have you ever heard of the portentous growth
of fungi in a gentleman's cellar, produced by the decom-
posing contents of a wine-cask, which, being too sweet
for immediate use, was allowed to stand unmolested for
several years? The door in this case was blocked up
and barricaded by the monstrous growth; and when
forcible entrance was obtained, the whole cellar was found
to be completely filled, the cask which had caused the
vegetable revel drained of its contents, being trium-
phantly elevated to the roof, as it were upon the shoulders
of the bacchanalian fungus.*

What a picture of an irreclaimable drunkard ! — de-
bpoiled, empty, and a nuisance !

We need not marvel at such romantic chapters in the
story of a plant, when we consider the extreme minuteness
of the spores of this description of fungus. The common
puff-ball is said to contain ten millions, and these so small
as to form a cloud when puffed into the air. A single
filament of the blue mould which lives upon our bread,
and especially upon fruit, will produce as many germs
as an oak will acorns, each having in its microscopical
cell the embryo of future generations. One of this family
of puff-balls, the Bovista gigantea, occasionally to be seen
in our fields and plantations, will increase in one night
from the size of a pea to that of a melon !

Philosophers tell us there are hosts of these germs ;
some call them "microbes," the seeds of minute fungoid
plants, which fly about in all directions, propagating
diseases. Evidently, however, under ordinary circum-
stances, many pass off harmless.

Don't ask me, " Why, then, were they created ? " 'Tis
* Hugh Macmillan, in " Footprints from the Page of Nature."

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 143

enough to know that everything created is a servant of
Him who is the Creator, and the more we know of Him
the more we shall believe in His goodness. They have
their part to perform in the drama and system of life,"and
we must wait for clearer light. When the mists are
rolled away that now keep us from distinguishing between
good and evil, we shall understand what appears to be

Diatoms, shown v,-ith dark-ground illumination.

mystery. Now we know only in part ; then we shall know
even as we are known : so writes Paul.

Passing from this part of our subject, let me call your
attention to the first letter of the botanical alphabet
when we rise above the great fungoid family.

Here are many specimens of that wonderful class of
true plants known to microscopists by the name of diato-
pacea, which are the peculiar property of the micro-

1-44 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

scopist, for without his instrument they would certainly
have remained unknown. Nothing can exceed their great
beauty, though many are not so large as the point of the
finest needle.

Look at this, and this. Here is another Arach-
noidiscus (that is, the spider-web disc) : does it not
remind us again of our spider-story? And do you not
admire the structure of this wonderful skeleton of a uni-
cellular plant? for it is nothing more, the fleshy portion
having been removed by nitric acid ? It is formed entirely
of flint, and is a very interesting episode in the story of a
pebble. Huge volumes have been, and will continue to
be, written about these wonderful plants. " They open up
to us the infinitude of microscopic life ; they reveal a vast
and glorious realm of new creative design, whose limits
can never be fathomed, and whose mysteries can never be
exhausted by man's finite researches. It is not so much
what they actually disclose that awes and astonishes us,
as the bewildering boundlessness of the unknown arcana
beyond, to which they point. The vast additions which
they have made to our knowledge have only left the
immensity of the universe of life greater and more mys-
terious than before. For it is almost certain that, if our
vision could be made more piercing, and our instruments
more perfect, while we explored onwards through the
successive realms of the invisible towards the inmost
shrine of nature, we should find new scenes of wonder
and beauty continually unfolding themselves, and new
fields of omniscient display constantly revealing to us
that God was still before us in all His exhaustless,
creative energy, and that we saw but ' the hidings of His
power.' "

These are the beautifully expressed thoughts of a
devout student of science, the author of " Bible Teachings

BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 145

in Nature," a book which I heartily commend to all who
would " look from nature up to nature's God."

" Many are the important lessons which may be drawn
from the study of plants when prosecuted in the true
spirit of wisdom. The volume of creation is then made
the volume of inspiration, and the more that each is
studied, the more shall we find occasion to observe the
harmony that subsists between them. It is only Science
falsely so called which is in any way opposed to Scripture.
The more minutely we examine the phenomena of the
material world, and the more fully we compare the facts
of science with revealed truth, the more reason shall we
have to exclaim, in adoring wonder, with the Psalmist of
old, ' 0 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom
hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy
riches ' " (Professor Balfour's " Manual of Botany ").

CHAPTER VI.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES.

" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the Law of the Lord ; and in his Law doth ho
meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water, that bringeth forth, his fruit in his season ; his leaf also
shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." — DAVID.

E are now to explore some of the invisible
regions of the upper classes of vegetable
life, and to ponder over the structure of a
few of the inhabitants of the invisible
world with the necessary aid of our instru-
ment. Let me tell you that much patience
as well as perseverance will be necessary, and we
must learn how to take advantage of every description
of illumination; for it is equally true of one of God's
revelations as it is of the other — everything depends upon
light. "We may fail in discovering some of the pro-
foundest of His secrets through ignorance of the way to
the purest light ; or, we may be blinded with an excess
of light. The same principle holds true in the Word
of God as in the works of God, and the devout student of
Scripture, as well as the thoughtful lover of the micro-
scope, has continually to say, " In Thy light shall we see

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 147

light." Each is a revelation, and we not only need a
right spirit to receive the secrets of His Word, bat a right
understanding to penetrate into the mystery of His
handiwork.

We want the simplicity of little, loving children in
order to receive from the great Teacher the secrets of
what we call " nature," and to remember the words of the
Master, " I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes," before
we can see into the supernatural. Nature is a nurse who
has her glorious picturer ready for such of her children
as have eyes to see, reminding one of the simple but
beautiful lines with which some of us are familiar —

" For Nature, the old nurse, took

The child upon her knee,
Saying, ' There is a story-book
My Father has written for thee.

" ' Come, wander with me,' she said,

* Into regions yet untrod ;
And read what is yet unread
In the manuscripts of God/

" And he wandered away and away,
"With Nature, the dear old nurse ;
And she sang to him night and day
The songs of the universe."

Now we have a choice object. It consists but of three
small leaves of the common box with which we border the
beds of our gardens ; in it we have a typical representa-
tion of all leaves. And what a wonderful thing, truly, is
a leaf! and more wonderful still is a plant, whereas a full-
sized forest tree, one of the very commonest of all God's
works, is a standing monument of His Almightiness !

When we think of the variety of form, and taste, and
colour, and produce of trees, the sweetness of one and the

148

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

sourness of another ; and then consider that all seem to
grow in the same manner, from the same soil, very often
on the same spot ; that they all breathe the same air,
drink the same water, and digest the same food, and all
so silently, so steadily, so invisibly; — what lessons may
we not learn from their delightful study ! and what solemn

thoughts do they suggest
on the mystery of growth !
Their inward structure
is as regular and various as
their outward forms are ele-
gant and well-proportioned,
while many suggest devout
thoughts concerning the
sign of man's salvation —
the token of the new cove-
nant— the Cross.

Their formation cannot
have been originally de-
signed merely to attract the
eye of an accidental spectator, but rather to render the
production more perfect in its appeal both to the senses
and the soul. The root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, fruit,
and seed have each a peculiar character as well as a
special mission, the wonders of which can only be fully
revealed by the microscope. Thus viewed, they appear
to vary in an endless diversity, each working for the
same end and by means of the same law. No part in
either the smallest leaf or the most minute fibre but
what is formed with the most exquisite exactness and
consummate skill.

What a mystery is growth ! " The man who does
not care and ceases to grow becomes torpid, stiffens, is
in a sense dead ; but he who has been growing all the

Transverse section of a New Zealand
plant.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. H9

time need never stop; and where growth is, there is
always a capability of change. Growth itself is a suc-
cession of slow melodious ascending changes." * These
words apply both to trees and men, and one is strikingly
illustrative of the other.

Verily there is very much in the life of a tree that
reminds us of the life of a man, and not only of a man,
but of other animals. Several of that wonderful family
Orchidaceae resemble, one a wasp, another a bee, another
a spider, a fourth a fly, and another resembles the dove,
which is often figured over the head of the Saviour, de-
scending at His baptism, enjoying the name of " Spirito
Sancto," or Holy Ghost flower ; others are like large and
brilliant butterflies.

Then, if we examine the structure of any one of the
p^uts, we shall find how nearly it runs parallel with that
of an animal, from the circulation of the vital fluid to the
solid limbs and the outer covering ; and the lessons they
teach are as many and as varied as are their forms and
their beauty. But now we have to do with their internal
structure, and the object upon the stage of our instrument
will make this plain.

Of course, you are aware that plants do breathe ; but do
you know how ? And do you know that while we inhale
the gas oxygen (a word from the Greek oxys, " acid," and
gennao, " I produce ") from the air, plants inhale carbon
(a Latin word signifying " coal," because every bit of true
coal was once part of a plant) ?

That which we exhale (carbon as carbonic acid) they
inhale, and the spirit of giving and taking is nowhere more
beautifully taught us than in what we see in the life of a
plant.

Now, in these three little box-leaves, which do not
* Dr. MacDonald.

150 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

measure more than half an inch in length by a quarter
of an inch in breadth, you will observe a vast number of
little openings lying over the whole of the skeleton ; for
you must understand that the fleshy part of these leaves
has been removed, that we might learn how a plant
breathes. Wordsworth sings as a poet —

" And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."

I cannot tell you whether a flower enjoys sensation. I
can tell you that it possesses the virtue of punctuality; so

\W.G.S.AD.NA7 «F X..3Z6.

Portion of leaf, showing cellular tissue and stomata.

much so that a floral clock has been constructed, com-
posed of English wild flowers, arranged on the principle
of the rest, or sleep, which all plants are known to take
every twenty-four hours, each flower, being suspended
over the figures on a dial, opening or closing punctually
at the time indicated by the hour. I can tell you also
how very nearly these little openings on the epidermis
of our box-leaves resemble the air-cells in your lungs
and mine, in which as many as 600 millions have been
reckoned, distributed amongst 18,000 air-tubes. Equally

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 151

characteristic of the Creator's wisdom are the air-cells in
a plant; and those in the leaf before us, you will see,
are countless. One harbinger of summer is the lilac.
How plentiful is its foliage! how sweet the well-known
blossom it produces ! and what early associations of youth
are brought to mind year by year, if only in our father's
garden there happened to have been a lilac tree !

In one square inch of a lilac leaf there are no fewer
than 160,000 of what are called stomata (from the Greek,
meaning " a mouth "). They are formed by two half-moon
cells, the cusps of which unite around an oval orifice,
which opens and shuts exactly as do the millions of air-
cells in our lungs; and these, observe, are spread over
the entire epidermis, that is, the external cellular cover-
ing. In the skeleton of one of these three box-leaves,
mounted, not to show
stomata, but the mid-
rib, and what may be
called branches of the
leaf, we see a true repre-
sentation of our own
skeleton. That midrib
is an analogy of our
great backbone — the
vertebral column — tho
main trunk of the ner-
vous system, which con-
veys the messages we
send to the most distant
of our bodily members
from the great central

telegraph-station, the

° r Skeleton of black poplar leaf.

brain. Let us employ

our highest magnifying power, called a sixth, which

152 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

shows us the object, with our first eye-piece, two hundred
and forty diameters larger than it appears to our unas-
sisted vision. Now, if we apply our highest eye-piece, this
will increase our magnifying power, superficially, to near
upon a million times, and now we can penetrate into,
not only the concealed mystery of this midrib, but the
minutest of branches. And there, in this "common
object for the microscope," what do we behold? The
most exquisite chain of cells and forms of beauty that
our minds can conceive ; and exactly as our backbone is
divided into partitions with a great central canal pro-
tected on every side that the pulpy mass of nervous
matter may not be injured, so here, in this tiny leaf, is
the same evidence of anticipation of a want, which none
but the all-wise Creator could supply. Verily the
Supreme Being would appear to have exhibited more of
His magnificent wisdom in the smallest of His works
than in the largest !

And then, following up the analogy of the skeleton
of a leaf with that of a man — its method of breathing, and
working, and sleeping— let us pause to think of the
number of times men are compared to trees in the Bible
— upwards of three hundred, it is said — the text at the
head of this chapter being typical of them all. You m iy
be familiar with the words of Isaiah, "As the days of a
tree are the days of My people " (ch. Ixv. 22), and with
those of Moses, " And the tree of the field is man's life "
(Deut. xx. 19) — such words as these remind us of the
relation of animals to vegetables, and assure us that He
who made and cares for the humblest of His plants will
not forsake His children, just as a good father will care
less for his pictures than for his offspring. And we are
also reminded of the wonderful words of love of the great
Teacher, " If God so clothed the grass, . . . will He not

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES.

153

much more clothe you?" supplying all your necessities
for both worlds.

Yes, just as we may usually see on the best of watches
the name of the maker, so may we, if we will, see the
private mark of the Creator on the humblest of His works,
even as we are trying to do on these little leaves, which
measure only half an inch in their length, and half that
in their breadth.

When Apelles, the Greek painter, called on his friend
Protogenes, and found him absent from home, he entered
the studio, took the pencil which had been kept ready
for the master's use, and made one straight line with its
point on the unfinished subject. When Protogenes re-
turned, he exclaimed, " Apelles of Cos has been here ! "
He recognized the artist in the faint line he had left
behind. And may we not recognize the hand of the
Creator in His handiwork, when we observe the same
principle employed in
either branch of the
natural world ?

Here are all sorts of
leaves awaiting our exa-
mination. The Deutzia,
from which all the fleshy
part has been removed,
and, like the beautiful
skeleton last examined,
with nothing but the
framework left. Here,
again, we have an ana- Siliceous skeleton of Deutzia.

l°gy> but not as between a plant and an animal, but
between a plant and the starry heavens ; for the frame-
work of this plant consists of a host of microscopic
stellate forms of exquisite beauty, and when this object

154 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

is seen under polarized light for which it has been
specially mounted, and we get a bright blue background,
with these siliceous crystals in the foreground in a
brilliant golden colour, the resemblance to the heavens
on a clear night is very striking. This skeleton is in-
soluble, being formed entirely of flint, which mineral is
abundantly distributed amongst plants. If we examine
the ashes of hay or straw after they have been burned,
small lumps of what appear to be dirty glass will
be found mixed up with them. This is caused by the
fusion of the flint (silica) contained in the cuticle com-
bining with the potash in the vegetable tissue, forming
what is known as "silicate of potash," the scientific
name for glass. And this was how glass was first dis-
covered.

In the midst of the cellular tissue of almost every
leaf you will see a number of minute crystals called
rapMdes (Greek, "needles"). These are beautiful forma-
tions, sometimes of phosphates or tartrates, sulphates or
carbonates. They are the medicinal properties in all
plants. In the onion they are oxalite of lime ; in the apple,
malic acid. And here I should like to call your special
attention to the medicinal property of an apple, which
is a chemical composition of albumen, sugar, gum, chlo-
rophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and water, mixed
up in vegetable fibre. It is said that the apple contains
a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit
or vegetable. This phosphorus is admirably adapted
for renewing the essential nervous matter of the brain
and spinal cord, for rousing sluggish livers, for neutralizing
the effects of unwholesome food, and for the dispersion of
chalky matter engendered by eating too much meat ; and
for diminishing acidity in the stomach, apples are the
finest of all medicines. A good lipe apple is one of the

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 155

easiest of all vegetable substances for the stomach to
deal with, the whole process of its digestion being com-
pleted in eighty-five minutes.

A poultice made of rotten apples is of very common
use in Lincolnshire for the cure of weak or rheumatic
eyes ; and in Paris roasted apples applied over the eye?,
without any intervening substance, in the form of a
poultice, is of common application; and an old maxim
teaches that —

" If you eat an apple going to bed,
The doctor then will beg his bread."

Now let us examine this section of Turkey rhubarb. It
contains abundance of raphides of a very strong dissolvent
oxalite of lime, forming the chief ingredient of the onion,
the crystals of which we shall see abundantly stored up
in its cuticle, and which give to it its peculiar flavour ;
but besides this chemical, rhubarb contains tannin, gallic
acid, resin, and other chemicals, forming 36 to 40 per
cent, of its substance. The structural likeness between
men and plants is remarkable in no point more than in
their compositions. A man's body weighing 126 Ibs. con-
sists of 11J Ibs. of charcoal, 11J Ibs. of gas, 8 Ibs. of lime,
and 05 Ibs. of water. Think of that ! — that is, exactly
two-thirds liquid. Or, it may be put chemically, that a
human body of average weight consists of 45 Ibs. of
carbon and nitrogen diffused through about five pails
of water ; and yet when the body of a bulky woman was
cremated in the Woking Cemetery three years ago, her
corpse, weighing 200 Ibs., was reduced to 3 Ibs. when the
ashes were collected.

Water forms the chief ingredient of plants, as it does
of man, and the Turks are correct when they place over
their beautiful fountains the quotation from the Koran,
" Everything lives by water."

156 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Potatoes contain 75 per cent, of water; turnips and
carrots, 80 per cent. A sunflower plant consumes twenty-
two ounces of water daily. Three million pounds weight
of water, it has been said, would be required for an acre
of sunflowers; five millions for an acre of cabbages;
six or seven millions for one of hops. Through the
agency of this vital fluid plants take up all the elements
of their composition, and much is absorbed from the
earth through the roots. Now you will understand why
last summer (1890) we have had such a wonderful
growth, if you remember the gracious showers which
have fallen.

Experiments made with the grain and straw of oats
have given the extraordinary result of eleven different
descriptions of inorganic matter assimilated into the life
of the plant from the soil and the air, weighing (in 1000
Ibs.) nearly 26 Ibs. in the grain, and 57^ Ibs. in the straw ;
and this wonderful combination of eleven inorganic sub-
stances includes potash, soda, lime, magnesia, alumina,
oxide of iron, oxide of manganese, silica, sulphuric acid,
phosphoric acid, and chlorine ; and out of these inorganic
substances 20 Ibs. of the 26 Ibs. in the grain, and 46 Ibs.
out of the 57 Jibs, in the straw, are found to be silica, that
is, flint.

Now observe this cuticle of wheat-straw.* Only look
at the exquisite formation of the siliceous crystals. How
regularly they are arranged ! how countless their number !
and how beautiful their forms ! Compare them with
the Deutzia, and ask why such exquisite pains should
have been taken with the variety of these flinty forms,
which, but for the microscope, would never have been
seen. And here, too, in the cuticle of the wheat-straw,
we see the little stomata, or open mouths, which take in
* See page 252.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 157

the moisture of the atmosphere, and, with the inorganic
substances drawn from the two great sources, earth and
air, produce our most necessary food. You will remember
that in the lilac as many as 160,000 have been reckoned
in a square inch. Let me take an average-sized leaf from
the lilac tree in my garden, and measure it. See, it is
2f inches in length, by 2^ inches in breadth. A careful
measurement shows that there are 4J square inches in its
composition, so that there would be upwards of 640,000
breathing mouths on this one leaf. "What must be the
total number on the entire tree ? Verily a tree is a
miracle.

An oak in Sussex was twice carefully measured, and
its contents, trunk and limbs, accurately taken, and a cor-
respondent of the Standard newspaper sent the following
result : —

December 20, 1819 .. ..458 feet 7 inches.
May 11,1867 6dl „ 3 „

The circumference of the tree at one foot from the
ground was —

December 20, 1819 .. .. 20 feet.

May 11, 1867 28 „ 6 inches.

October 2, 1889 30 „ 9 „

Don't let us dismiss this part of our study without re-
flecting upon the variety and glory of a tree ; remembering
that a tree has a very striking resemblance to a man.
The leaves individually fall and decay, but the tree sur-
vives, and the race is perpetuated. As " one star differeth
from another star in glory," so one tree differs from another.
" There is one glory of the oak, which looks as if it had
faced a hundred storms, and, having stood them all,
was ready to face as many more; another glory of the
sycamore, that * spreads, in gentle pomp, its honeyed
shade;' another glory of the birch, so graceful in the

153 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

midst of its maiden tresses; another glory of the elm,
throwing out its wide arms, as if rejoicing in its strength ;
and another glory of the lime, with its sheltered shade
inviting us to enter and linger." *

Yes ; and it is not upon the leaf of the lime and its
sweet blossom only that the eloquent author might have
written. Had he known of the marvellous structure of
its stem, he would have been as much overwhelmed as
you will be : no artist could do justice to it, for it far
exceeds the beauty of the oak, and it is equally im-
possible to convey a
faithful description of
it in words. Here it is.
Look at it! It is a
section of the stem of
a lime tree of two
and a half years'
growth, cut obliquely
through the junction
of a branch with the
stem, in which there
are no less than eleven

„ 7"" ., different objects attract-

Section of oak, eighteen years growth. . J

ing our attention as

well as our admiration. First, there is the pith, with
its hexagonal cells, in which are grains of starch ; then
there are the numerous star-shaped raphides, dividing
the cells of the pith into large, circular, oval spaces ; then
the sheath outside these cells, containing more starch-
grains; then comes the first year's growth of woody
fibre ; then the second zone, for, of course, you know
that the tree, like a man, leaves its mark upon every
one of its years' growths; but, lastly, the most interest-
* Dr, McCosh,

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 159

ing part of this beautiful object is tbat where the for-
mation of the new branch is seen showing bundles of
spiral fibre and numbers of beautifully formed prismatic
raphides.

Who would think of finding all these wonders in a
" bit of wood " ? Who, except my friend the honey-bee,
would discover the sweet things which lie concealed in the
blossom — which, remember, is merely the leaf perfected ?
We judge too often by appearances only. " Leaves,"
says Leigh Hunt, " seem light, and useless, and idle, and
wavering, and changeable — they even dance ; yet God
has made them part of the oak. In so doing, He has
given us a lesson not to deny the stout-heartedness within
because we see the lightsomeness without." And, lastly,
think : the oak and the beech and other of our forest trees
owe their durability to their deep-rootedness ; — so, if we
are " rooted and grounded " in the soil of faith, we shall
bring forth much fruit.

From leaves we naturally expect to pass on to flowers,
and in such an examination what a feast will be pre-
pared for our mental appetites !

Let me first offer a little advice as to the examination
of flowers under the microscope. Better still, as it is the
very prime of summer, we will suppose that I fetch a few .
from the garden, and regale your sense, not only with
their aroma, but their beauty.

" Consider the lilies," said Jesus ; and if we do con-
sider, what an eloquent sermon shall we hear upon life,
death, and resurrection !

" Yes, flowers have tongues. God gave to each

A language of its own,
And bade the simple blossom teach

Where'er its seeds are sown.
His voice is on the mountain's height,

And by the river's side,

160 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

"Where flowers blush in glowing light,

In lowliness or pride,
We feel, all o'er the blooming sod,

It is the language of our God."

To examine a flower satisfactorily, we shall find a
very low power necessary. Our object-glass will be a
four-inch, that is, one magnifying only ten diameters, or
a hundred superficial times; this will enable us to see
right down into the flower of this heart's-ease just brought
from the garden. Ah, you may well exclaim again,
" What omnipotence ! "

This flower I have cut clean a way from its stem, and,
placing it in the stage forceps, I throw a flood of light
upon it through the side condenser — the bull's-eye lens —
so called. And now we penetrate into the mysteries of the
ovary ; for there you can see it in the very bottom of the
flower. But what words may express, what pen describe,
or still further what pencil portray, the glory of the
colour and form exhibited in this beautiful specimen of
God's handiwork?

Now, let me gather one small head of the "little
darling " (mignonette). Here, first, is a bit of this exquisite
flower, to compare with that just gathered, sent me in a
letter two years ago, though dried and its beauty greatly
diminished. See how its surprising group of blossoms
delights us still. And its perfume ! why, that is preserved,
though its life has long since departed. What a lesson !
We also must leave an influence behind, and it is for us
to decide whether that will be for good or evil.

You will not easily forget these two flowers I have
thus imperfectly introduced to you, I am very sure.

What is commonly called the dust of any ordinary
garden flower is known botanically as pollen ; this is it
which, by impregnation of the ovules, produces the next

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES.

161

generation of the species. In some blossoms their
number is very great. It has been said that a single
plant of wisteria has produced 6,750,000 stamens, which,
supposing all to have been perfect, would have con-
tained 27,000 million pollen grains. It is from these
pollen grains that the bees, extracting the sweet matter
contained in them, make honey, wax, and poison, and,
by carrying the pollen of one t.c^_^___
flower to another of the same
species, the object for which
the insect and the plant were
made to depend upon each
other for their existence is
accomplished.

Here, then, you see the
pollen of the common mallow.
It grows by the river-side and
in the cemetery, or in brick-
fields. It is content with the
humblest localities. But be*
hold its glory ! One mass of
golden globes, studded with
minute booklets, so that it may
adhere to the substance for
whichitwascreated: can any-

thing be more beautiful ?

The pollen of one branch
of the family must penetrate the ovule of the other
branch before there can be blossom. Some years ago,
one of the Fellows of the Linnsean Society told me an
amusing story of the introduction of red clover into New
Zealand. The colonists knew that bees were necessary
to carry the pollen from one flower to another, so with
the seed they imported bees; but when the seed de-

L

figures below.

Drawn from

162 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

veloped into plants, and the plants into blossoms, the
blossoms all died off without ever being renewed, and,
upon application to English naturalists, it was discovered
that the humble-lee was the insect that had the red clover
under its management. The honey-lee having been sup-
posed to be the proper instrument, they had imported
that bee with the plant, but were unsuccessful until the
'humble-lee was sent to them.

A very remarkable illustration, amongst thousands of
others, is here exhibited of the adaptation of means to
an end, proving the doctrine of design in one important
branch, in the life of a plant.

There is an aquatic p-ant called Vallisneria spiralis,
remarkable, among other things, for its usefulness to the
microscopist as showing that marvellous thing, the cir-
culation in plants. One day, being in the shop of a well-
known optician, one of his friends came in, saying he
couldn't think what had come to the Vallisneria in his
aquarium — " it was all going to stalk ! "

" Hereby hangs a tale."

The history of this humble plant affords us one of the
most striking instances of design. It is a native of Italy,
and is found in the waters of its rivers, and in those of
the turbulent Rhone, and it has been introduced into our
own country.

The pollen, borne always on the stamens and anthers
of flowers, is their fertilizing ingredient. It is this fine
powder which you have just seen in the common mallow,
and which you must often have found in the lily when
you have intruded your nose into its blossoms, and it
has come out powdered with its fertilizing dust, which
the bees would have conveyed to the pistil in their visits
to the blossoms — both stamen and pistil growing to-
gether in the lily family

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES.

163

In the Vallisneria, however, the flowers which bear the
stamens and those which bear
the pistils are always on two
separate plants, and unless some
means are employed by which
the pollen of one can be con-
veyed to the other, the family
must inevitably perish.

A curious fact makes the
history of this common plant
unique in botany. The pisti-
liferous branch of the family
rises to the surface by a very
long and slender spiral stem,
floating on the water like a
water-lily, while the stameni-
ferous branch, growing below,

remains there, fastened to the Fecundation of a sunflower;
soil right down under the
water.

I have told you that, unless
the pollen of the stamen is
conveyed to the pistil, no seed

the ovary laid open.

a, a, walls of the seed-organ ; b, 6,
walls of the pistil ; c, c, summit,

Si? .

will be produced, and, as the SSPflgS£,3&5*F
two plants of Vallisneria have

two localities prescribed for their separate growths, were
no means contrived by which the pollen of one could be
conveyed to the other, the family would become extinct,
for between the flower above and that below roll the
intercepting waters of the river.

It was Vallisnerii, the naturalist, who first discovered
the wonders of this plant, and now we have to inquire
how the difficulty is met. By a remarkable "coin-
cidence" or "acquirement" as some would call it, the

164 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

flowering of one " happens " to come to perfection just at
the same time as the other, and when the pistiliferous
blossom floats on the stream fastened to its long stem,
the stameniferous flower, developed in its obscure bed,
leaves the dark earth in which it has been preparing for
its aerial flight, and, rising from the main stem to the
surface, there — just as a butterfly expands its glorious
wings to the sun when it emerges from its prison-house in
the chrysalis — unfolding its petals, the stamens are visible,
and, wafted either by the wind or the air, or attracted by
some mysterious and unknown influence, it finds — shall I
say ? — the object of its search, and, as the poet would say,
after a loving embrace, it withers and dies.

Now comes the second striking chapter in this romance
of vegetable life. The surviving plant, with the pollen
of its embrace, no longer remains on the surface. The long
spiral stalk, which has obtained for the plant an addition
to its name — spiralis — turned in one direction, upwards,
now takes a contrary direction, and, having no further
attraction there, again seeks its domain below ; and, the
long stalk gradually contracting, the blossom soon reaches
its bed in the bottom of the river, where its seed, made
fertile by its companionship above, strikes root, and a
new plant is produced.* Well may a devout naturalist
say, " We might challenge all botanical science to pro-
duce any series of phenomena so striking as this, or so
satisfactorily demonstrating the skill and foreknowledge
of the great Creator." f

The nearest comparison is the pitcher-plant, or,
perhaps, several of the fly-catching plants ; but as I have
previously told you their story in another volume, I must
not repeat it here.f

* See Frontispiece. t P- H. Gosse.

\ See in " The Autobiography of an Acorn ; « The Story of a Leaf.' "

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES.

165

There are those who would tell us, in the cold stony
language of unbelief, that this was simply a ; " law of
nature." To such I would say, " So it is ; but tell me,
who is what you call ' Nature ' ? Where does she live ?
To what country does she belong? Is not 'Nature1
onlv another name for God ? "

Circulation in a leaf.

To observe the marvellous circulation in a leaf, the
Vallisneria affords one of the best of opportunities. A
small piece should be cut vertically, then from the same
piece a horizontal slice, and, when placed under a high
power, the flow of the vital fluid will be seen, with proper
illumination, after the manner of the cut above, in
which the arr6ws show the direction of the currents;
a, a, a, the cellular tissues ; b, b, I, I, the vessels in which

166 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

the currents take place, whose direction is pointed out by
the arrows.

Does not the existence of a law invariably prove a
law-maker ?

Would you really say, with the followers of Epicurus
and Lucretius, and their modern disciples, that the
Vallisneria spiralis had " acquired " its state of perfection
simply because it needed it?

Our museums abound with specimens of what some
consider proofs of pre- Adamite man, or, at least, of pre-
historic humanity. Kudely carved implements in flint of
various forms have been found at such depths in the
earth that, without doubt, they are very ancient. They
must have been deposited for thousands of years in the
same place where they were first discovered ; but if they
afford evidence of one thing more than another, it is
evidence of mind, of intelligence and intellect, in their
form and fashion. But when we have such striking
instances as those in the Vallisneria, or the pitcher-plant,
or many other less attractive but equally humble plants,
some men are miserably content with putting it down to
" a law of nature," reminding us of Wordsworth's story of
the boy to whom

" A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

How is it that some flowers close their petals while
rain is falling, which would spoil or wash away the honey
contained in their nectaries ? It is " a law of nature."
Why do other flowers close their beautiful eyes, and go to
sleep as punctually as the clock strikes the hours ? This,
too, is only " a law of nature."

The flowering of plants takes place with striking
regularity, so much so that, by observing the exact time

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 167

when our garden plants are in blossom, the several months
may be known. How punctually does the snowdrop
beautify the time of January ; the violet, February ; in
March, the cowslip; in April, the daffodil; the great
mass of plants in the leafy months of May and June;
many in July, August, and September ; the golden rod
in October and November; and the Christmas rose in
December ! And from three in the morning punctually,
hour by hour, until ten at night, do these wonderful
proofs of God's love speak to us.

" To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Verily they must have had an admirable teacher
to have "acquired" such goodly habits of order and
obedience !

Here is one of the petals of an ordinary geranium,
again reminding us of the analogy of plant and animal
life. It has two skins,
one of which has been
peeled off the other to
make the structure
more transparent.
With a power magni-
fying 176,000 super-
ficial times, what do
we see ? A countless
number of deeply in

11 • Cells from petal of geranium.

terestmg cells im-
bedded in a matrix begemmed with dotted tissue, the
cells giving to the flower its colour, and having a central
dark mass, from which a series of very fine lines is seen
running to the extremity of the cell, of most interesting
form and marking.

Keference has been made to the contrasts in nature.

168

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Very interesting it is to consider the harmony of nature.
The Divine Author has often given the same patterns
of His workmanship in the animal that He has in the
vegetable kingdom. For example, take the case of the
Myliobates, one of the cartilaginous fishes, of which
the common ray is the type, and to which family the
skate belongs ; its teeth are large, flat, and mosaic-
like, and, when examined as an opaque object, exhibit
cellular structure similar to the petals we have just had

before us, which pat-
terns have uncon-
sciously been copied
in many an article
manufactured by man.
Let me very strong-
ly recommend you to
study the most com-
mon of flowers, if you
would know what a
wonderful Workman
God is. You look at
them with your eyes,

and, if you have a taste for the beautiful, you admire
their loveliness ; but you can only see their marvellous
structure by means of the microscope. A low power, a
deep eye-piece, good light, and a ready mind, and you
will then discover the difference between looking at a
thing and seeing into it.

I cannot resist introducing here an anecdote sent me
by a friend during the compilation of these pages. He
says —

" Two poor little children lived in one of the worst of
the courts leading out of Golden Lane. They lived
alone — no uncommon thing in such quarters as these.

Transverse section of tooth of Myliobates.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 169

The boy, twelve, sold newspapers ; the girl, nine, lay sick
upon a truckle-bed all day, sitting up only when her
brother was at home. They had been born in the
country, but now, there they lived in that stifling attic,
with no sight of a green tree, and scarcely any of the sky,
while the buttercups bloomed and withered, and the wild
rose was in flower, and the hay was made, and the corn
was cut, all round the cottage where they used to live.

" One day she said, ' Tom, do you think I could get
out anywhere — just for once ? '

" ' Could you stand it ? ' said Tom.

" ' I'll try,' she said.

" And that brave boy saw the shining in his sister's
eyes, as he lifted her up in his arms and carried her down
the stairs ; and he carried her all the 'u-ay to the Thames
Embankment, about a mile away, and he put his dear
burden down upon a seat just inside one of the garden
gate?, and, as she looked at the trees, and shrubs, and
flowers, and green grass, she put her head on Tom's
shoulder, and was overheard saying, very softly, ' Tom,
it's heaven ! it's heaven ! ' '

We are very unwilling to leave this fascinating part
of our employment, but we have other paths yet to tread.
And we must take our leave presently of flowers, with the
remembrance of dear Mary Howitt's simple but beautiful
lines, the very memory of which brings us back to our
beloved boyhood —

" God might have made the earth hring forth

Enough for great and small,
The oak tree and the cedar tree,
Without a flower at all.

u He might have made enough, enough

For every want of ours,
For luxury, medicine, and toil,
And yet have made no flowers.

170 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

" Then, wherefore, wherefore were they made,

And dyed in rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringiug day and night? —

11 Springing in valleys green and low,

And on the mountains high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passes by ?

" Our outward life requires them not ;

Then wherefore had they birth ?
To minister delight to man,
To beautify the earth,

<( To comfort man — to whisper hopo

Whene'er his faith is dim ;
For who so careth for the flowers
Will much more care for him."

But we must not say " farewell " to our botanical
study without a passing glance at a few out of the large
collection of sections before us. Here is one of the
Wellingtonia giants of California. It is a triple section,
showing the most beautiful variety of tissue in the woody
bundles of fibres from which, in this class of trees, pulp
is now made and is afterwards converted into writing-
paper. The tree from which this specimen was cut is said
to have been the largest in the world, growing to the
astonishing height of 450 feet, that is, about one-eighth
higher than the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. It was 112
feet in circumference. Looking at this interesting speci-
men, where all the fibres interlace each other, exhibiting
the pitted ducts for which this class of timber is so
famous, and which are test objects for the higher magni-
fying powers, what a world of beauty it must have
been ! One of this family was recently cut down by some
ruthless hand, and, had it a tongue, it would have unfolded
a tale which would have taken some time indeed to relate.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 171

It was known by the name of " Old Moses," and was
one of the most sylvan patriarchs of California. The
annular rings which describe the age of a tree, one per
year, amounted to 4841, so that its term of existence was
a longer one than any of the world's known, or at least
authenticated, history ; it may have been a fine stripling
when Noah built the ark. The hollow portion of its
huge and massive stem afforded standing room for nearly
three hundred full-grown men.

Now for another specimen of antiquity. " Imagination
bodies forth " a long and profoundly interesting story
while we are looking at the object before us, which is a
section of a cedar of Lebanon, from an Assyrian palace at
Nineveh, where it had been standing and lying for three
thousand years. Shall we be more interested in the
examination of its beautiful structure than in listening
to its still small voice ?

It came from the British Museum, and from the
highest authority of the botanical department there we
learn that when it arrived it still retained the odour
peculiar to its nature ; and that had been preserved for
three thousand years, which carry us back to the time
of David, Samuel, and Saul. Does it not supply us
with a text for a sermon, " The memory of the just is
blessed "? and does it not also remind us of the words of
one in whose time perhaps it was placed in the palace
of his country's enemy, " The righteous shall grow like a
cedar in Lebanon," that is, shall be preserved for ever?

Here are sections of the Pandanus spiralis, the screw
pine, reminding us of the tree associated with growth in
the words just quoted, "The righteous shall flourish as a
palm tree," that is, from icithin, whence all true spiritual
growth proceeds.

These interesting specimens — the first two being

172 THE MICEOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

typical of exogens, whose growth is from without, and
the last of endogens, whose growth is from within —
represent the greater part of the family of trees, in
the varieties of which there are so many thousands.
The screw pine family, from which this latter specimen
was taken, affords another opportunity of observing
what is called "a law of nature," but which is very
strikingly illustrative of Divine wisdom. The foliage
is peculiar, its great sword-shaped leaves resembling
those of the pine-apple, set with sharp spines along each
edge, running in regular spiral turns like a corkscrew,
whence the common name of the tribe, Pandanus spiralis.

The screw pine is frequently found growing in the
loose shallow sands of the coral islands which dot the
Pacific Ocean ; and, as they are inclined to be " top-
heavy," they have "acquired" a very demonstrative
method of attaching themselves to the loose soil in which
they grow, so as to enable them to resist the force of the
furious winds that beat upon them. When the leaves
are abundant, and the tree would fall by reason of their
excessive weight, the aerial roots which would ordinarily
have grown straight downward to the earth, issuing from
various parts of the stem, when the tree is full-grown and
is overloaded, proceed in a slanting direction, and, firmly
fixing themselves in the ground, surround the trunk,
shoring it up just as a carpenter would a falling tenement.

Some years ago a large tree belonging to the family
of screw pines, in the palm-house of the Edinburgh
Botanical Garden, had one of its branches injured, and
at the point of injury a root appeared long before its
time, and thus supported a branch which would otherwise
have been cut off.*

These wood sections will afford us inexpressible
* Professor Balfour.

BOTANICAL: THE TTPPEB CLASSES.

173

delight as we ponder over their variety and beauty —
whether it be a weakly climber as the clematis, or the
sturdy branch or root of the giant old oak; the young
branch of the pepper tree, or the slice from a bamboo
cane ; in each and all we shall be surprised and delighted.

But now, having drawn your attention to these trans-
verse sections of the woody parts of some of our plants,
let me ask you to think of their fruits, and of that which,
carefully concealed in them, as our souls are in our bodies,
we call their seed.

Look at this transverse section of a common cherry-
stone. You will see how its hardness is produced in
such a soft, fleshy substance,
and what security has been
afforded to the most important
part of the plant, namely, that
which is the pledge and as-
surance of its future life.
Separate and distinct cells of
singularly beautiful design and
solidity, more resembling a
multitude of microscopical sun-
flowers than anything else,
protect the germ within. How
shall it escape from the hard
walls of its prison ?

When the present London
Bridge was built in 1831, pedestals of granite surmount-
ing the piers on the northern side of the river were
erected ; they are there now, and will doubtless remain
for many future years. One day I observed a small tree
growing upon one of them. I watched that tree from
week to week with great interest, almost as much as
poor Piccioli did the little flower in his Italian prison.

Transverse section of cherry-
stone.

174 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I had a special regard for that little adventurer, which
had found a solitary home on the stone belonging to the
strata which forms, as we presume, the framework of our
world. But how could it have found a dwelling-place
in such an unlikely place as granite ?

Let me tell you.

The masses of primary rock placed on the top of
these steps down to the stream were put as near to
each other as the mason could get them, but, neverthe-
less, there was just one little interstice where they met.
In that gap there chanced to be room enough for dirt
and soot and dust to collect, and one day some passer-by,
eating cherries, thoughtlessly threw one of the stones on
to the top of these granite masses, and it happened to
lodge in one of these insignificant openings. Soon after,
down came the rain, moistening the little accumulation
of dirt and soot, and the germ of the plant, directly
finding one of the necessary elements for its release at
hand, began to swell out in its increasing moisture till
the walls of its prison gave way, when there appeared
two little roots, which directly struck for the dirt and
dust below, anchoring the embryo to the accumulation,
small though it was. Soon after, up sprang two tiny
leaves, and, working steadily day by day, at last a very
little branch was formed, and at length the young tree,
which attracted both my attention and admiration,
appeared. One day, on going to hear what my pet
cherry tree had to say to me — for you must know I do
love to listen to the sweet voice of what we call " nature ; "
for to me " the voice," not " of the people," but the voice
of " nature " is " the voice of God ; " for does not His
own Word say, " Speak to the earth, and it shall teach
thee " ? * and has not that Word been my precious guide-

* Job xii. 8.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 175

book all along the path of life from boyhood to old age ?
and have I not imprinted on its sacred covers, " Title-
deeds " ? — one day, I say, on going to hear what my pet
cherry tree had to say to me, imagine my regret at find-
ing it gone !

Being on friendly terms with the authorities of Fish-
mongers' Hall, by the front of which my pet had been
thriving, I asked if they knew what had become of it,
when, to my astonishment, I found it had been pulled up
to prevent the roots splitting the granite upon which it
grew.

Then came the voice from that dead cherry tree, a
root out of a very dry ground, saying —

"How little I really needed for my daily wants! I
longed for liberty, and by patient continuance in well-doing
I found it. I have finished the work I came to do ; for
I have given you an illustration of contentedness under
the hardest of circumstances, and I have taught you the
lesson — under the greatest of trials, to look upwards for
the supply of all your necessities, which is sure to come
if you will but continue looking.

"Learn from my little life the truth of the saying

that

* Incessant pains the end obtains.*

Without aid from above I could not have grown, had
I tried ever so hard ; but the shower came, and then, like
the true * Plant of renown,' I grew ; and you have seen
in me an illustration of those greatest of all mysteries,
life and growth, and what an almost supernatural power
belongs to each. Had I continued undisturbed, the
strongest of rocks would have given way under my
invisible roots.

"You have received a nature-lesson from me, and
more than one, showing chiefly that, as Nature keeps the

176 THE MIOEOSCOPB AND ITS LESSONS.

secrets of life and growth in her own hands, so no means
that your philosophy can discover will ever successfully
analyze the mystery of either physical or spiritual life
and growth — it all lies in the blessing which is from
heaven."

But this story of mine, illustrating, as it clearly does,
" the power of the resurrection," * is surpassed by another
sent me while writing these pages, and I give it here for
the reader's serious consideration.

" A young German countess, who lived about a hundred
years ago, was a noted unbeliever, and especially opposed
to the doctrine of the resurrection. She died when about
thirty years of age, and, before her death, gave orders that
her grave should be covered with a solid slab of granite ;
that around it should be placed square blocks of stone ;
and that the corners should be fastened to each other and
to the granite slab by heavy iron clamps.

" Upon the covering this inscription was placed, ' This
burial-place, purchased to all eternity, must never be
opened/

" All that human power could do to prevent any change
in that grave was done ; but a little seed sprouted, next a
little shoot found its way between the side-stone and the
upper slab, and it grew there, slowly but steadily forcing
its way, until the iron clamps were torn asunder, and the
granite lid was raised and is now resting upon the trunk
of the tree, which is large and flourishing.

"The people of Hanover regard it with an almost
superstitious fear, and speak in lowest tones of the wicked
countess : and it is natural they should ; for as I stood
beside that grave in the old churchyard, it certainly im-
pressed me more deeply than I can express."

Does it not occur to any ordinary mind that, if there
* See Phil. iii. 10.

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 177

be such extraordinary "power" given to a plant in its
transition from a little seed to a great tree, so that it
could burst open a tomb secured with hard stone and
iron, like power shall be given to that which, sown
a " natural body," shall be raised a " spiritual body " ?

Ah! say not that I am preaching a sermon upon
trees, but not describing our objects. Our story is about
the microscope and its lessons, and by the law of associa-
tion this remembrance of the London Bridge cherry tree,
although above half a century old, came to my mind while
examining the beautiful structure of the stone.

But, indeed, if I have moralized a little, I have been
in good company. My botanical teacher, Dr. Balfour,
Professor of Botany and Medicine in the Edinburgh
University, does not think it beneath him to draw a
moral from trees, nor even to see in their peaceful lives
an allegory of something more ; and as he does not think
it inappropriate to his studies, why should I ?

Let me, therefore, conclude our botanical study with
a few of his remarks on the striking analogies which a
devout mind can discover in the vegetable kingdom.

He is writing about fruit. " From all that has been said
about fruit," he says, "many important lessons may be
drawn. Thus, man in his natural state brings no fruit to
perfection (Luke viii. 14) ; it is, like the crab-apple, unfit
for the Master's use. Hosea, in speaking of Israel's attempts
to exhibit fruit, says, 'Israel is an empty vine; he bringeth
forth fruit unto himself (x. 1). It is only when grafted
by the great Husbandman into the true Vine (John xv. 1),
and into the oil-bearing Olive (Kom. xi. 24), that man
can bring forth good fruit, even unto life eternal (John
iv. 36). Our blessed Lord says to His disciples, ' As the
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am

if

178 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

the Vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in Me,
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for
without Me ye can do nothing ' (John xv. 4, 5). As the
graft is kept in union with the stock by means of the
clay which has been applied by the gardener, so is
the believer united to Christ by faith, which is the girt
of God. The clay-cement keeps the parts together, but
has no virtue in itself; so faith is the means of union to
Christ — it shows that the Husbandman has been there.
The believer has no merit in this ; faith cannot save him
(Jas. ii. 14) or make him bring forth fruit. It is the
union with the Stock which does this. Thus it is that
his faith is not dead, being alone (Jas. ii. 17) ; there is
a real, vital engrafting, and faith is seen by the works
which are its fruits. By the process of spiritual graft-
ing, he is, so to speak, checked in his own growth, in
his self-love, his self-righteousness, and all his sap comes
from Christ. In Him are all his well-springs, and from
Him alone he derives all the nourishment and support he
needs. Thus it is that he flourishes and brings forth the
fruit of the Spirit, containing its nine ingredients, ' love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance' (Gal. v. 22, 23), every one of
which is necessary to form the perfect fruit. Some of
these ingredients may abound more than others, as it
were, imparting a peculiar flavour ; but all must be there
in greater or less quantity. Love may be looked upon
as the substance coming from the Stock which unites the
graft to it. This flows from Christ to the grafted believer.
' As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you :
continue ye in My love ' (John xv. 9). Thus the union
is formed, and he becomes identified with the Stock.
This love will last through eternity. When the clay is
removed in the case of an ordinary tree, the graft is found

BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 179

united to the stock ; so when faith is swallowed up in
sight, then the perfect union of Christ and His people will
be seen. Heaven is not to begin, but only to perfect, the
living intercourse of believers with Christ and with each
other. While on earth they were all grafted into one
Stock. They were all one in Christ, who has said, ' Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall
believe on Me through their word ; that they all may be
one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they
also may be one in us : that the world may believe that
Thou hast sent Me ' (John xvii. 20, 21).

" As the fruit may make a great show, but contain no
seed with the embryo spark of life, and thus fail in fulfill-
ing the object for which it is formed ; so there may be
an appearance of spiritual fruit without the vitality of
religion. Such fruit, though fair externally, is in reality
dead, and fails in the hour of trial. Like seedless fruits,
this mock spiritual state may be produced by human
cultivation, by an artificial nourishment, by a fostering of
self-righteousness. There has been no true grafting, no
implanting of the heavenly life in the soul. While,
however, seedless fruits are said to be sometimes naturally
produced by old trees, this is not the case with the true
Christian ; for he continues to bear true fruits even in old
age, being full of sap (Ps. xcii. 14), derived from the one
Source of all fruitfulness, in whom it has pleased the
Father that all fulness should dwell (Col. i. 19)." *

This is my faith ; and such are among the parables of
nature which satisfy the wants of my spiritual appetite.
Is it yours also ?

* «Phyto-Theology,"pp. 167-170.]

CHAPTER VII.

GEOLOGICAL.

" The whole of creation in this world, and in all worlds, can be but a
series of glorious steps, fit for angels themselves to use, as symbolized in
Jacob's dream j a ladder from earth to heaven, by which, not in dreams
only, but in sober waking certainty, we may hold communion with
heavenly realities." — CHEEVER.

OW, if I have not tired you with my views
of what the microscope may lead us to in
our " lessons," let me introduce you to
some of the many choice specimens in our
cabinets which are marked " Geological."
There are many interesting sections repre-
senting the earth's surface and contents, from the
great strata of chalk to the interior of a volcano ; nay,
right down to the old red sandstone, a depth of twenty-
two thousand feet — that is, upwards of four miles, below
the earth's surface. And then, if you will, we may learn
something of the material of the highest mountains in
the world, the Himalaya, and discover what appears at a
height of twenty-eight thousand feet above the surface
of the earth.

Where shall we begin ? Let it be with the latter.
We live in days when the authority of the Bible is

GEOLOGICAL.

1SL

assailed by scientific would-be giants, who will only believe
just what they can see and understand. One has very
recently combated the truth of the Noachian deluge, and
another, whose weapon of defence is made of better metal,
has defended it, proving that nearly every nation has,
more or less, some account of that catastrophe: what
now does Nature, when called in as a witness, say to it ?

This section of the Himalaya mountains shows a solid
mass of corals: these persevering little creatures built
up their dwellings from the bottom of the deep seas —
how, then, came they on the Himalayan heights, far
above the level of the nearest sea ?

The same question may
be asked of the fossils com-
posing the great chalk
strata in our own and other
lands, one ounce weight cf
which, you have heard, is
said to contain four millions
of animal remains ; that is,
the average weight, when
fossilized, would be the four-
millionth part of an ounce
each! These minute but
beautiful forms, after pass-
ing their ancient lives in pre-Adamite seas, and being
transformed into solid bodies by the infiltration of minute
particles of lime, were upheaved by subterranean forces,
making such masses as we have all along our south
coast ; and by subterranean heat have again been trans-
formed into masses that have afforded material for the
most magnificent of temples and those unequalled sculp-
tures which have come to us from the ruins of Greece
and Rome, in white marble.

Section of chalk, with fossils in situ.

182

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

These wonderfully beautiful creatures are among the
first forms of life, and to them we owe the vast extent of
chalk which is found in such abundance; and, by the
accumulations of ages, these little microscopical bodies at
the sea bottom may form the chalk of a new world when
the present age and dispensation shall have passed away.
Corals, sponges, and Foraminifera — of such are the rocks
of the old world formed. When you look into the objects
before you, you will find the minute shells of the latter
all pierced with a number of little holes, through which
the tiny thing would protrude its minute hairy feelers
for the capture of its food, or for instruments of locomo-
tion through the water.

Says one writer, "In the organically formed rocks, they
have, it may be said, taken the lead, and done far more
than any other living being. To the formation of the chalk
rocks of the world, they have, by their shells, contributed
about ninety per cent, of the whole mass." And to such
minute creatures as these, though not of the same family,

do we owe the material with
which the houses in many
of our largest cities are
built.

The Pyramids of Egypt
were once all alive, for they
are entirely composed of
minute fossil animals. The
'greater portion of the stone
of which Paris is built is
formed of similar bodies ;
and in one cubic inch of
the Bohemian rock, from

Section of limestone, frequently
used for building purposes.

which is obtained the common article of trade known
as Tripoli, or polishing powder, it is estimated 40,000

GEOLOGICAL. 183

millions of such once-living bodies have been reckoned.
How hard such stone becomes, and how durable, you may
believe when I tell you that the paving- stones of the
London Koyal Exchange, where " merchants most do
congregate," and which were laid there when the first
building was erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth —
that is, three hundred years ago, — are there still, though
trodden by the millions of feet of men who have long
since gone to their account.

Now, while I show you some of the best specimens I
have seen of these Foraminifera in their natural, that
is their now fossiliferous form, let me tell you how they
came into my possession.

My good friend, Mr. E. H. Robertson, to whom I am.
indebted for many interesting facts connected with this
subject, begged me to get him a quantity of that tine
sand which the importers of sponge beat out of the speci-
mens before they are offered for sale.

When the sponge of commerce, which is really the
skeleton of an animal from which the fleshy part has
passed away, was living, it was of a soft gelatinous nature.
The openings which you see in an ordinary mass, such as
that used for washing purposes, are the mouths, if we
may so call them, of the living sponge, through which
the life-giving air passes into the animal, and through
vhich is carried the small portions of animal matter on
which sponges feed.

Now, these little Foraminifera (so called from the two
Latin words— -foramen, an opening, and fero, I bear)
evidently were to the living sponge just what swallowing
power is to a living man ; and everybody knows what
the result would be were he to attempt to swallow
an oystor, shell and all. That is precisely the result in
the case of the sponge. The minute shells of the Fora-

184 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

minifera become embedded in the network of the sponge,
and there they remain, as the grain of sand does which
forms the nucleus of the pearl which is found in the shell
of the oyster. And thus, with myriads of grains of sand

Foramin'fera, rrom the sponge of commerce.

which likewise find an entrance, with the water, into the
body of the sponge, sand and foraminifera become
commingled.

My friend already referred to says, " I recently pre-
pared about thirty pounds of ' sponge-sand,' obtaining, as

GEOLOGICAL. 185

(he fruit of my patient labour, about—* Two or three pounds
ofForaminifera!' perhaps some eager microscopist will
exclaim. Nay, not so ; but about a piled-up teaspoonful
of exquisite shells."

He has kindly allowed me to use a cast of the cut
with which he has iUustrated his subject, and which was

Foraminifer, with extended pseudopodia.

drawn from the object itself, being his own prepara-
tion ; and the reader will gather from the few but varied
forms it contains a faint idea of their diversity and
beauty.

I do not wonder at his enthusiasm over his favourite

* From an admirable article, "Gossip about Foraminifera," by
E. H. Robertson, in Science Gossip, July 1, 1889.

186 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

subject ; nor will you, while you listen to his story as
you look at some of his very excellent preparations.

"Marvel of marvels," says he, "in this world of wonders,
that a globule of jelly destitute of any external integu-
ment should put forth such attenuated filaments " — that
is, the hair-like processes which are seen piercing through
the invisible openings which give the name to these specks
of creatioD, — " the atoms of whicli not only cohere, but
serve the double office of organs of locomotion, and of
cables mooring it to its anchorage ! Yet so it is ; and the
factor in this wonder is that mystery of mysteries — that
principle which we call life, the secret of which we are
ever seeking to penetrate, but which we,~living in an age
of electricity and steam, seem as far off from doing as
were the sages who, a hundred generations past, strove
to fathom its profound depths.

" Unendowed with the complex organizations of animals
higher in the scale than themselves, these tiny things of
beauty yet perform the varied functions of life efficiently,
exercising a most important influence in Nature's
economy. . . .

*' Whole ranges of mountains, in various parts of the
world, are composed of these tiny creatures, and vast
deposits of them, spreading in the aggregate over many
thousands of square miles, have been traced in Hin-
dostan, Egypt, and the Holy Land and Arabia. These
minute organisms constitute the mass of that pure white
substance which has given — so it is said — its name of
Albion (alba, white) to Britain ; and how inconceivably
vast must be these hosts, when it is remembered that
this formation alone once extended in a north-westerly
and south-easterly direction from Ireland to the Crimea,
a distance of eleven hundred miles ; its breadth, from the
south of Sweden to the south of Bordeaux, being (allow-

GEOLOGICAL. 187

ing for breaks caused by denudation) about 840 miles ;
its thickness in this country averaging from six hundred
to eight hundred feet."

" If all the points at which true chalk occurs," says
Professor Huxley, "were circumscribed, they would be
within an irregular oval of about three thousand miles
in long diameter — the area of which would be as great
as that of Europe."

You will observe in our specimens how nearly some
of these forms resemble the nautilus and the ammonite,
which in prehistoric ages lived harmoniously together,
before there was a man to look into their secrets with
a microscope, as we are at present doing ; now the
ammonite is extinct, and found only among the fossils.

Thus you may see of what our ordinary building-stone
is formed. A bit of our church wall, which a few years
ago was erected, and a small chip of which I had prepared
for my cabinet, is a mass of corals. This stone is
called "Kentish rag." Here is another bit, from the
remains of the old Roman wall which was recently dis-
covered in digging for the foundation of a house in
Houndsditch, and which I went to inspect. There it had
been lying for about two thousand years. It is a mass
of marine animal remains.

" Where is the dust that has not been alive?"

And here is a chip from the Great Pyramid of Egypt,
that wonder of the world which, nobody knows how many
thousands of years ago, was erected, according to tradition,
by one hundred thousand men in twenty years. Six
millions of tons of stone is said to have been employed
in its construction, making it the most stupendous mass
of masonry in the world, its top reaching considerably
beyond the cross of the London cathedral church of St.
Paul's. It is a solid mass, you see, of animals called

188 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

nummulites, considerably larger than our Foraminiferous
object, but not half so beautiful. And here, allied to this
curiosjty, is another small piece from the Vocal Memnon
of Thebes, that huge record of the mighty past, an obelisk
called the Sphinx, probably a column forming the
entrance to some grand temple when Moses was brought
up in the Court of Pharaoh ; but how different to its
near neighbour! This great figure has very recently
been discovered to be considerably larger than any
history has recorded; the sculptor fashioned a fabulous
being, the human part being represented by a female.
This " Vocal Sphinx " was so called because it was said
to sing when the sun arose, and to sigh when it set.
The structure of the stone, when viewed as an opaque
object — that is, by transmitted light — gives it all the
appearance of the human lung, being formed of a material
entirely different to limestone; but which, from its
porous character, may give some day a modern clue to
the mystery of its ancient music.

From chalk we naturally pass to flint, which we find
to be so frequently embedded in it. Think of the various
forms which this flint takes, from the beautiful spicules
in sponge, to those of the still more beautiful siliceous
skeletons of some of the lowest forms of vegetable life
which we have already seen in Diatomacese ! The beauti-
ful forms of the Foraminifera are even surpassed in these
exquisite gems of nature, and their size is infinitely
smaller ; the markings often resembling the fine engine-
turned lines of a watch-case, though almost immeasurably
finer.

Here are four beautiful species of these minute
skeletons, magnified four hundred diameters ; but as this
work was not intended for experts in microscopical know-
ledge, but beginners, I may here remark that their true

GEOLOGICAL.

189

superficial measurement, that is, their entirety, as now
presented to your eye, is one hundred and sixty thou-
sand times larger than they really are. I mention this
" superficial measurement " here as I have done elsewhere
in the book, that you may try to realize what is meant
by "the invisible world," for without the microscope
they could never have been discovered.

These four "frustules," as they are called, are all
fossil, and appear to be flat discs, but they are slightly
convex, and consist of two valves, united by their outer

Fossil Diatom acese.

edges ; the top middle figure represents the two valves
thus united, forming a sort of case in which all the vital
processes of their little lives are performed.

Having already shown you the exquisite siliceous
skeletons of such plants as the deutzia, I need do no more
than remind you of the marvellous way in which this
element is diffused throughout the vegetable kingdom,
and that just as our own bony skeletons are formed of
lime, the base of which is chalk, so the whole vegetable
world is indebted to flint for the framework of that

190 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

wonder of wonders we call a leaf, and sometimes en-
close in a letter to one whom we love, and with it
write —

Only a leaf, yet it shall bear

A wealth of love, of mintage true ;
Only a simple earnest prayer,

That silently goes up for you ;
Yet you and I may never know

What blessings from that prayer may flow."

Do we say this because a leaf comes from a tree,
and the word " tree " comes to us from the same etymo-
logical root as "true"? Is a leaf the hieroglyphic of
truth ?

Flint. — Here is a very thinly cut section of a pebble
from the Norwich drift ; it is a mass of fossil remains of
animals and plants, the relics of the immeasurable past,
one of the many medals of the earliest days of the
creation of our world ; it is a striking illustration of the
truth of the words of Professor Owen, who once said that
every bit of coal had moved as sap in the vessels of a
plant, and each cliff and quarry of chalk and limestone
and marble once circulated in the vascular tissue of an
animal.*

And here are various specimens of coprolites from dif-
ferent districts in England. The word divided signifies
" stone " and " dung" — you would take the stone, of which
this section is a very thin slice, to have been a common
pebble such as you would have met with by the roadside.
Look at it, first with a low power ; then, as you always
should, increase it, and you will see that which, even
with your previous aid, was invisible.

Let me explain to you, in a child's language, what
this section really is.

* "Exeter Hall Lectures," 18C3-4.

GEOLOGICAL. 191

You can easily understand that, were your body now
suddenly turned into stone, a part of the last meal of
which you were a partaker would become a fossil : and
don't forget that the word " fossil " means " dug " (Latin,
fossus), and that it refers always to the remains of plants
or animals dug out of the earth's crust, changed into a
stony subtance. Now, were your body so transformed, a
portion of your undigested food would be found— a stony
conglomerate — inside some part of the thirty feet of that
intestinal canal of yours, would it not? Now, that is
exactly what this is. In Cambridgeshire there are vast
beds of this stone found, called " coprolites." Once upon
a time, in that county, long before its splendid colleges
were built or any student or any human being was to be
seen there, in the dim misty ages of the past — most likely
millions of years ago, — this county was inhabited chiefly
by that large tribe of reptiles to which the crocodile and
shark belong : they " lived and died and were buried," as
the newspapers have said of a very rich man, perhaps
all they could say without saying much that was worse, —
these reptiles lived and died and were buried; that is,
their bodies sank in the element in which they lived, and
absorbed the earthy matter which received them, and
which formed their graves ; and, gradually, they became
fossilized, and remained for us of the nineteenth century
to " dig " out of their long, very long, hiding-place.

You may guess the character of these living beings in
the early records of the life of our little world from the
object before you, and you will be surprised when I tell
you that, in this county of Cambridgeshire alone, so much
as a million and a half of sterling money of our country
was recently paid for coprolites per annum, which, at the
then current value of sixty shillings a ton, would ba equal
to from 400 to 500 thousand tons. These Cambridgeshire

192 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

masses of stone dung are found in beds about ten feet
below the earth's surface, which yield out of every
twenty pounds about three of coprolite — that is, about
thirteen per cent. And here, in the same geological
division of our little world of wonders — our cabinet of 750
microscopical objects, — we have the fossil teeth of reptiles,
sharks especially, from the same beds, showing to what
families these pre- Adamite brutes belonged, in which the
ivory and dentine are in such excellent preservation that
a well-prepared specimen, cut exceedingly thin, will show
us more of the structure of the teeth than would one
taken from the mouth of a recently dead animal. Nay
more, in the fossil tooth of an ichthyosaurus of our
cabinet we have not only the original tooth, but, that
decaying, we may behold the new tooth arising in the
socket, ready to take its place when the decay is com-
plete ; * and all, in the course of ages, silently but so
perfectly absorbing the minerals, then in a state of semi-
solution, that ages after, when dug out of their graves,
the ivory cells are as clear to the eye, with the aid of the
microscope, as daylight. But we have not yet done with
our slice of coprolite. Yes, they are " bones," the broken
pieces of which you noticed in the half-digested mass of
partly excrementitious matter. You said rightly; but
observe, they are fish-bones, and they show that in
\\hatever body they were devoured as food, that body
must have been aquatic. But let us now employ our
higher power, and then we shall see the structure of
the fish-bone which formed part of the skeleton of the
smaller animal and which afterwards became food for the
larger ; and not the structure only, but the vessels which
supplied the structure itself with food, namely the blood.

* This valuable specimen was obtained from a portion of jawbone of
ichthyosaurus from Lyme Begis, Dorsetshire.

N

Cup sponge, in silu ; lialf natural size.

GEOLOGICAL. 195

Vessels ! — Can anything be truly said to be " lost," after
this?

One of my friends once showed me the ball from the
socket of one of the mighty limbs of the gigantic
mastodon, one of those prehistoric animals which, ages
since, inhabited our dear England long before the advent
of our Druid or Saxon ancestors. It was found in the
Thames, and was supposed to have fallen in while the
embankment at Westminster was making; it measured
thirty-eight inches in circumference, and weighed forty-
one pounds.

These interesting remains of an antediluvian epoch,
which have been discovered from time to time in and
near London, have received an addition in the fossilized
bones of a whale in my own immediate neighbourhood,
at Greenwich, while they were excavating for the railway
there. The remains, which consisted of part of the
vertebra and jawbone, were lying in the gravel, and were
in a fair state of preservation.

Having directed your thoughts to similar objects,
connected more or less with microscopical studies, in
previous works, I must not occupy either time or space
in repetition ; but I would here call your attention, very
briefly, to the great family of sponges, both recent and
fossil, for you will find that in the latter state, both in
their vertical and horizontal sections (several beautifully
prepared specimens of which await our examination),
that the skeleton is seen perfectly — much more so, indeed,
than in a living sponge — but entirely filled up with silica,
which being transparent when cut down to a minimum of
thinness, the network of the skeleton is clearly seen
through.

We must not suppose that these phenomena are
confined either to the surface of our earth or to our own

196

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

planet. I may remind you, while the subject of forami-
nifera, corals, and sponges — which, remember, are among
the first known forms of animal life upon our earth
— is fresh upon your mind, that only a few years ago
it was reported from Berlin that a Dr. 0. Hahn had
discovered, with the aid of his microscope, the presence
of organic remains in the stones which dart into the

%

Interior of sponge channels. The arrows indicate the direction of the
current.

terrestrial atmosphere from stellar space. From museums
in Tubingen and in Vienna, he procured more than six
hundred chips of meteorites of the choanite class, dis-
covering in them a quantity of organic remains, prince
pally belonging to the most ancient form of porous
corallines, the genus of fossil zoophytes denominated
Favosites. Dr. Hahn discovered about fifty kinds of

GEOLOGICAL. 107

these tiny animals, and assigned them to sixteen different
families, to which he has given names, thus laying the
foundation of a new branch of zoology — meteoric geology.
^Yhen we consider the height from which these masses
fell — their contents, and the thoughts which they suggest,
and think also of the fossil contents of the mountains of
our own world; — when we dig into the earth and see
the masses of dead matter there deposited, which supply
us with the enormous quantity of artificial manure, all

Enlarged polypes of the red coral, with extended tentacles.

foreseen and forethought of, that there might be nourish-
ment for man and beast while the present dispensation
lasts ; and again, when from such thoughts oar attention
is directed to the deepest sea-soundings such as were
taken on board the Challenger in 1876, and what is dis-
closed at the deepest ascertained measurement of the
ocean, — we are lost and bewildered in amazement, and
know not what to think, as our brain nearly reels in
our study.

198 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

In that interesting voyage of the Challenger, the con-
tents of many boxes of ooze were brought up from sound-
ings ranging from 50 to 4750 fathoms — for that almost
incredible depth was reached as the ship was crossing
from Japan to the Society Islands in the Pacific.

A fathom is equal to six feet, and there are 5280 feet
in a mile, so the greatest ocean-depth that has yet been
known to have been reached is very nearly five miles and
a half; and what does it reveal?

Look ! the diameter of the little circle on our object
now before you is only half an inch, and yet in that small
space there may be thousands of the most lovely forms,
from the spicules of sponges to those exquisite Polycystina
which astonish and delight all who have eyes to see ; and
there, again, is that marvellous medal of creation, not
larger than the point of an ordinary-sized pin in its cir-
cumference, the disc, called, after its spider-web-like
pattern, the Arachnoidiscus.

" The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all
them that have pleasure therein ; " and what does our
"searching" among these lovely inhabitants of the
deepest of seas, invisible as they are to our unaided
eyes, tell us? That flint and chalk are the two chief
mineral ingredients which God has employed in the
composition of ocean-depths and mountain-heights; for,
observe, Foraminifera, sponge spicules, Polycystina, and
Diatomacese are found in a recent, as, forming solid
masses, they are discovered in a fossil state.

These infinitely little creatures, whose bodies, many
years after they ceased to live, became fossilized by
an infiltration of lime, thus changed to what we know as
"chalk," still preserving their beauty of form, each
taking its part in the formation of huge sub-aqueous
masses, which, afterwards, by mighty subterranean forces

GEOLOGICAL.

199

were upheaved into mountains, thus producing the beau-
tiful uuevenness of the earth's surface ; whilst the flinty
skeletons preserved their original loveliness, and, as we
see in the deep-sea soundings, on comparing fossil with
recent specimens, both are found entire : so that we may
reasonably believe that the bed of the deepest seas is
gradually being prepared, by the accumulation of in-
finitely little animal remains, for the mountains of a
future age.

Various forms of sponge spiculcs.

The old painters, before commencing their work, knelt
before the blank canvas, and asked God's blessing on the
work they were about to commence. Should we not, in
like manner, approach the study which has brought us
together with a reverential and adoring spirit, while we
behold the Almightiness of God, as distinctly visible in
an atom as in the creation of a world ?

Before leaving this very interesting part of our study,
do let me again direct your attention to the variety of
forms in these sponge spicules, all of which, remember,

200

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

are composed of flint. They are to the sponge what the
earthy deposit in the bony structure is to more perfect
animals, and they are amongst the earliest developed of
the organs of the sponge. They are the instruments of
defence as well as the organs of prehension ; and what a
formidable array of daggers, lances, spears, and harpoons
do they present ! Woe be to the tiny mite that comes too
near these flinty weapons of attack and defence !

Do you see how God has provided this humble crea-
ture, a soft gelatinous mass only of living matter, with
the most effectual means of self-protection ? Then, too, as
between the larger spicula the smaller tribes of animals
so abundant in the sea would readily insinuate them-
selves, there is frequently a secondary series of defensive
weapons — all formed, mind, of flint, — a perfect armoury,
of short, finer-pointed spikes, thus rendering the progress

of the smaller enemies

extremely difficult, if
not impossible.

Now just look at
this : it is the weapon
of defence as well as
the organ of protec-
tion, used by a kind
of marine slug in the
same manner as we of
the upper class use our
hands. This humble
denizen of the seas is
provided with the
most wonderful coat
of armour that has ever been seen. The Synapta, from
which these spines were taken, is furnished with numerous
anchor-shaped weapons, which articulate in a beautifully

Anchors and plates of Synapta, detached.
Drawn from nature.

GEOLOGICAL. 201

sculptured flinty plate beneath. When irritated or ex-
cited, just as a body of infantry kneel to receive a charge
of cavalry with fixed bayonets, or a hedgehog to receive
a dog, or a porcupine to defend itself from an enemy ; so,
over the whole surface of the body of a synapta, these
sharp-pointed flukes of the anchor-shaped spines are made
to project, upon the extremities of which the adversary
becomes impaled.

Who would have thought that the mineral with which
we are so familiar, and which, in the form of a pebble, we
so often thoughtlessly kick on the roadside, or shovel up
in minute atoms on the sea-shore in the form of sand,
could, by the slow process of nature, bo wrought into such
lovely forms as those we see in the skeletons of plants or
the spicules of a sponge ?

Sometimes the thickness of a sponge may not be more
than the paper which forms the page upon which this
is printed, and yet there is room and to spare for
these siliceous armouries, in which a small worm, en-
tangled amidst such deadly instruments, would struggle
in vain.

It may be, and I believe is, that the anchor-shaped
spines of the synapta are intended for such a purpose,
serving, not only for prehension, but protection. Here is
a specimen in which the flukes of the anchor are serrated,
thus giving it a firmer hold. Some years ago I was
showing these spines to a mechanical friend, who had
taken out a patent for a new anchor, and when he saw
the object now under our glass he angrily exclaimed,
" Why, somebody has infringed ray patent, and has
actually copied my design ! "

Now, when you use your sponge, will you think of the
romantic story this curious family could tell, both in the
long dim ages of the past, and in the more lively chapters

202

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of the present, had it the power of speech ? " Family," you
say ; " then, are there many varieties ? " Very many, and
their forms are as different as their numbers are great ;
while their fossil remains, strikingly visible in many
common pebbles, are deeply interesting to the " pebble-
seeker."

We are told that something like five hundred tons of

A group of sponges.

sponges — worth more than ^170,000 — are annually sold
in England alone; the horny skeleton of very lowly
organization having around it in its ordinary life a fleshly
mass of slimy " sarcode," which, before the mass can be
lit for the dealer, must be stripped off.

Since sponges have risen so enormously in price,
attempts have been made to cultivate them artificially by
growing them from cuttings. A farm of this sort was

GEOLOGICAL. 203

actually carried on in the Adriatic, and for six years
promised to be successful ; but the plan was defeated by
rival dealers, who imagined that this invention boded
evil to their craft.

Have I wearied you in the brief study of so very
humble a creature as a sponge ? And do you think much
of the evidence of the care that God has taken over one
of the weakest of His creatures ? and do you not conclude
that, therefore, much more will He care for you ? And

'Pill

• . .i. : • : • '

Expulsion of water by a living sponge.

will you not join in David's prayer, and devoutly say, " 0
Lord, how wonderful are Thy works ! in wisdom hast Thou
made them all ; the earth is full of Thy riches : so is
this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping
innumerable, both small and great beasts " ? And, lastly,
are you ready to believe in the fact that amidst the " all"
— that is, from the smallest atom of creation which the
strongest magnifying power almost fails exactly to
discern, namely, a monad, and the largest moving animal,
that is the whale, — the half-way house is our little

204 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

friend, the house-fly : that is, that there may be as many
creations from the monad to the fly as there are from the
fly to the whale ? And do you not see that this points
to another thought, belonging to another and a higher
life, and the grand possibilities which await us ?

CHAPTER VIII.

ANATOMICAL.

** And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . .
So God created man in His o\vn image, in the image of God created He
him."— GEN. i. 26, 27.

" We are the offspring of God."— ACTS xiii. 29.

" What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite
in faculty 1 in form and moving, how express and admirable ! in action
how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a god ! "—SHAKESPEARE.

'UR microscopical studies would be incomplete
without some reference to what should
interest us more than anything else; I
mean, ourselves. We have already seen
something of the wonders of the world we
live on ; shall we not look into some of the
wonders of the world we live in? Awaiting our
patient investigation, are preparations of the human body
from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, exter
nally and internally, from the brain down to the lungs, the
heart, and the stomach.

There are some who are afraid to know of the
mysteries which are associated with their lives, but
surely this is unwise. We are reminded that " we are
fearfully and wonderfully made ; " but how can we
appreciate the wonder of a thing the mechanism of which

206 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

we are content to remain in ignorance of; and, still less,
how can we love One whom we do not know ?

" The proper study of mankind is man ; " and he who
would know something of the greatest mystery of all
mysteries, the mystery of life, must enter into the
elaborate workshop where it is hidden, and though of the
cause he will remain in greater ignorance than ever,
since none but He who first breathed into the body the
breath of lives can fully comprehend what life really is,
still he will, or he should, find the contemplation of the
marvels of the bodily house he lives in a great incentive
to further knowledge, ancl a sure aid to the increase of
devotion.

So let us begin with the very beginning of human
life ; and, that we may not err in our entrance, let me
direct you to one of my favourite psalms, in which the
genesis of our being is curiously but exactly, and, as we
shall presently see with our own eyes, also perfectly and
wonderfully described.

In that inspired poem, the 139th Psalm, the author
writes, "My substance was not hid from Thee, when
I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect ; and in Thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when
as yet there was none of them." And these words, you
must remember, immediately follow what ]ed to them,
and that is praise : " I will praise Thee ; for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made : marvellous are Thy works ; and
that my soul kno \veth right well."

I have attended one church and another, Sunday
after Sunday, for nearly threescore years and ten, and
I have never once, that I can remember, heard one
sermon preached upon these wonderful words, and if I err

ANATOMICAL. 207

in introducing you to a few illustrations proving to you
the truth of the divine record in which they are written,,
it will be in good company, having only the glory of
God and your edification for my object.

You will of course conclude, from reading the words,
that they very inadequately describe to us what was in the
mind of the author when he wrote. Have you ever really
and truly pondered over their mysterious meaning ? " Thy
look"! "my substance" ! " curiously wrought "! "in continuance
were fashioned" ! Do 'you not see they clearly refer to
human life before it became an inhabitant of the world,
when it had, not only as we have had, the "genesis," but as
we shall have, the " exodus " ? What was I ? what am I ?
what shall I soon be ? these are the three great questions
that we should practically consider if we would have a
right view of the greatness and grandeur of human life.

"Does not everything around us and within us
indicate this life is preliminary and preparatory — only
a segment, and not a circle ? If we are preparing for
something, should we not ask for what ? If we are afloat,
and the shore moves from us, and farewells are wafted
from the banks, shall we not ask whither ? From the
beginning to the end of the Bible the fact of a spiritual
world is assured. No attempt is made to prove it logi-
cally, for the simple reason that rents and openings are
constantly made, through which it floods the earth with
sunshine."

These remarks apply, I know, to man's spiritual life,
\\ithwhich the microscope has nothing to do; but the
body is the dwelling-place of the soul, even as the nut is
that of the kernel, and while we are studying the mystery
of the outer part, we cannot help reflecting upon the
grand structure it has to exhibit.

" Curiously wrought " ! <( in continuance fashioned ! "

208 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Look at this. It is the finger of a small infant — a
very choice specimen, because it is injected with red fluid,
which gives it all the appearance of life. The finger-nail,
nicely formed, measures only the one-tenth part of an
inch ; the skin is so thin that we can see through it, as
indeed it is not perfectly and finally formed. What
does it look like, and, had I kept you in ignorance of its
true nature, what would you have supposed it to have
been?

You might say rightly, " Some beautifully fine piece of
needlework, worked by some fairy fingers into the most
exquisite pattern of tassel work."

Now, just look at one of your own fingers. All along
the top there you will observe a series of lines running
round one another, interspersed with microscopical dots
equidistant from each other. If you think, you will arrive
at the fact that beneath the epidermis — the outer skin, that
is — corresponding with these depressions, there would be
an equal distribution of elevations ; that is just what you
are looking at. But, as we have said, these capillary loops,
with their fringe-like appearance, appear to resemble the
finest of needlework. Now hear what that eminent
Hebrew scholar, Dr. Mason Good, says about the fifteenth
verse of the Psalm already referred to. He says, " It is
better rendered, * ivhen I was wrought with a needle in the
depths of the earth,' in allusion to the sacerdotal robes
of the .high priest (see Exod. xxviii. 2). The indescrib-
able texture of the human system " (these are riot my
words, but his) " is, therefore, with much propriety, com-
pared to the exquisite needlework of the high priest's
vestments; 'and thou shalt make holy vestments for
Aaron thy brother for glory and beauty.' "

Is this what another famous Hebrew scholar once re-
ferred to, I wonder, when he asked these words ? — " What !

ANATOMICAL. 209

know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you ? " *

As the tabernacle was formed according to the pattern
showed to Moses in the Mount,f and as the temple
afterwards was formed after the pattern of the tabernacle,
but expanded, and, like it, consisted of three parts, wherein
were, first, the outer court, in which a mixed multitude
might congregate ; secondly, that part where sacrifices
were made ; and, thirdly, the holy place into which the
high priest alone was allowed to enter ;- — so, after a similar
pattern, is the human body built up. Such is our know-
ledge of its wonderful nature. We know much about the
outer structure of bone and muscle, and nerve and sinew ;
we know much, too, of intelligence and the structure and
function of brain ; but of the cause of life itself we are,
and always shall be, in profound ignorance — that is, the
inmost sanctuary, and only He knows who is its Author.
Yes, your body and mine is fashioned after the similitude
of the tabernacle, and so He who dignified poor human
nature by taking the human form said, " Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it again ; " and one
whom He loved reminds us that " as He is, so are we in
this world." Also, in several passages of Scripture, this
body, frail as it is, is called God's house.

Life may be, and I often think is, the action of
electricity in some incomprehensible form, for think what
electricity has been made to do. To repeat sounds, as of
an operatic performance produced a year ago, and repeated
by an instrument a thousand times ; an instrument — the
phonograph (" sound-graving ")— by means of which words
spoken by the human voice can be, literally, stored up
and reproduced at will over and over again, hundreds,
it may be thousands, of times ; by means of which the
* 1 Cor. vi. 19. f Heb. viii. 5.

0

210 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

old familiar voice of one who is no longer with us on
earth can be heard speaking to us in the very tones and
measure to which our ears were once accustomed. And
this wonderful instrument, after all, simply consists of a
plate of metal, with apparatus capable of striking upon it
so as to produce a musical sound, the plate being sent by
post to any part of the world, and the message absolutely
respoken in the very voice of the sender purely by
mechanical agency.

Well said Mrs. Siddons, the celebrated actress, on
seeing the Apollo Belvedere in the Louvre at Paris,
" How great must be the Being who_created the genius
which could produce such a form as this ! "

Electricity has been, and is now, commonly used to
enable us to speak with one at a considerable distance, as
in the telephone, which now joins London and Paris ; and
they do say that the inventor is busily occupied in the
discovery of a method by which electricity will enable us
to see what is going on in any part of the world. But
then comes the question, What is electricity ? We get so
far, but no further. Is the brain a galvanic battery, and
all the nerves so many telegraph-wires, which, all com-
municating with the great central station at the top of
the house we live in, fetch and carry all the messages,
even from the furthermost member of the body, forming
the means whereby we hold communion with the outer
world, and become acquainted, through the senses, with
one another, and the glory and beauty of the wonderful
globe we live on ?

What is life ? what is electricity ? what really is the
mystery of being ? Who shall tell us ? " We are but
of yesterday, and know nothing " (Job viii. 9).

Our next illustration is from another object, but of a
similar kind to the last. It is the human knee-joint in its

ANATOMICAL. 211

very early formation, being probably only three and a half
months old. " Ah," you may well say, " how wonderful ! "

Here is another reminder of the words already quoted,
" which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there
was none of them." There is hardly any part of the
bodily house we live in more characteristic of design
than the ball-and-socket joint of the knee ; if we only
knew how much of our happiness depends upon the self-
lubrication of this masterpiece of workmanship, we should
thank God at every step we take in the path of life.

Carefully enwrapped in a bundle of striated muscle,
is the first formation of human bone, and this is the earliest
stage of a ball-and-socket joint, and here is the place
prepared — or shall we say, " curiously fashioned " f — for
that precious little knee-pan called the patella* a round
flat bone, not joined to the other, but lying very closely
upon it, and kept in its place by the tendons just
coming into view. There is scarcely any one of the 223
bones of the body but what might be spared as well, if
not better, than this, which, though not larger than a
crown piece, protects the knee-joint from any injury
which might occur by the rubbing of one part against
another, and supplies exactly the want which the " keepers
of the house " require in the many duties they have
daily to perform.

Here, again, is a tiny drop of human blood, containing a
number of corpuscles (" little bodies "), so laid out that we
can not only measure their diameter but count their
number, though the latter would be no easy task, since
we are told that three millions would all lie in the size of
a pin's head (Tyndall) ; and the measurement, too, would
bother some of us, being only -g^ part of an inch.
You will see they are all nucleated — that is, having a
* Latin, " a small plate."

212 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

central offspring, which will take the place of its parent,
with a third generation concealed in it, one taking the
place of the other when it has accomplished its work.
This book does not pretend to approach a treatise on
physiology, and so all that is necessary, in thinking of the
important part of life which the red corpuscles play in
bodily health, is to let you see upon what little things
much of our happiness depends. Observe they are
flattened discs. I have told you their diameter is only
^5aoTJ Part °f an incn- The circle upon which they are
spread on our glass slip measures half an inch in diameter.
It is ten times larger in circumference- than a pin's head,
and three millions of these red blood-discs, remember,
will lie in that space.

These blood-discs are very indestructible, and may be
extracted from the blood-stains on weapons upon which
the blood has remained for many years ; hence the value
of the microscope in criminal investigation. The scarlet
hue is due to iron, and from the dead bodies of their
friends, when cremated, our French neighbours sometimes
find iron enough to make a mourning-ring.

Every time your heart beats it tolls the knell of twenty
millions of these little organisms.* You may naturally
ask, How is it possible to measure these infinitely small
bodies, or to count such vast numbers ?

The same question might fairly have been asked as
we looked at the many thousand lenses of the gnat, or
those of beetles. It were impossible to measure or to
count them, but we have a micrographic measurer, called
a micrometer, that is, a measurer of little things — a photo-
graph, on which are about a thousand minute divisions,
each numbered, and by laying this over the object, and
counting or measuring a given number in one division,

* Dr. Laweon, iii " Popular Physiology."

ANATOMICAL. 213

and multiplying by the number of divisions covering tlio
mass, we can accurately determine both size and number.

Now we pass on to the most important part of all —
tli at which the wise King of Israel called " the golden
bowl " (Eccles. xii. 6), the human brain. Let us suppose
we have before us a tolerably large slice, a horizontal
section, properly and delicately prepared with red injec-
tion, giving it all the appearance of life. It is from the
cerebrum, or front, or proper brain, that which constitutes
the intelligent part of the medium of rnind. It is covered
with an extremely fine network of capillaries, which,
having taken up the red injection, and which in the living
being would have been the channels taking blood-nourish-
ment to every cell of the brain, gives to this deeply inte-
resting object close resemblance to life, motion excepted.

Have you ever thought of that wonderful property
which we call memory ? What is memory ? How is
it that, every particle of the human body — bone, muscle,
skin, nail, and brain — being changed once every four
years, now science thinks, but even should it be seven,
as it was said to be years ago, a man of seventy years
of age has had at least ten different bodies, and lost ten
different brains, which certainly have been the instruments
employed in recollection, — how is it that he can better
remember some of the events which happened during the
life of brain number one than in brain number nine ?

Our bodies change repeatedly, so remember that it is
literally as well as metaphorically true that we " die daily."

Look at this slice of the human brain. It consists of
a countless number of very minute cells. Our magni-
fying glass, called a " sixth" with the strongest eyepiece,
called the " D," or fourth, will, with an extended draw-
tube, give us a power much beyond a million of times,
and yet are we far from success in detecting the structure

214 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of these microscopic cells. We found that three millions
of blood-discs would lie in the compass of a pin's head,
and these brain-cells are very considerably smaller than
they. I cannot tell you the cubical contents of a man's
brain, but I can give you its weight, and that is about all
that can be told with accuracy and beyond dispute. The
weight, then, of an adult male European brain varies
between three pounds ten ounces and four pounds six
ounces; and the grey matter, of which these infinitely
small bodies are composed, is connected (in its entirety)
with the mental operations ; and, as Dr. Lawson says,
after describing various operations performed upon the
brain, " all these facts point to one and the same conclu-
sion, viz. that in the cerebrum are located tlie various
faculties of mind!1 But then we come again upon the
question, What is memory? Are all these countless, and,
except by the aid of the strongest glasses, invisible
cerebral cells the storehouses of thought ? and do they
constitute what our Shakespeare calls the "mind's eye" ?
But, then, think again of the brains some of us have
had repeated and rebuilt from new material over and
over, perhaps more than ten times. How is it that the
mind, which is the source of memory, has not gone with
the cerebral cells, the tenant with the dwelling, the seven
years' lease having expired ? All that echo replies is,
"How?"

Clearly enough, the multitude of multitudes of
cerebral cells in an average-sized human brain are
enough, provided only one event in a long life were
stored in each, to record the story of its entire length
from infancy to old age ; but how the remembrance is
retained, year after year, long after these little organisms
have passed away, who shall tell ? Surely this is one
of the very hardest nuts a materialist has to crack !

ANATOMICAL. 215

Our next object is the transverse section of the
spinal cord, that main branch of the telegraph system of
the body which runs through the entire length of the
backbone, the vertebra?.

Let us compare this injected specimen with a small
piece of a submarine telegraph cable, bearing in mind
the idea of the association of life with electricity.

Observe the striking resemblance which one bears
to the other. The grey matter of the brain surrounds
the central aperture, up which flashes the sense of
feeling from the most distant member of the body, the
foot, conveying the message to the brain, from which
proceeded the command that the return messenger
announces has been obeyed — say, to kick that piece of
orange-peel from the pavement which some thoughtless
person had thrown there. Then from that great main
trunk the nerves all issue, running so entirely over the
whole building — or, shall we say again, i( temple "? — of the
body, that, in a specimen in a glass case in the museum
of the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the
human skeleton, standing in an upright position, appears
to be literally covered with very minute silken threads
from top to bottom, all the flesh having been removed,
and nothing but the bones and nerves left. Here is the
telegraph system at once both anticipated and illustrated ;
but who shall explain its mystery ?

Next, awaiting our inspection as well as our reflection,
is a transverse section of an adult optic nerve; this
measures an eighth of an inch in diameter, and this again
is the mysterious instrument which conveys the reflec-
tion of every object you and I have ever looked upon to
the central telegraph station — I mean the brain, where
it is "left till called for," when the mind, reading
off from the picture left on the "sensitized plate" as

216

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

the photographer calls it, recalls the image; but what

causes the retention of the image forty or fifty years

after?

We may see multitudes of invisible muscular fibre?,
through which once ran the
nerves carrying the pictures of
the outer world to the brain of
some member of our race — dis-
integrated bundles of invisible
threadlets they are. These
extremely delicate radiating
fibres average the fifteen -
thousandth part of an inch in
diameter. They are aggregated
into flattened bundles, and ap-
pear to be mechanically held
together by a countless number
of teeth, each one interlocking
with the other.

And here you have what
perhaps you will say is the most
interesting of all our anatomical
objects, the human skin from the
hand. Observe, this is stained
with three different colours, so
that the various parts may be

Vertical section of human skin, more easily distinguished. The

cnS«2fT& inneHr frue^in" 6ntil'e bodJ is COV^d with this

c, the coii of a sweat-duct, finding its wonderful clothing, which is

^,x*

outlet on the surface, a ; between a
and b is seen the pigm
give colour to the skin

and 6 is seen the pigment-cells which composed of two layers an

inner, the vera cutis, or true
skin, which usually makes up the largest part of its
thickness ; and the epidermis, which covers it. These
two skins are separated by a thin bed of gelatinous sub-

ANATOMICAL. 217

stance. There are no blood-vessels in the outer skin ; its
only object is to protect the inner skin with all its delicate
nerves and vessels ; and here is a very striking instance
of design which this epidermis has " acquired " (?), for it
has the power of growing faster than the other skin,
where most it is wanted ; that is, upon those parts which
are most used, as if what we call " nature " foresaw the
necessity, and made provision for it.

It is on such a slide that we see the distribution of the
sweat-ducts, which have so much to do with health and
disease. You behold them running from coiled-up bundles
beneath both skins, embedded in deeper layers. These
sweat-glands, you will perceive, consist of a tube, the
opening of which is on the outside of the outer skin, and
on one square inch of the palm of the hand there are as
many as 3528 ; * they run up from their bundles into the
epidermis in a corkscrew form, starting from a bed sup-
plied with blood-vessels which are appointed to nourish
them. Their number is astonishing ; 2800 are said to
be found in every square inch of the skin, and as there
are 2500 square inches on an average-sized human body,
it will follow that their number over the whole body will
amount at least to seven millions. You will see that
these glands take a wave-like direction from their base
to their summit. When straightened they will measure
a quarter of an inch in length, so if all their tubing were
placed end to end it would amount to 1,750,000 inches,
or 145,833 feet, or 48,611 yards, which is upwards of
27 miles.f And the health and comfort of a life-
time greatly depends upon the correct performance of
all this system of main drainage, without any power of
ours to alter it, though, on the whole, we may help or
hinder it.

* Erasmus Wilson. f Dr. Lawson.

218

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

I have already told you that in the human lungs there
are six hundred millions of air-cells. You shall now see
with your own eyes what these air-cells are, first in health,
and then in disease. Tell me, then, if we are not " fear-
fully and wonderfully made," and whether a house so
marvellously constructed should not have a tenant in
every respect worthy of its glorious Builder.

Here, then, first, is a preparation of the human lung.

The whole interior,
you perceive, is di-
vided into a multitude
of air - cells, which
freely communicate
with each other, and
with the ultimate
ramifications of the air-
tubes which the tra-
chea, that is, the wind-
pipe, subdivides ; and
the network of the
blood-vessels is so dis-
posed in the partitions between these almost countless
cavities, that the blood is exposed to the air on both sides.
Such is a very brief and very imperfect reference to
some few of the many wonders connected with our re-
spiratory organs in health. Now let us see what that
fatal disease called " consumption " looks like when seen
with our microscope. " Why," you say, " this looks for
all the world like a piece of mouldy flesh." That is, in
my opinion, exactly what it is. The air-cells in our
object are almost entirely destroyed by parasitic growth.
Had you seen the doctor's certificate which accompanied
the burial of the person from whose body this little bit of
diseased lung was taken, you would have read the Greek

Air-cells of the human lung.

ANATOMICAL. 219

word "Phthisis" which being interpreted, means "wasting
away" It is sometimes called "tubercular disease."
We have already seen something of the blood, and we
know something of the nature of that great pumping-
station of the body we call the heart, which our forefathers
long ago erroneously thought was the seat of the affec-
tions; and we have seen something, too, of that wonderful
system of drainage which runs over the whole body, from
the crown of the head to the sole of the foot ; and now
we are brought face to face with that fell disease which,
unless taken in its earliest stage, ends in what we call
death. What is it ? You said it looked like a piece of
mouldy flesh, and you were right. But what is mould ?
The tubercules which destroyed the lung from which our
object was taken was the consequence of imperfect
oxygenation of the blood of the owner, and that is what
we are all more or less exposed to. Ah, if you were only
to pay a visit to the Brompton Hospital for Consumption,
and you did not return to your home with a grateful, a
sympathetic, and a liberal heart — well, the more your
shame !

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound," says
Shakespeare, and he says truly; but the right way to
appreciate our own blessings is to become a little more
familiar with others who have been deprived of theirs, for
indeed it is true that " blessings do brighten when they
take their flight," and instead of being frightened at a
little imperfect knowledge of some of " the ills that flesh
is heir to," we may learn to avoid some of the various
ways which lead to them, and to thank God also for
being 'kept from them. I have heard of one who, passing
through the wards of a lunatic asylum one day where
those were detained who were harmless, had one of them
come up to him, and in that strange manner in which an

220 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

insane man addresses you, looking into his face he said, " I
say, sir, did you thank God this morning for giving you
the right use of your mind ? " On receiving an honest
answer in the negative, he replied, " No more did I ; and
that's why He has taken it away ! " There ivas " method
in his madness."

Look at another slide ; it is marked " Striated fibre,
human muscle." When we examine an ordinary piece of
flesh, say of a rump-steak, with the naked eye, we observe
that it is made up of a number of bundles of fibres, arranged
side by side with great regularity, in the direction in
which the muscle is to act: these bundles may be
separated into smaller parts, and then they appear as
they do in our specimen, as distinct fibres.

Our muscles, then, are of different kinds, as our
nerves are, and just as there are nerves of sensation and
nerves of motion, so are there muscles of volition and
muscles of involition, and these voluntary and involuntary
muscles are of two different forms in their structure ; one,
the voluntary, is striated, that is, marked or impressed
with thread-like lines; you will see this with our
highest magnifying power, and, remember, it is significant
of the extreme fineness of their structure, that our sixth,
objective, whose power with the "A" eye-piece is 240
diameters, and with the " D " 910, and whose superficial
power, therefore, is, 828,100 times, is necessary to count
these otherwise invisible striated fibres which lie so closely
packed behind or next each other; but, though im-
perceptible to us, even with this excellent lens, there
is a space between each. Now, that space is the hunting-
ground of another disease, and, however uncertain we may
be of the natural history of the malady^we call " consump-
tion" whether it be morbid vegetable growth or not, it
leaves us in no doubt about the cause of the equally fatal

ANATOMICAL.

221

and more mysterious disease called " Trichinosis ; " in the
examination of which we shall see that it is possible for
a man to be eaten up of worms ; and we shall learn a
solemn and perhaps a useful lesson, that just as the intro-
duction of an invisible enemy will destroy the body, so
may it be with the
soul.

Here, then, are
striated fibres of the
human muscle be-
tween which you will
see coiled up in an
oblong cyst (another
Greek word, signify-
ing a bladder) an un-

rlnnKtarl am'™*! nf « Voluntary muscle, with two distinct attacks

of trichina Drawn from nature.

worm-like nature; and

as this specimen came to me from a good and clever
man * \vho prepared it, and who knew something of the
unfortunate victim of the disease, I will tell you what
he has told me. But, here again, don't say, " No, whilst
ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." You need
not be alarmed ; it is only those who will eat raw or
badly cooked and inferior meat who are exposed to such
a terrible disease as trichinosis. Well, then, if you are
not a coward, listen !

A few years ago a man was driving a cart down one
of the crowded thoroughfares of the city near the London
Hospital. He fell down, apparently in a fit, and was taken
to the hospital, where, soon after, the poor fellow died.
When the inquest was held upon the body, it was dis-
covered that death was produced by a second swarm of
trichina? ; from the first he had recovered, and those dark
* Mr. J. T. Norman of the City Load.

222 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

and empty cysts you see on our object were those which,
first attacked the muscle, between the voluntary fibre of
which you see they are concealed. Those which come
more clearly into view, are those which produced his
death. My friend tells me that the subject from which
he made this preparation was a German who had been in
England twenty years; he had been ill on several occasions,
and had been in the habit of receiving sausage-meat from
his relations in Germany, which was no doubt the means
by which he was trichinised, as on several occasions after
eating it he was taken ill, but never bad enough to be
laid up, the illness passing off as an attack of ordinary
diarrhoea, calling for no medical assistance. I have told
you his death was occasioned by what at first appeared to
be a fit of some kind. On a post-mortem examination
being made, his muscles were found to be filled with
trichinae in most extraordinary numbers ; on a moderate
calculation, his body was supposed to have contained
between fifty and sixty millions of these parasites.

I might thus entertain — no, don't say "frighten" — you
with other illustrations of the human body, in health and
disease ; but perhaps you may exclaim, " Hold, enough ! "
And so we will leave the investigation of bone and sinew,
and teeth and nail, and other of the many complicated
parts of the wonderful house we live in ; and I can only
hope to have sharpened the edge of your intellectual
appetite, and to send you to other and better guides for
increased instruction ; but you will read and study in vain
unless you can endorse Thomas Carlyle's words, that
man's twofold nature is reflected in history. He is of
earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and
petty too oft his wants and bis desires are ; yet they serve
a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims, with immortal
longings, with thoughts which sweep the heavens, and

ANATOMICAL. 223

wander through eternity. A pigmy standing on the
outward crust of this small planet, yet his far-reaching
spirit stretches outwards to the infinite, and there alone
finds rest.

I have already reminded you that it is truly a most
Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from
what is called "Nature;" and, if you are not above
listening a little further to her still small voice, as we
pursue our microscopical studies, you will endorse the
pious exclamation of the Christian poet Milton, who,
looking " from Nature up to Nature's God," exclaimed —

" These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty ! Thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair : Thyself how wondrous then 1
Unspeakable ! who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these Thy lowest works ; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine."

CHAPTER IX.

POND-LIFE.

"Let the waters bring forth abundantly."— GEN. i. 20.

" How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who
bears up the world — of Him who has created, and who provides for the
joys even of insects, as carefully as if He were their Father ! " — RICHTER.
\

to a friend for the following
story. He was present at a meeting of naval
and military officers held at Portsmouth
recently, when experiments were made
with some new application of machinery
in the construction of submarine torpe-
does, and after witnessing the character of these
dreadful war-ministers, he was introduced to the
inventor, to \\hom he then showed some of the marvels of
pond-life with his microscope, and in one little drop of
water, not larger than a pin's head, an ordinary rotifer
appeared with the cilia resembling an invisible rotatory
wheel in rapid circulation, producing that vortex in the
surrounding water into which all the smaller animalculaa
falling, became its prey. His consternation on beholding
the complex machinery of the invisible animalculce was
equal to my friend's at the marvellous display of intelli-
gence in his implements of destruction, and he appeared

POND-LIFE. 225

to realize the truth of his own exclamation, that "he
was outdone after all."

In studying the contrasts in nature, no more interest-
ing experiment can be made than taking a drop of water
and placing it in the live-box, and then viewing it with
a moderate power under the microscope with the aid of
the spot lens, an invaluable dark-ground illuminator,
having the light thrown on to the mirror from the flat
side of the bull's-eye lens ; and here let me remind you
that the thin edge of the flame of the lamp is that which
should always be used, when the petroleum, if it be the
best — that is, what is called " water- white " — will give a
pure white and steady light.

It would have spread out my story far beyond its
limits were I to attempt to enter upon the manifold et
ceteras of the instrument or its management : that is
not my object here. When I began my microscopical
studies I had very little exterior aid ; I found the greatest
aid from close personal observation. I worked on, re-
membering the little song, " If at first you don't succeed,
try again," until I learned all I needed to know. I recom-
mend every beginner to provide himself with a copy of
Jabez Hogg's book on the microscope, if he would know
all that he will need to know on the history of the
instrument that has been so useful to the world during
the last quarter of a century. There he will find, in easy
and unscientific language, a work copiously illustrated,
all about the mechanical and optical principles in the
construction of the microscope, its lenses, illumination,
and apparatus, together with popular illustrations of the
marvels of the invisible world. Should that work be
beyond his reach, then the little book of the late Mr.
Wood, "The Common Objects of the Microscope," will give
him a wonderfully cheap shilling's worth of readable in-

P

226 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

formation, which will both amuse^ and instruct him. But
beyond and above all things, let me very strongly advise
him never to think of investing in a microscope, however
humble it be, without consulting some one able to advise
him as to the best way to get the best return for the
money he may have to spend, or the probability will be
that he will have to begin all over again, or give it up in
disgust. There is a never-ending amount of be wonder-
ment and delight in the study of what is called " pond-
life ; " it is necessary to be provided with one of Baker's
fishing-rods — a telescopic walking-stick, admirably con-
trived, so as to serve the purpose of a travelling com-
panion, and an assistant as well in getting some of the
objects from the water too far from the land to be reached
otherwise. When the stick is extended, there is attached
to it a ring into which a wide -mouthed bottle, which
accompanies the stick, as well as a hooked knife to cut
oif the aquatic weeds, is affixed ; and then a little world
may be easily caught, and the bottle detached from the
rod, and the contents, being secured with a screw top,
will create such an amount of astonishment as to be
believed must be witnessed.

It is nine and twenty years ago since in this way I
first went a- fishing. I was advised to go to what was
called the " Black Sea," a pond on Wandsworth Common,
and I fished in hope. I knew nothing then of the names
or character of any of the wonderful things my eye was
to behold, and, being very enthusiastic, I surveyed a tiny
drop of the water on my return home. It was very late
at night, and my family had retired to rest ; but when I
put the smallest possible drop into the live- box and
perceived, for the first time, the clever and very lively
melicerta at work with the sensitive vorticella on its
long spiral stalk, its cilia revolving, or appearing to

POND-LIFE. 227

revolve, after the fashion of the paddle-wheel of a steam-
boat; as 1 saw the vortex produced by it, and the
remarkable manner in which it caught the smaller
animalcule, taking it into its transparent body; and
then when, employing my highest power, I succeeded in
finding a very delicate muscle running from end to end of
that fragile stalk, which held the creature to the bit
of weed I put into the box — you will not wonder at my
astonishment being equal to the torpedo-inventor, who
exclaimed he was outdone after all; nor will you be
surprised at my actually bringing some of my loved ones
out of their beds to witness the wonderful things I had
found in that prolific pond.

The inelicerta, so well known to every experienced
microscopist, may, I think, be called the prince of rotifers
— a class of animals called Rotifera, by reason of the
rotatory motion in the water produced by cilia surround-
ing the mouth, giving it exactly the appearance of a
wheel, very actively rotating by means of minute
machinery concealed in its transpaient body. But first
a word or two about the vorticella.

In a very interesting volume in my possession,
published in 1743, there is the first account I have found
of this remarkable creature. The author, one of the
Fellows of the Royal Society, Henry Baker by name,
describes it thus: "In several of Mr. Leeuwenhoek's
letters to the Royal Society, we meet with an account of
some surprising animalcules found adhering to the roots
of duck-weed (which in summer-time floats plentifully on
the surface of ponds and ditches) as examined by him in
a glass tube filled with water ; one of these was shaped
like bells with long tails, whereby they fastened them-
selves to the roots of the weeds ; and sometimes twenty
of these were seen together, gently extending their long

228 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

tails and bodies, and then in an instant contracting them

Pond-life, highly magnified (see p. 234).
" Infinite riches in a little room,"

again." Clearly this is the Vorticella. Then follows, with

POND-LIFE. 229

equal clearness, the Helicerta, and I quote the author's
exact words only to show how observant and correct our
forefathers were, who had such very imperfect instruments
to work with, so that the most juvenile of students with
the humblest of microscopes may learn from them a lesson
of perseverance.

" Another extraordinary kind of animalcule," says this
old writer, " appears in a sheath, or case, the end whereof
it fastens to the duck-weed roots. This little creature has
two seeming wheels, with a great many teeth or notches
coming from its head, and turning round as it were upon
an axis. At the least touch it draws the wheel-work into
its body, and its body into the sheath, after which it
appears concealed; but when all is quiet it thrusts itself
out again, and the rotation of the wheel- work is renewed."

To another Fellow of the Eoyal Society, the late
Christian philosopher, Philip Henry Gosse, who but
recently passed away from us, we are indebted for a full
explanation of this wonderful illustration of the almighti-
ness of God shown in little things. His description of
what he properly calls the architectural instincts of
inelicerta will greatly interest any one who has had the
good fortune to witness the movements of this busy little
rotifer. He says it is an animalcule so minute as to be
with difficulty appreciable to the naked eye, inhabiting
a tube composed of pellets, which it forms and lays one
by one. It is a mason, who not only builds his mansion
brick by brick, but makes his bricks as he goes on from
substances which he collects around him, shaping them
upon a mould which he carries upon his body. Mr. Gosse
seems to believe that its first discoverer was Linnaeus, the
Swedish naturalist, who flourished about a hundred and
sixty years ago. The very best comparison that could
have been made by Mr. Gosse was when he likened

230 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

the cilia in motion round the head of melicerta to one
of those circular ventilators which used to be seen in
one of the upper panes of a kitchen window, running
round and round for the cure of smoky chimneys. One,
to whom I am greatly indebted for much of my little
knowledge of natural history, told me that he had re-
moved one of the "bricks," or small pellets, and that
immediately another was moulded from the inside — the
whole process being revealed by the transparency of the
creature's body — and deposited in its place by what
looked like the first finger and thumb of a man's hand,
both working together in the moulding of the " bricks."

The vorticella is very much less in size than the
melicerta, but has similar interest for us in the wonderful
construction of its infinitely little transparent body. The
" tail " of the old author is in truth a long flexible stalk,
one end being attached to the stem or leaves of an
aquatic plant, commonly called " lemna," or duck-weed,
through the entire length of which runs the muscular
thread, the discovery of which, in one of my earliest
examinations, required a magnifying power of about a
million of times superficial. " When in activity and
secure from danger," says Mr. Hogg, from whose very
useful volume some of the foregoing has been taken, " the
little vorticella stretches its stalk to the utmost, whilst its
fringe of cilia is constantly drawing to its mouth any
luckless animalcule that may come within the influence
of the vortex it creates ; but at the least alarm the cilia
vanish, and the stalk, with the rapidity of lightning, draws
itself up into a little spiral coil."

How often have I been astonished at witnessing the
extreme sensitiveness of this inhabitant of the invisible
world ! Simply by tapping the instrument, while the
little thing is hunting for its food, it withdraws itself

TOND-LIFE.

231

into its transparent dwelling by the contraction of its
muscular stalk, gradually extending itself directly it has
recovered from the shock. How many thoughts which
positively bewilder one does such an insignificant thing as
this suggest !

Has this minute object in creation, then, a brain,
since a brain is the seat of sensation in every animal?

Group of Yorticellse.

Evidently there is as true muscular action as we superior
animals have. But the wonders of this speck of vitality
are by no means confined to the appearance it will present
when you find it revealing, apparently, its complicated
machinery, for its little life is not always to be affixed to
the weed upon which we find it. There are no organs of
locomotion visible in the Vorticeila while it is attached to
the stalk, which limits its sphere to the spot on which we

232 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

may see it ; but for the purpose of propagation, when the
proper period arrives, at the lower end of the body, at the
point of its junction with the stalk, a new fringe of cilia
is developed; and when this is fully formed, the vorti-
cella quits its stalk and casts itself freely upon its world
of waters.

Pond-life! "I am free to confess," writes Mr. Gosse,
" that among all classes of animated beings the Rot if era
has been my own special delight. Their numerous and
varied forms, often of remarkable symmetry and elegance,
their swiftly revolving wheels, their vigorous and sprightly
motions, their curious habits and instincts, their complex
organization, and the ease and correctness with which
this is discerned through their tissues, which have the
transparent brilliance of the purest crystal — all combine
to impart a charm to the wheel-bearers, which make the
observer hail their appearance in his drop of water with
pleasure, and linger over them with unwearied delight."

Their little lives are indeed like a romance. You may
observe all its processes by dropping a little colouring
matter into the water in which you have found them, and
as the minute particles, either of indigo or carmine, pass
along their little canals, their envelopes being perfectly
transparent, the whole of the machinery of their exqui-
sitely perfect little bodies may be easily observed.

Should it be asked what is the use of these apparently
useless little things — these to us invisible inhabitants of
the watery world— Professor Owen tells us that they are
the " invisible scavengers " who are appointed to preserve,
not only the purity of the water, but the salubrity of the
atmosphere, for they are found everywhere. Heated water
will not destroy them, for they know how to preserve an
atmosphere around their curious bodies just cool enough to
preserve life ; nor will frozen water exterminate them, for

POND-LIFE. 233

they know how to preserve a little volume of warm air
around them, which has the same effect in keeping them
alive. And when they have converted the dead and de-
composing particles of matter which they find in the
element in which they live into their own living tissues
by that mysterious process we call " assimilation," they
themselves become food for larger infusoria and of
numerous other small animals, which in their turn are
devoured by larger animals, and thus a food fit for the
nourishment of the highest organized beings is brought
together by a short route, from the extremity of the
realms of organized matter.

Pond-life ! No branch of microscopical work can be
better studied, as an evidence of the wisdom of (rod dis-
played in creation, than the forms and movements of the
minute inhabitants of stagnant waters or streams. Their
organs of locomotion are astonishing; they appear to
move about at their own free will, without the interference
of anything else, and they hold on to an object with what
appears to be voluntary adhesion ; and their mode of
reproduction, too, is most curious, for in some species it
is by division, while in others it is by budding. All day
and all night these active little " scavengers " are busy
employing their short lives in clearing the water from
offensive matter, and they appear to enjoy their existence,
brief though it be. How many thousands may be found
in a drop of water not larger than a pin's head it is not
safe to r» peat, but they are simply countless.

May we not conclude these very brief remarks on
pond-liie with a reference to the best of authors in the
best of books ?— " These wait all upon Thee ; that Thou
mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou
givest them they gather : Thou openest Thine hand, they
are filled with good. . . . Thou takest away their breath.

231 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

they die, and return to their dust." "Let the waters
bring forth abundantly," was the command ; how per-
fectly has it been obeyed !

"INFINITE KlCHES IN A LITTLE ROOM."

The reader, who may be a stranger to the world of
wonders to be found in a drop of water, may be told that
in the cut at p. 228 are represented in a group some of
the most striking specimens of animal and vegetable life
to be found in our ponds. Confervoid plants in this
admirably engraved cut afford everything needful to the
animals seen in it : there is the water-flea, Cyclops (with
its one eye), at the bottom; and immediately over it, in its
transparent house, supported on its foot-stalk, one of the
most beautiful species of Zoophytes, the Stephanoceros,
with its beautiful crown and active cilia, occupying the
centre of the cut; immediately to its left Melicerta is
seen with extended cilia; and directly over that is the
strange-looking transparent body of the Water-bear, in
two forms, bending over, and turning round the branch
of an aquatic plant. Rotifers of several kinds are seen
busily occupied in swimming in what to them is a river
of water; and, near the top on the right hand, is the
Volvox globator, a little vegetable centre of life with future
worlds visible through its transparent envelope, rotating
on its own axis in the stream just as our world does in
air; its diameter is only the thirtieth of an inch, the
minute green spots visible on its surface, each of which
is a cell, being only the 3500th part of an inch in size.

CHAPTEK X.

MISCELLANEOUS.

"What a wonderful Workman is God, in miniature as well as in the
great ! With the one hand, perhaps, He is making a ring of one hundred
thousand miles in diameter to revolve round a planet like Saturn, and
with the other is forming a tooth in the ray of a feather of a humming-
bird, or a point in the foot of a microscopic insect. When He works in
miniature, everything is gilded, polished, and perfect ; but whatever is
made by human art, as a needle, etc., when viewed by a microscope,
appears rough and coarse and bungling." — PALEY.

'OU will not be surprised at my continued
devotion to studies in which the micro-
scope is a necessary companion. There
is hardly anything that this may not be
applied to with widening interest. No
one knows what treasures lie mysteriously
concealed in the flowers of his garden;
nor of the gladness and astonishment which only await
a quiet hour and an experienced teacher to bring them
to light. Let me give you a striking illustration.

Some friends, to whom I had promised an eveniug
with the instrument, begged that they might be allowed
to bring another with them, and I was thus introduced to
the stranger, a venerable matron of quite my own age,
whose husband had been a well-known character in the
literary and scientific world, and who was more especially

236 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

devoted to the natural history of ferns, having written
and published much about them, a copy of one of whose
books the lady brought with her. The following is some-
thing like the conversation which took place between us.

" So you know something about ferns ? "

" I should," was the reply ; " for many years of my
life have been spent, in connection with my late husband,
in their study."

" And in flowers too ? " I said.

" Yes," she replied, " in flowers too."

" Let me show you some of my ferns and flowers, then,
as it is always well to begin with what we already know
something about."

I then asked if she knew much of the structure of ferns
or flowers, and found her knowledge was confined to
their species, genera, and growth. Her husband had used
a " magnifying glass " in their examination, she said, but
she had never beheld their structure through such a
microscope as she now saw ; nor did she wish to, as her
sentimental fondness for both ferns and flowers did not
approve of their being " torn to pieces." The dear old lady
had a face beaming with intelligence and goodness, and as
the face is the index of the mind, looking into it, I said —

" I think I could make a convert of you, if you will
allow me to try."

" No, thank you," she emphatically replied ; " you
could not. I'm too old to learn, and don't wish to begin
again."

After a little persuasion, with the conviction that I
had the right kind of material to work upon, I succeeded
in tempting her to look down the magic tube. I had
separated the stamen and pistil of one of the Japanese
anemones then so beautifully blooming in our garden.
She looked, first at it, and then at me, and then gently

MISCELLANEOUS. 237

exclaimed, u Well, I've never seen anything like that ! "
then, coaxingly leading her up the botanical ladder,
at last I got to the ferns which she fancied she knew
all about, and you should have seen her amazement
and delight as the spores fortunately burst from their
golden cases, distributing themselves before her eyes.
We wound up a couple of charming hours with the cir-
culation in the leaf of the Anacharis, when, with the
fourth eye-piece, a good sixth object-glass, and ex-
tended draw-tube, the superficial measurement of that
little leal measuring only one-tenth of an inch by one-
eighth in length and breadth, there may be seen an
average of 315,000 moving granules of chlorophyll, —
"grass-green" bodies, each revolving in its individual
cell, in 6300 cells into which the leaf is divided, and
then the " conversion " was complete, when the convert
exclaimed —

" I should like to stay here all night ! When may I
come again ? "

How very different this result to others ! One, to
whom I explained the nature of the gritty tissue in a
pear, exclaimed, "I don't care about gritty tissue;
give me the pear to eat ! " I have already told you of
another, who said all he should care about the microscope
would be — would it magnify the balance at his banker's ?

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do
business in great waters ; these see the works of the Lord,
and His wonders in the deep," says one revelation,* and
what says the other ?

Did you ever think of the curious nature of many of
the humbler classes of animal life ; of the admirable con-
trivance of the plates which compose that remarkable piece
of divine workmanship we see in an echinus-shell ; or the
* Ps. cvii. 23, 24

238 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

Star-fishes.
1, Echinus; 2, Cake-urchin; 3, Star-fish; 4, Snake-star; 5, Sea-basket; 6, Feather-star.

Transverse section of the spine of Echinus, magnified 784 times.

MISCELLANEOUS. 239

beauty of many of the star-fishes; or, still more, in the
section of one of the wonderful spines of that echinus,* an

A family of corals built up in the form of an oak, each " bud " affording
a lodging for a colony of animals.

admirable and faithful copy of which I borrow from, a
former work and introduce here ?

Do you know what coral is, or a coral reef, or of islands
built up through many years by the persistent creatures
* See " The Unwritten Record " for further particular*

240

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

who worked together beneath the mighty deep, errone-
ously called " coral insects" ages before the appearance
of the human race ? May I remind you ? * The con-
sideration has turned my philosophy into divinity. Or,
can I look upon that most marvellous proof of the
almightiness of God as seen in the contrasts of nature in
the zoophytic life of the common Sertularia, commonly
called seaweed, which may be found in almost all parts
of our coasts, without emotion ? Would I be so soulless ?
Our admirably drawn cut on p. 242 will faithfully show

A piece of common sponge, showing the oscula, with currents of water
passing out.

you what a vast family may lie concealed in what, to the
unaided eye, appears to be an infinitely small branch of sea-
weed, but which is nothing but the self-erected dwelling
of many thousands of microscopic creatures — one set
agreeing to construct their habitations in this direction,
and another in that; while the whole colony unite in
presenting us with their exquisite fern-like total, where
we find a separate creature in each of the tiny dots on
each part of the several fronds. Also perhaps, on the
same bit of rock upon which the sertularia is found,
there may be discovered a portion of marine sponge
* See Appendix.

Sertularia : a marine zoophyte.

MISCELLANEOUS. 243

actively employed ejecting the water from its inside, and
while resembling a number of infinitely little volcanoes,
it is in fact nothing but a small bit of living jelly.

" If one branch of this plant-like family be examined
with a moderately powerful lens, it will be seen to consist
of a horny stem, each branch being studded with a double
row of little cells, open at the mouth, which is much
smaller than the base. If the same be placed in clear
sea-water and still watched through the lens, from each
cell will be seen to protrude a tiny polyp " (similar to
that shown on p. 197), " whose star-like head is all that
is visible externally." * The small branch on the right
of our cut is about the average size of such as may very
frequently be found on the shell of an escalop ; but an
East Indian specimen, three feet long, is said to have
been so large that it contained 800 millions of living
polyps, about equal to three-fifths of the population of
the whole earth. On the above-mentioned branch there
might have been upwards of three thousand of these
living creatures which had built their own houses in a
plant-like fashion.

Patient examination of the most common objects for
the microscope will disclose many beautiful instances of
the wonderful care which an All-wise Providence has ever
exercised over the smallest of His creatures, and many
useful conclusions thereby suggest themselves to a devout
mind. In the insect-world, which will afford, perhaps,
some of the most remarkable instances of this nature, one
fact is very observable — the method employed by some
of the great family for the protection of their young.
"Men," says Professor Kennie — "men, indeed, proceed
by means of reasoning and experiment to the discovery
of such materials as are best fitted for protecting their
* Wood's " Common Objects of the Sea -shore,"

241 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

bodies against the vicissitudes of temperature, and other
changes of the weather ; while insects are taught by the
Governor of the universe to select instinctively the best
inaterials for their clothing."

Before the introduction of coal colours, the little
cochineal insect afforded a large contribution to the
stores of commerce, giving us an interesting illustration
of the rapid progress made in the production of one
species only, namely, that of the Canary Islands, where
the cochineal insect, that which produces the beautiful
colour known as carmine, was first brought into competi-
tion with its fellows from Honduras. In the year 1831,
the total produce of Teneriffe was eight pounds of cochi-
neal, and, while writing of this once precious insect, its
value may be imagined when I tell you what a rich
Yorkshire dyer once told me, that when the dye was
first discovered, his father and another man joined in the
purchase of one bag, which, because of its costly nature,
they kept under their bed. It was and still is in the
London market called "grain" and this is how it came
to pass that it was thus called. The dried insect is so
like seed that it was believed, two centuries ago. to have
belonged not to the animal but the vegetable kingdom.
In a curious volume in my possession, written by Lemery
more than a hundred and fifty years since, there is a
very amusing description of the "article" which has
played an important part since in the commerce of
London. In this antique work it says, " The Cochenelle
is the seed of a plant about two or three feet high,
adorned with Leaves two Fingers thick, of a beautiful
Green, and very prickly " (he is evidently referring to the
cactus, upon which cochineal insects chiefly feed) ; " after
which grow Buds or Husks in form of a Heart, of a Green,
tending to a Yellow Colour, in which are enclosed a

MISCELLANEOUS. £45

Quantity of small Seeds, of the size of a great Pin's Head,
partly of a flat Figure, almost triangular, of a greyish
{Silver Colour to the Eye, and as red as Blood within."

Then follows a very curious argument in good Old
English, as to whether the thing is animal or vegetable,
from various scientific men of those days, and, as it was
decided that it was the latter, it was called "grain" by
which name it has been called ever since. The article
concludes thus in favour of the vegetable family of the
thing : " Besides this there are other things which deserve
our Credit, as that we cannot discover the Feet, Wings,
Head, or any other part of an animal in the Cochenelle,
which we have, or in all those observations that are made
of the true Grain, and if these proofs are not sufficient, we
may look into the Judgment of Ximenes and William
Piso, in his ' History of the Plants of Brazil/ where, after
he has given a long Description of the Species of the
Indian Fig, he says it is the same Plant that in New
Spain produces and bears the Cochenelle."

The first importation into England of this " grain,"
from Teneriffe, as I have said, was in the year 1831, and it
then amounted to 8 Ibs. ; the next year it reached 120 Ibs. ;
the next 1319 Ibs. ; and gradually increasing every year,
by 1853, when I last "took stock" of the Teneriffe
"article," it reached 790,524 Ibs. ; but five years after that
the total importation into London alone was, from Tene-
riffe, Honduras, and Mexico, 13,000 bags, whose average
weight was at the least 150 Ibs. each, or 1,950,000 Ibs.
I had the curiosity to weigh one ounce of this so-
called "grain," and I counted 3350 insects necessary to
make up that weight, so that one year's importation of
the cochineal insect into London alone amounted to the
astonishing number of one hundred and four billions five
hundred and twenty millions, which, counting at the rate

246 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

of two hundred every minute in every twelve hours, with-
out intermission, would have required more than two
millions of years to reckon up. Their market value, in
the year in which I made this curious calculation,
amounted to £350,000.

But we began this apparently out-of-place story with
an allusion to the remarkable manner in which some
insects preserve their young; and, because this is displayed
in the case of the cochineal insect, I have introduced the
curious account from the oldest book in my possession.

When the apparently loving mother begins to provide
for her family, which is not to emerge that season, " she
stoops down and deposits her eggs under her body, which
become glued to the spot ; she then dies, and her body
becomes a covering for the eggs. In this state the
insects appear on the bark of trees like small warts, some
species in the form of a boat, some kidney-shaped, and
others globular ; and, before their history was understood,
they were, with some plausibility, supposed to be vege-
table galls by the French." *

Why have I introduced the story of the cochineal
insect here ? Because it serves to direct your attention
to another species — a Coccus, also of the cochineal family,
— which may be found both upon apples and oranges, and
which may enable you to instruct and very much amuse
your young friends.

You may have seen, especially upon an orange, very
small mussel-shaped, dark-brown specks glued on to the
rind. When I first took notice of these little specks,
wondering what they could be, I carefully detached
several, and, on turning them over, to my great surprise
I found them filled with eggs, carefully packed in the
hollow shell-like covering, arid preserved with what

* Kennie.

MISCELLANEOUS. 247

resembled very fine silk stowed between one and the
other, evidently to keep them from injury. I placed one
of these curious things on a slip of glass and laid it on
the stage of the microscope, and threw a flood of light
into the hollow egg-boat, which the observant author of
" Insect Transformations " (a very useful and interesting
book on entomology, and one of the most reliable and
readable too, in my opinion, that a lover of nature can
desire) tells us is the dead body of the mother, and
which singularly reminds us of the fabled Phoenix.
What was my astonishment when the heat from the
flame, falling from the convex side of the condensing lens,
brought the insects to life, and, breaking through the
shell that covered them, there I had the delight of be-
holding the secret of artificial hatching, while the living
and very minute creatures made their first appearance in
their perfect form !

The soft downy substance, so carefully deposited
between the eggs, sorely puzzled me, and so did the
singular covering ; and I only discovered that this little
dark -brown speck was the shrivelled body of the fond
mother laid over the offspring she was never to see, when
I found a similar story related in the work last referred
to, where the amiable author, describing a similar coccus,
say?, " Those which are found in our green-houses, and
which are the pest of the grape-vines in the neighbour-
hood of London, both in and out of doors, secrete a sort
of white silky gum, very like gossamer, as the first bed of
their eggs. Be'amur could not discover that the mother
insect was furnished with any organ similar to those of
spiders and caterpillars for spinning tins gossamer. We
may remark that the covering formed by the body of the
mother coccus prevents this substance from drying, as
the webs of spiders do, and, consequently, it can at any

248 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

time be drawn out into extended threads, by detaching a
few of the eggs from the mass."

The reference here to spider's eggs will bring to your
remembrance my former story of the nest made of spider's
silk in ^h'ch 240 eggs were found, and which also
enclosed a big bluebottle ; from it we learned one of the
very best "lessons" the microscope can teach, namely,
that of unselfishness.

But this illustration of maternal love, as exhibited in
this humble inhabitant of the invisible world, would never
have been discovered without the aid of the microscope.
It has afforded much merriment to the young and
astonishment to the old, as one egg after another, artifi-
cially hatched, liberated its prisoner. One night I had
a lecture to deliver, entitled " Life amongst the Insects."
It was at the West End of London, and as I had made a
diagram of the mussel-shaped covering, and had drawn a
portrait from the life of one of the little creatures, I
thought, however, that an object illustration would be a
useful addition to my picture ; so, finding an old woman
sitting at a stall, I proceeded to purchase a penny orange.
I turned one after another of the fruit over and over
without finding a single coccus, and the old Irish lady
began to wonder what in the world I was after, and she
looked suspiciously at what I was doing, till I thought
it would be kind to gratify her curiosity, and at last,
finding one, " You see," I began, " this little speck ? "

" Sure, and I do/' she said.

" Well, mother, do you know this is the body of
another mother, which has become a cradle, in which are
a number of sleeping babies, all waiting the light of the
world to bring them to life ? "

I gave her the penny, which she looked at suspiciously,
1 verily believe that she thought I was an escaped

MISCELLANEOUS. 249

lunatic, or else that the roll of diagrams under my arm
was an infernal machine.

While writing this page I have before mo an apple
from Tasmania. On it I have counted fourteen of these
cocci, so that they flourish as much in Australia as in
S;cily and in England ; but what would my grandfather,
who was living in 1829, have thought of the man who
should have prophesied that sixty years after, apples, in the
finest condition, would be brought from the other side of
the world in a big ship propelled by steam, in about five
weeks ! Or that his son's son would have an instrument
by means of which the families of fourteen mothers, who
had covered their numerous offspring outside with their
own dead bodies on one of such apples, would be studied,
as they lay sleeping in their cradles, comfortably tucked
up inside with silken material spun out of their parent's
body, and of his descendant's ability, with the aid of his
instrument, to bring them to life !

On passing a station on the Brighton line recently,
the train stopping in front of a book-stall there, a fellow-
passenger, putting his head out of the carriage window,
called out, "Have you a shilling romance?" What
romance is to be found in natural history ! Could any
story in fiction be more romantic than the romance, in
fact, of the Coccus family, or could a better illustration in
the world be found showing that, in one form or another,
from the highest to the lowest, one thing suffers or dies
that another may live ?

A mouldy lemon or a piece of lively cheese under the
microscope affords infinite delight both to young and old ;
for, in the first you have a fairy botanical, and in the
latter a fairy zoological, garden. Wo once had a servant
who was provokingly fond of cheese for breakfast, not in
very moderate quantities. Seeing that our share was

250 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

unusually lively, I said, "J will settle this cheese-for-
breakfast business." So, placing a small bit on the
microscope, I rang the bell, and said, " I want you, Mary,
to look at that, and tell me if you know anything like it."
It was night, and the bright light of the lamp illuminated
the mass, so that with a moderately deep magnifying
glass the mites looked like young sucking-pigs, running
about as fast as their eight legs would carry them. You
should have heard our Mary's exclamation as she said,
" Oh, lor ! what is it ? " And when I assured her it was
the bit of cheese which she had left at her early meal,
she disappeared, and we never afterwards heard of Mary's
desire for cheese for breakfast !

One may be reasonably surprised at the vitality which
often is so long preserved in the eggs or pupae of an insect,
reminding us of the vitality of seeds, though in them,
according to Dr. Carpenter, are many plants which spring
up when a new cutting of some railway lays bare the
virgin soil ; such are not only of prehistoric, but it may
be pre-Adamite origin, all light, heat, and moisture, the
three ingredients necessary to growth, being excluded.

I have the best reason for believing the following
story. A clerk employed at Guildhall, London, who was
an entomologist, sitting one day at his desk, where he had
been seated for twenty-two years, noticed what appeared
to be a change in the colour of a spot in the mahogany
before him; the next day he observed it became a small
round hole, and on looking round he saw the pupa of a
beetle, and presently out walked the imago — the perfect
image, that is — of the insect. It must have laid there, he
concluded, for upwards of a quarter of a century.

Let me strongly advise you to make any number of
experiments with spiders, and especially with their webs :
you will be well repaid with the result. You will discover

MISCELLANEOUS. 251

how they can dart out stiff threads, and sail upon the air
by means of a float of fine filaments : that others travel
in the skies by means of silken balloons which the spiders
inflate and direct. A discharge of cannon at Kidder-
minster, some years ago, brought down a shower of aerial
spiders, the explosion making the currents of air on which
they floated too light to bear their weight. Cobwebs,
like balloons, have been seen — some funnel-shaped, like
parachutes — descending from the sky and falling upon the
ground, and on examining them, small reddish spiders have
been found carefully balanced within. If the weather be
likely to be stormy, short terminating threads are used ;
if rain is approaching, spiders remain inactive ; if they
continue working during rain, fair weather may be
expected. Every twenty-four hours alterations may be
observed being made in spiders' webs : if these alterations
be observed between six and seven in the evening, they
indicate a clear and pleasant night. One species of gos-
samer is an [excellent rope-dancer, seemingly delighted
with darting its threads, ascending and descending in the
air, balancing itself by closing its legs together, and pro-
moting and directing its course as if nature had furnished
it with wings or oars. Did Blondin know of this he would
acknowledge himself to be as much outdone as did the
inventor of the new torpedo when he saw the rotation
of the wheel-like apparatus of the invisible Kotifer.
Little space could be afforded here for the subject of
Infusoria, but let me very strongly advise you to take
up this delightful branch of miscroscopical study. There
are said to be seven hundred species, and in one tiny
drop of water five hundred millions are reported to
have been seen, which, if true, is more than one-third the
number of the population of the earth ; and, remember
that it is the great German naturalist, Ehrenberg, who

252 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

says they have heat enough to preserve a small circle of
water unfrozen when all the rest is ice, and another circle
to preserve coolness enough to sustain life when the
temperature is raised to 200°, water boiling at 212°.

The most common object is often the most interesting,
not only to a beginner but even to one well " np " in the
use of the microscope. A piece of wheat-straw cut down
the stalk, dividing it, then the siliceous skin stripped off
and laid between two pieces of glass, with a low power,
\\ill disclose a world of wonders ; and remember that it
was the great " Starry Galileo," as he was called, who,

Siliceous cuticle of wheat-straw, the flinty skeleton only being seen
(magnified).

when in his Spanish prison, where he lay persecuted for
maintaining that the world went round the sun, said,
while pointing to the common wheat-straw upon which he
lay, " From the structure of that object alone, I can infer,
with certainty, the existence of an intelligent Creator."

You will sometimes hear about "aids to faith." Did
faith require aid from without, surely it were no longer
faith. The palrn tree in Scripture is the true emblem ot
the righteous, and its growth is from within. Study the
structure of plants, and you will be amazed at their glory
and beauty and suggestiveness. " Consider the lilies, how
they grow," and realize, in all its fulness, the profound

MISCELLANEOUS. 253

mystery of growth ; and, il you love children, give them
object-lessons with your microscope, and especially with
flowers ; show them " how they grow ; " but remember,
before you attempt to teach, you yourself must have been
taught. Nature is the best of teacher?, and her object-
lessons commend themselves to every thoughtful mind ;
but that mind must have been prepared, or rather pre-
disposed, to receive her deep truths, or they will fall upon
stony or thorny ground, and bring no fruit to perfection.

Light, life, growth, fruit, this is the law, not only in
the spiritual but the natural world ; each is dependent
upon the other, and if one of these four elements be
omitted the end will be defeated: but what a mystery
each of them is !

When you look at ferns and mosses, while you are
amazed at their beauty, only think of their mysterious
power of reproduction. The hart's-tongue fern has about
eighty seed-vessels upon each frond, each vessel containing
about fifty spores or seeds : each frond may be the bearer
of from three to six thousand seeds, and upon the entire
plant so many as eighteen millions have been reckoned.

The contrasts in nature will greatly interest and
astonish you. If you examine what is called the " smut "
in corn, from its striking resemblance to chimney-soot,
there you will find that every tiny ultimate speck is a
true vegetable, and that in one grain so many as four
millions may be counted; then if you examine the
beautiful structure of that Californian giant, the Welling-
tonia gigantea, you will learn something of the mystery
of growth in a tree that botanists tell us, by its annual
marks, must have been four thousand years old, having
only arrived at perfection when it stood twenty-three feet
higher than St. Paul's Cathedral. Even in our own land
the yew and oak will flourish over a thousand years.

254

THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

The mystery of growth ! We live in a world sur-
rounded with mystery. Who can tell me how it is that
I can keep up the circulation in the tiny leaf of a weed
for three weeks after I have torn it from its branch ?
Anxious to know something of this mystery, I applied

" Smut " oil maize (Vredo segetam), greatly magnified.

recently to a scientific friend of one of the profoundest
naturalists of to-day ; but mark the answer I received :
" He can't tell you ; he doesn't know himself." A willow
weighing five pounds was put into two hundred pounds of
dried earth a few years ago and kept watered, but covered •

MISCELLANEOUS. 255

iii five years it had increased to 169 pounds, and the earth
weighed two ounces only less than when the tree was
first planted.

Who can popularly explain such phenomena as this ?

It will be of little service your attempting to open
the eyes of those to whom you exhibit the wonderful
works of God as shown with a microscope, I must repeat,
unless your own eyes have been opened, and unless you
have grown in that inner knowledge which sees Him in
His works, and are neither afraid nor ashamed to confess
Him. before men.

It has been well said that " a man may impart light
to others who does not himself see the light ; " but a
pupil will think little of his teacher, and find his own
growth little, if he hide the moral which the beautiful
parables of nature are intended to teach. "It is true
that a concave speculum, cut from a block of ice, con-
centrating the rays of the sun, will kindle touchwood or
explode gunpowder; a teacher may set others on fire
when his own heart is as cold as frost. It is true that he
may stand like a stiff and lifeless finger-post, pointing the
way on the road where he neither leads nor follows ; yet
it commonly happens that it is what comes from the heart
of the teacher that penetrates and affects the hearts of his
hearers. Like a ball red-hot from the cannon's mouth,
he must burn himself who would set others on fire." *

In our examination of insects you will have observed
much of the wonders of transformed life, and gathered
some of the possibilities of the future as respects your-
self. In passing from the caterpillar to the chrysalis,
and from the chrysalis to the perfect insect, not only is
the external appearance altered, but the various organs of
support, motion, sensation, digestion, and reproduction are
* Dr. Guthrie.

256 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

also altered ; but much remains yet to be discovered. The
nerves of insects do not originate in a brain as in the
higher order of animals, but in numerous nerve-bundles,
as seen in our dissection of the caterpillar of a silkworm
moth. What is the exact seat of their sense of hearing
or smelling we do not at present know ; their organs of
digestion are very simple; that most important of all
their little bodily parts, the circulation, is more easily
observed and appears to flow very regularly, and in many
parts of the body, as in spiders, with a distinct pulsation.
Remember that, very distinctly, are the organs of respira-
tion to be seen, for they communicate with the air by
means of coils of spiral tubing, having sieve-like openings,
or spiracles, very similar to the trachea and spiracle of
plants, and being evidently formed for the same purpose.
Your entomological studies will "do little for you if
they do not suggest to you some of those great expec-
tations which belong to the consideration of a future life.
I wish to keep you constantly in mind of this, because
my own life has been so very greatly benefited and blessed
with the thought. You will be delighted in examining
the wonders of moths and butterflies. Think, for example,
of the wisdom given to the White Admiral butterfly. It
deposits its eggs, which are almost exactly like the shell
of an echinus, in July, on the upper surface of the leaf of
the honeysuckle. In fourteen days they are hatched, when
the young caterpillars commence life on their own account.
The leaf falls in autumn, and each young creature,
without any instruction from its mother, who died before
it was born, is taught by instinct what to do; for, when
it has eaten the leaf half-way, it begins to prepare for
the future. Knowing that the leaf will drop, it spins a
silken thread by which it is securely attached to the
stem. It then folds up the remainder of the leaf, enclos-

MISCELLANEOUS. 257

ing itself in a very comfortable hammock, which, when
the leaf in the course of nature falls off, swings to and
fro like a sailor's cot in a gale of wind ; but it is very
secure, for the silken cord is elastic, and not easily
detached, and being of the same colour as the stem of the
honeysuckle, it is difficult to observe, and so the dreary
winter passes away. The spring sun makes the bud,
which the caterpillar knows somehow is situated in the
axil of the old leaf-stalk, to burst forth and grow; and
the same warmth awakes the sleeper. In April and May
it feeds, in June it goes into a chrysalis, and in July
it emerges as a large and beautiful butterfly ; but what
wonderful transformation has it experienced, and what
grand lessons has it taught, in those twelve months !

Nothing in nature will astonish and delight you more
than the study of the various mechanical arrangements
by which insects are able to accomplish the great work
they have to do; much will be beyond your compre-
hension, and you will only really have arrived at the
secret of all knowledge when you have discovered that
you know nothing, and that you are compelled to believe
much that you cannot understand; and this is what is
called faith.

There are six thousand species of those extraordinary
flowers, the orchids, according to Lindley, from whom Mr.
Darwin quotes ; and the latter tells us — and there I can
accept his theory — that the act of fertilization in that
large family is almost invariably left to insects ; and their
study will of necessity take you to the study of strnctural
botany, and how charming are the lessons belonging
to that branch of natural history !

When you look again at one of the common but ex-
quisitely formed capsules of the Funaria moss, think that
it flourishes best wherever wood or straw has been burnt

R

258 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

in the fields. In summer and autumn, when all other
plants are hard at work, it rests; in winter it works, filling
its little capsules with thousands of spores, and in spring
it disperses them. It is the pioneer of vegetation, where
before all was desolation ; and this is the order — first the
moss, then the grass, then smaller ferns, then the larger
ones; then the small, and after that, the larger trees.
Their motto is what yours and mine must be in our
microscopical studies — " by little and little."

Our microscopical " meditation at eventide " would
be incomplete without some reference to what is called
" polarized light." Should any one ask, What is polarized
light? all that can be said is, "Polarized light is —
polarized light."

Next to the great and undiscovered mystery of life,
light is the greatest of mysteries. -" God is light,'1 the
Bible tells us ; and that metaphor is the best of all
metaphors, not only because it is in the Bible, but also
because a great deal that we know of God as therein
revealed is very remarkably allegorized by light. Our
accessories in the study of this important branch of
microscopical science consist of a prism and an analyzer :
the former is placed under the stage, and the latter
nearest the eye ; both are prisms made of Iceland spar,
and the thin film of selenite, which greatly assists the
polarization, is sulphate of lime, each being a pure and
perfect crystallization of chalk, or rather of what is called
plaster of Paris; and you will, of course, remember of
what chalk is composed in our examination of foraminifera.
With these necessary accessories light is chemically
analyzed, and it is called " polarized " because it is driven
to the poles. Both prism and analyzer owe their properties
to thin films in invisible layers, and as the pencils of rays
or beams of light pass through them, the compound ray

MISCELLANEOUS.

259

gets disintegrated, and we behold the three colours,

blue, red, and yellow, in all their native glory. This is

all I can tell you about

polarized light, and it

may be that part of

this is only conjectural.

I do not believe that,

notwithstanding this is

the age of photography

and electricity, we shall

ever know the scientific

secrets of the composition

of a ray of light till we

get to know, by personal

intimacy, Him who is the

Light of the world.

Now here are crystals
of citric acid, produced by
making a solution of that
chemical, then allowing
the moisture to evapo-
rate, and then, when the
solid parts remain, cover-
ing them with Canada
balsam to preserve them
and assist their transpa-
rency. What do they
look like? Flowers, all
delicately laid out upon
richly coloured glass. Here, too, is chlorate of potash,
and I know of no better resemblance which it presents
under polarized light than a scientific friend once used
when he said it was like " crushed cathedrals ! " The
glory and beauty of Gothic architecture, in ruins, is here

The effect of polarized light upon

f°Und " "*

260 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

fairly represented, and a dissolving view may be imme-
diately obtained by revolving the milled head either of
the prism or analyzer.

You remember how in our botanical studies we were
surprised at the wonders displayed in our skeleton leaves.
Without polarized light their perfect beauty would all lie
concealed ; and as for the Deutzia leaf, why, when we get
a dark-blue background, and the starry cuticle in bright
gold, we have seen that it resembles a glorious patch of
the heavens laid down upon the microscope, and we really
seem to be surveying that land which is far off. Then,
because it is always wise in the study of nature to compare
one tiling with another, let us take the so-called palate of
a limpet. This, we shall examine, measures very nearly
two inches in length ; it is commonly called the tongue,
and consists of a vast number of teeth, which are used for
cutting through the shell of an oyster when the limpet
goes after its dinner. You have seen good-sized pin-
holes, I dare say, on oyster-shells. They have been sawn
by such parasites as the limpet, who knows just where to
reach that strong but solitary muscle with which the
oyster closes the door of its dwelling on the approach of
an intruder. Perhaps you may have attempted opening
the shell with your fingers, and, if so, you will know what
power is in that muscle ; but the limpet, with its saw-like
tongue, cuts through the shell, and very often the muscle
as well, when the poor bivalve is at its mercy.

It is strikingly interesting to reflect upon the remark-
able age in which we live. In our daily papers, amidst
all the strife of politics and the bustle of life, yet what
room do some find for contemplating the wonders of
nature in little things ! While writing upon the palate
of the limpet, I observe some very interesting articles
in the Standard newspaper, from which I learn the true

MISCELLANEOUS. 26i

meaning of a few words I heard with profit many years
ago in a Protestant church in the charming Swiss
valley of Lucerne. The preacher was enlarging upon
the Christian's hold of the Saviour, and he besought
his hearers to " cling to Him as the limpet does to the
rock." I remember with thankfulness the words, and
they were those. The newspaper correspondent tells us
how the limpet does cling to the rock. He speaks
first of its amazing power of doing so. "An ordinary
limpet, the common species of our coast, weighs, when
deprived of its shell, within a fraction of half an ounce.
Yet, when pulled in the line of its plane of adhesion,
a force exceeding sixty-two pounds is required to loosen
its powerful grip upon the rock, or, in other words,
upwards of 1984 times the mollusc's own weight. An
ingenious calculation has also been made as to the in-
fluence of atmospheric pressure in the operation. Thus,
the superficial base of the individual limpet is about 2-4
square inches, which, taking the pressure of the air at
li'7 pounds on the square inch, would only account for
something over thirty-five pounds and a quarter — or
little more than half the power exercised in the air by
the shell-fish. In the water its tenacity is even greater,
so that merely meteorological dynamics fail to explain the
tenacity of the little beast. Nor will muscular strength
account for it. Many molluscs are, as we know, very
powerful. Before an oyster can be opened, a force 1319J
times its weight must be exerted. If the limpet be
divided vertically from top to bottom as it stands on the
rock, and two other deep incisions be made in a horizontal
direction, thus destroying all the muscular power of the
base, and any possible vacuum between it and the rock,
the adhesion, nevertheless, continues as firm as before.
Even the death of the animal udoes not destroy its

262 THE MICROSCOPE A&D ITS LESSONS.

adhesiveness. We must therefore seek for some other
agent. . . . No feature in its humble economy is
thoroughly understood. Physiology, with a view to
Darwinism, is now the fashionable pursuit, and will,
perhaps, last long enough to allow students to discover
that, after all, they are running in the wrong direction." *
These interesting words have come to me while you and I
Lave been contemplating what is called this little crea-
ture's tongue, but which is really its palate.

What would my friend say to the story of the limpet,
who declared he would only believe just what he could
understand ?

What will my devout brother or sister say to the
Remark of the eloquent Swiss preacher, who told his
hearers to "cleave to Jesus as the limpet cleaves to the
rock " ? And what a fine saying is that of Dr. George
MacDonald's: "Too much light, too many words, too

much revelation, blinds
or stupefies " ! Yes, it is
proverbially but strictly
true, a man may be
blinded by excess of light.
Here is the palate of
a winkle, and here a
whelk, and here are others
of slugs and snails, which
very much resemble those
of the limpet. Our very
best guide to these re-
* markable " tongues " will

Palate of sea-Inail (Troc^a). be Dr' Carpenter, who

tells us that " we should
be altogether wrong in conceiving of them as having any
* Extracted from an article in the Standard, April 12, 1890.

MISCELLANEOUS.

263

likeness to that on which our ordinary ideas of such an
organ are to be founded. For, instead of being a pro-
jecting body, lying in the
cavity of the mouth, it is a
tube that passes backwards
and downwards beneath the
mouth, its hinder end being
closed, whilst in front it
opens obliquely upon the
floor of the mouth, being
(as it were) slit up and
spread out, so as to form a
nearly flat surface. . . . The
length of the tongue, and
the number of rows of teeth,
vary greatly in different
species. Generally speak-
ing, the tongue of the terrestrial Gasteropods " (that is,
such as land-snails) " is short, and is contained within the
nearly globular head ; but, the rows of teeth being closely
set together, they are very numerous, there being fre-
quently more than 100, and
in some species as many as
160 or 170, so that the total
number of teeth may mount
up, as in Helix pomatia, one
of the garden shell-snails,
to 21,000; and in Limax
maximus (the great spotted

Palate of sea-sing (Don* tubercu*
lata).

A portion of greatly magnified teeth
of the garden snail, separated to
show their form.

slug) to 26,800."

You would be wearied
with a description of the

marvellous beauty of these palates or tongues when nicely
seen either by polarized light or the dark-ground illumi-

'264 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

nation. Some resemble wheat-sheaves bending beneath
.the grain, each ear representing a row of very sharp and
destructive teeth ; others resemble a portion of the wall
of some armoury, where sword-blades, bayonets, and other
instruments of destruction glitter in the light we throw
upon them in astonishing brightness ; and we leave off
with the conviction that the common enemy of our garden
plants, the great black slug, or the edible snail, whose
eyes are at the tip of its two horns, and who crawls along

Garden Suail.

with its curious house on its back, containing many
furnished chambers, is a thing to be wondered at, after all.

Who would think of looking for the beautiful in the
structure of the hard horny hoof of an ox ? But what
tongue can describe the remarkable nature of this very
common object for the microscope ! It is built up in the
most elaborate fashion, and, when seen under polarized
light, suggests the most gorgeous patterns for various
fine-art objects.

Here again is a transverse section of the horn of a
rhinoceros. You will immediately suppose it is an

MISCELLANEOUS. 265

elaborate pattern for a splendid Turkey carpet. When
transverse sections of this object are viewed by polarized
light, each particle is seen to be marked with a cross,
somewhat resembling starch-grains, and the lights and
shadows of this cross are replaced by contrasted colours,
when the selenite plate is interposed.

The cross : its lights and shadows! I have already
taught you in a former work, " The Starry Cross," that
we see the " shadow " repeated in almost every part of
natural history ; not only is there a " natural law in the
spiritual world," but the sign of the cross — which, to the
earliest of the human race, and ages before the Prince of
life was lifted up upon it, was, it is said, the sign of
perfection — is, by a spiritual law, imprinted, as if it were
God's sacred mark, in every part of the natural world.

In this transverse section of a remarkable tree as
seen under polarized light, not only is the cross visible
exactly as represented by the early painters, but it is
fixed in a mound of supporting earth ; and the medullary
rays, starting from the head of the cross, very much re-
semble the rays of glory, which we have seen in the
most costly of pictures, and which gives a new colour to
the motto of a very dear friend —

" Christi crux est mea lux."
(Christ's cross is my light.)

This unique specimen is called Bauhinia Chinensis, after
two botanists, John and Casper Bauhin, who discovered
the plant last century. It is a native of Ceylon, and
flowers on St. Thomas's Day, and, because its petals are
spotted with crimson, it was said by the superstitious to
be sprinkled with the blood of the saint, who is said to
have suffered martyrdom in India. Could they have
known that a transverse section, when seen with the

266 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

microscope, exhibited such glory as we see, how would it
have abided to their enthusiasm ! *

And now, before we part company, may I venture
upon giving you a little homely advice as to the best
course to pursue, supposing you are the fortunate pos-
sessor of what the late Dr. Lankester called "the most
perfect instrument in the world," a microscope ?

People have very often asked me where I have ob-
tained the little knowledge I have ; and I have, many and
many a time, until I have grown familiar with the words,
been complimented upon having so good a memory. Let
me tell you, then, how I obtained the first, how I have
improved the second, and how you may obtain and
improve both knowledge and memory.

First, I have made it a point of duty, whenever read-
ing from books, newspapers, or serials, but, above all,
when I have enjoyed the conversation of any social or
scientific friend, to make a note of thoughts and facts in
a commonplace book, from whose notes many of these
pages have been compiled. "When found make a note
of it," — that is a well-known saying; and I have filled
several volumes with those short notes. By the simple
fact of writing such memoranda they became fixed in
the memory, and by this practice the memory becomes
strengthened ; and you will be astonished, also you will
astonish others, at the quantity of interesting matter
which may be thus crammed into an ordinary-sized
brain : and, if you know how to do it (but nobody can
say how that property is to be obtained), it may be drawn
out as it may be required, as wine from a vessel.

Learn, that when your eyes are opened to the simplest
laws of nature, you have incurred, in that privilege, a
deep responsibility. Go and teach others. In the town of
* See a true figure of this specimen on the title-page.

MISCELLANEOUS. 267

Leeds, some years ago, there was a dog whose leg was run
over in the roadway by a cart-wheel. Some good Samaritan
•picked up the poor brnte, and, carrying it to the nearest
surgeon's, had the broken limb bandaged, and the dog
recovered. The same dog, some time after, was passing
along the same road, when he witnessed a brother-dog in
the fame predicament that he formerly had been in—
namely, another wheel had broken his leg. What would
you have done in a similar case ? Just what that dog
did. He seized hold of his suffering relative, rushed
off to his old friend the surgeon's, and, depositing him on
the floor, looked up into the face of his benefactor, as
much as to say, " Please do for him what you so kindly
and successfully did for me."

Go you and do likewise. You will be surprised at the
effect of teaching. If you know but little, go and teach
that little, and it will grow with amazing rapidity; for
while watering others, you will be abundantly watered
yourself.

My first lesson in the microscope was about thirty
years ago, and, during those thirty years, after business
hours, teaching others has been the grand and gratuitous
delight of my life ; and, because I have never neglected
to associate the great Author of the universe with His
works, He has honoured me with very much of success,
and many sacred and, I trust, eternal friendships, which
have made that long period a pleasant dream.

Never mind what others may say of your associating
science with religion : the first is really but the handmaid
to the second. And remember, it is written — and I am
one of the many witnesses who have found it to be true—
"Them that honour Me I will honour, and they that
despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."

In your readings and studies follow a good guide, and

268 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

never be ashamed, either of your aim to glorify God, or
to confess your own ignorance.

An American author, writing of the Dutch entomo-
logist Swammerdam, says', "Those who look into the
works of Swammerdam will be abundantly gratified,
whether they consider his immense labour and unremit-
ting ardour in these pursuits, or his wonderful devotion
and piety. On the one hand his genius urged him to
examine the miracles of the great Creator in His natural
productions, while on the other the love of that same
All-perfect Being, rooted in his mind, struggled hard to
persuade him that God alone, and not His creatures, was
worthy of his researches, love, and attention."

Here is an extract from one of Swammerdam 's prayers :
just compare it with the "ifs" and "huts" and "un-
certainties " and " supposes " and " doulifuls " to be found
in the modern "Descent of Man," and then frankly tell
me which is the most worthy of your acceptance.

" 0 God," he exclaimed, " how Thy works infinitely
surpass the reach of our feeble understanding : all that
we actually know of Thee, or ever can, is but a faint
and lifeless shadow of Thy adorable perfections, in con-
templation of which the brightest understandings grow
bewildered ! " Such were the words of that clever
old naturalist.

How many arguments for the truth of that divine
system of religion revealed to us in the Bible, may be
drawn from the testimony of a multitude of characters
illustrious in science and literature, the profoundest
students either of nature or theology !

" Newton, whose mind burst the fetters fastened by
nature upon our finite conceptions; whose science was
truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge was
philosophy, which, resting upon the basis of mathematics,

MISCELLANEOUS. 269

cannot lie, — Newton, who carried the line and rule to the
uttermost barriers of creation, and explored the principles
by which all created matter exists and is held together,
— this Newton was a Christian. The great Boyle, whose
life was devoted to an examination of the organic
structure of matter, even to the inanimate substances upon
which we tread, and who was therefore peculiarly qualified
to 'look through nature up to nature's God/ was the
most confirmed and devout believer in all those truths of
Christianity, which by some are now held in contempt,
as despicable and drivelling superstitions. Locke, whose
office was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to
the very fountains of thought, and to direct the devious
mind of man to the proper track of reasoning, by showing
him its whole process, from the first perceptions of obser-
vation to the last conclusions of argument ; putting a rein
upon false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of
human judgment ; — this man also was, to the highest pitch
of devotion and adoration, a Christian. Should it be said
that these men were only close thinkers, and lived in
their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world,
and to the laws which practically regulate mankind, not
so was the never-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale, whose
faith in Christianity was an exalted commentary upon its
truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example
of its fruits ; whose justice, drawn from the pure fountain
of the Christian dispensation, will in all ages be a subject
of the highest reverence and admiration. If it bo
asserted that the Christian fable is merely the tale of
an ancient superstition, and may soon be detected by a
proper understanding of the mythologies (' beautiful
myths ') of the heathens, the reply is easy — Did Milton
understand those mythologies? Was he versed in the
superstitions of the world? They were the subject of

270 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

his immortal song, and though, shut out from all recur-
rence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of
a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid
them in their order as the illustration of real and exalted
faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid genius which
has cast a kind of shade upon all the other works of man.

* He passed the bounds of flaming space,
Whence angels tremble while they gaze ;
He saw — till, blasted with excess of light,
He closed his eyes in endless night.'

" But it was the light of the lody only that was ex-
tinguished ; the Celestial Light shone inward, and enabled
him to justify the ways of God to man." *

Let me beseech you to " beware lest any man spoil
[that is, roU\ you through philosophy and vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and
not after Christ." f I have sometimes been asked how
it is that so many have erred from the faith in the study
of what is called "nature," expecting to obtain in the
visible world an explanation instead of an illustration of
the written revelation; and I have found, I think, an
explanation in the Book which has been the solace, sup-
port, and comfort of my whole life, — those words which
were once addressed to the mother of the great Jewish
lawgiver by the Egyptian princess, " Take this child and
nurse it for me," J which may be understood as applying
to any gift or talent entrusted to our keeping ; for it is
true that " to every man is given according to his several
ability " (to use it) : § and, verily, I can say, the promise,
in my own case, has been richly and literally fulfilled, " I
will give thee thy wages"

Learn never to despise the value of little things. There

* Lord Erskine. t Col. ii. 8. } Gon. xi. 7.

§ Matt. xxv. 15.

MISCELLANEOUS, 271

is a commonplace saying with which all are familiar,
" Take care of the pence ; the pounds will take care of
themselves : " the words apply to many other things than
gold and silver. " Little things ! " Why, Ehrenberg, to
whom I have previously referred you, carried his little
microscope, which he tells us he bought in the streets
of Berlin for thirty shillings, to all parts of the world, for
the purpose of observing the microscopic and invisible
beings that inhabited the earth. And what did he discover ?
Amongst a multitude of other things, that the mountain
meal, as it is called, in Norway, contained eighty per cent,
of animal matter, consisting of infinitely little organic
bodies, being so little, that ten millions of millions of them
might be required to fill the space of one cubic inch, and
yet in the smallest of those creatures there might have
been found several stomachs besides other organs. While,
from their little siliceous (flinty) bodies, the solid rocks
and big mountains were formed, and out of them, when
lime and soda were added, the finest glass was manu-
factured, from which lenses might be fabricated for the
microscope ; whilst other purposes, such as the fusing of
metals, and the preparation and composition of food in
the time of famine, were included in their usefulness.

" To what strange uses " do these invisible animalcules
" come at last " ! In the earlier part of our story I have
told you of what Dr. Dallinger, about two years since,
said about the glasses he employs, in these words: "No
instrument in the hands of science has touched a higher
perfection than the microscope. The last quarter of a
century has seen such an advance in optical perfection
and mathematical formulae as the wildest enthusiast never
dreamed of, and still immense strides are being made."
He had lenses in his possession then, he added, that were
made so perfect as to astonish experts, who would, only

272 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

three years before, have thought such impossible. "A
quarter of a century " ago leads us to the year 1866, and,
amongst the many interesting memoranda of my common-
place books, I find the following: "Mr. Powell" (of
"Powell and Lealand," one of the best of microscope-
makers in the world) "told me, Nov. 5, 1859, while
showing me the smallest lens of his one-sixteenth object-
glass, which he then charged £16 16s. for, that its
diameter was only the twenty-fifth part of an inch, and
that such a lens could be ground to such a mathematical
nicety that it would distinctly present the object to
the eye when magnified, with the fifth eye-piece, 4800
diameters — which is, in fact, twenty-three millions and
forty thousand times, superficial measurement. The
material he used was chiefly foreign glass, very pure,
and when brought over, about the size of a cheese-plate,
three-quarters of an inch thick, each cake cost £11."
Subsequently, the same celebrated makers exhibited what
the Journal of the Microscopical Society for February,
1864, in a report of the president's address, called "a
triumph of artistic skill," in which the one-sixteenth
glass of 1859 had grown to a twenty-fifth, the magnify-
ing power greatly exceeding that of their greatest figure
of five years previous ; and the same authority then said,
" We cannot doubt that the wonders of creative benefi-
cence will be developed in proportion to our extended
means of investigation, and we can fully testify to having
repeatedly seen, under this objective, evidences of
structure that are, under ordinary powers, utterly in-
distinguishable."

These prophetic words were uttered about a quarter of
a century ago ; since then the one-twenty-fifth has, by the
same firm, grown to a one-fiftieth object-glass, and the cost,
as compared with that of the previous lens, risen from about

MISCELLANEOUS 2?3

£25 to £80. The reader can more easily imagine what
the almost incredible magnifying power of this " triumph,
of artistic skill " will do, than I can either calculate or
describe, when the more than " double-million magnifying
power " of Charles Dickens is brought into action.

But such a glass as this is never meant for ordinary
eyes. Only those of so deep a thinker as I have already
mentioned are able to see how to manage such a marvel-
lous piece of what he truly calls " optical perfection."

But the reader will ask, is this perfection to stop
here? If ever diamonds, as some fancy, may become
sufficiently plentiful to be used as lenses for the microscope,
what may then be the result of microscopical science !

Can we reflect upon such thoughts as these without
being overwhelmed by the glory and beauty of the world
we live upon ? And is it not a natural step from that to
the devotional consideration of Him who is its Great
Architect ?

With such lenses as these "every grain of sand
becomes an immensity, every leaf a world, every insect
an assemblage of incomprehensible effects in which re-
flection is lost ; " * and we exclaim, with " Zanoni," that
not a mote in the sunbeam, not an herb on the mountain,
not a pebble on the shore, not a seed far blown into the
wilderness, but contributes to the love that seeks in all
the true principle of life, the beautiful, the joyous, tjie
immortal. What may we not see with our new eyes !

I have thus opened the door for you to enter which
leads to the invisible world, and I have humbly described
for your imitation what effect the objects we have seen
there has had upon my own mind; and I have warned
you what a different effect it has unfortunately had upon
the minds and lives of others. If you believe the Bible
* Lavatcr.

a

274 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

to be the written revelation of God, and the beautiful
objects of nature the pictures which illustrate the divine
truth it contains, then hold fast " that thou hast, that no
man take thy crown." I believe that the great spiritual
adversary has many emissaries at work, both in the
church and in the world, in different forms and garbs,
and that their chief is what is called materialism ; that
under this name his prime minister busies himself in the
church as well as the world, and that many great and
noble minds have been blighted by first listening to the
voice, which whispered into their ears, as it did to one of
old, "Yea, hath God said?"

Do you know what " blight " is ? " The word is used
in common language in an exceedingly loose and unde-
fined way," says the author of the " Micrographic Dic-
tionary." " Blight is, indeed, ' in the air' in many cases,
since a frequent source of disease in vegetation is sudden
change of temperature, or hygroscopic condition of the
atmosphere, deranging the processes of evaporation and
respiration in the tender, actively developing portions of
the foliage or inflorescence of plants." It is also often " in
the air" in another and still higher sense, and we see
the pernicious effects of "blight" just as much in mind
as we do in matter; and this is why I close our little
evening studies with the microscope with a warning as
to the seductive spores which belong to the invisible
world of doubt, but which lie thickly scattered in the
words of many authors and teachers who have been be-
guiled, as I believe, by the insinuations of the spiritual
adversary.

"Blight in the airl" There are blighted minds — I
know, alas ! of several ; and it is because I know, that I
warn you in your microscopical studies, which are the
best antidotes to materialism when rightly seen and used ;

MISCELLANEOUS. 275

but, like all other blessings, liable, if abused, to lead to
mental and spiritual ruin.

" Many mighty men are lost,

Daring not to stand,
Who for God had been a host,

By joining Daniel's band !
Dare to be a Daniel ! dare to stand alone.
Dare to have a purpose firm ! dare to make it known I "

With the aid of the microscope we have been told
that, during moist and unpleasant weather, the spores of
various fungi commonly called " blight," can be discovered
in the atmosphere merely by exposing a slip of glass
in a current of air. These supposed spores were very
prevalent and very distinctly visible to the microscopist
during the prevalence of cholera. I once astonished a
farmer by telling him that what he called "smut" in
wheat was as true a vegetable as a cabbage. " Examined
under the microscope, each grain is found to be con-
verted into a vast number of minute round balls or
sporules of a deep brownish-black colour. Bauer says
that in the 16,000th part of a square inch he counted
forty-nine of those sporules, so that four millions of them
may exist in a single grain of corn." *

I shall never forget the amazement of an Irish friend
to whom I showed the growth of the potato disease ;
when he saw what to the eye only appeared a brown mass
of decomposition to be a mass of rapidly growing plants,
he knew of no words to express his astonishment. You
will not forget a former description of our vegetable
caterpillar, nor, I hope, the lesson we may learn from
each of these inhabitants of the invisible world — the
danger of receiving the first seed of evil.

There is another vegetable parasite, too well known
to the farmer, called " dodder," which means a ravelled
* Macmillan, in " Footprints of the Creator."

276 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

thread; it is sometimes called " Hell-weed ; " it grows
almost destitute of leaves, and bears usually a small
yellow flower. It creeps along the ground in a most
insinuating and stealthy manner, and casts about, with its
long twine-like arms, for something to lay hold of and
cling to. As soon as it comes in contact with the living
stem of some other plant, it throws out a sucker, by which
it attaches itself, and commences to absorb the sap of its
foster-parent ; it then ceases to have any connection with
the ground, it dies at its own roots, and it lives upon and
at the expense of the plant about which it has encircled
itself. As it grows it throws out fresh suckers, establish-
ing itself firmly on its victim. After making a few turns
round one stem, the dodder finds its way to another, and
thus it continues turning and branching till it resembles
"fine, closely tangled, wet catgut,"" and even then, as
though not satisfied with this pitiable exhibition of mean-
ness, it eventually chokes, strangles, and kills the plant
upon which it has lived.

Why have I told you this story, which a worthy
minister * sent me while writing these pages ? It is to
show you, by an illustration, how the reception of doubt,
when it is entertained in the mind and not rejected, leads
;too often to the ruin of the soul. This story was written
for and spoken to children at a May morning flower
service. May I tell you another, the combination of the
two exactly conveying the lessons which I have considered
'it a duty to convey while looking into the wonders of the
beautiful world on which we live?

Some years ago there was a German prince who lived

in an old castle on the banks of the Khine ; he was a

good Christian man, and had an only son, who was a very

good young man, and not only a comfort to his father,

* Rev. Morley Wright.

MISCELLANEOUS. 277

but a blessing to all the people who lived on his father 'a
land.

It happened once, while this young man was away
from home, that a French gentleman came to the castle
on a visit to the father. This visitor was an atheist ; he
did not believe in God, and never thought of trusting
Him for anything.

One day, when they were talking together, he said
something about God which grieved his friend's heart very
much, and he could not help saying to him, " My friend,
are you not afraid of offending God, who reigns above, by
speaking of Him in this way ? "

" No," said the gentleman. " I have never seen God.
I know nothing of Him, and care nothing about Him."

His friend said nothing more to him at that time, but
resolved to try and show him how wrong he was. So, the
next morning, he took him about the castle grounds to
show him different things. In the first place he called
his attention to a beautiful picture that hung on the wall.
The gentleman admired the picture very much, and said,
"Whoever drew this picture must be a very good
painter."

" My son drew that picture," said his friend.

" Then your son is a very clever man," replied the
Frenchman.

Then the two went into the garden, which was beauti-
fully laid out, with a great variety of beautiful flowers
and trees.

" What a beautiful garden ! " said the gentleman,
" Do tell me who planned and arranged it ? "

" It is my son's work," was the answer.

"Indeed!" said the other. *'I am beginning to
think very highly of him."

Then the gentleman took him into the village and

278 THE MICBOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

showed a nice cottage which his son had built, at his own
expense, as a home and school for all the young children
in the village who had lost their parents, where they
could be taken care of and educated. The little children
in the home seemed so clean and happy that the French-
man was quite delighted with the sight of them, and when
he returned to the castle he said to his friend —

" What a happy man you must be to have so good a
son!"

" How do you know that I have so good a son ? " he
asked.

" Because I have seen his works, and I know that he
must be good and clever if he has done all that you have
shown me.'

" But you have not seen him ! "

" No ; but I know him very well, because I judge of
him by his works."

"Very true," replied his friend; "and it is just in
this way that I judge of the character of our Heavenly
Father. I know by His works that He is a God of
infinite wisdom and power and goodness, and every star
that twinkles in the sky, and every tree that grows in the
field, and every flower that blooms in the garden by
day, se^ms to tell me that I ought to love Him and trust
Him."

My story is ended. I could have wished to have
lengthened it by more advice to you in respect of the
instrument. Should you be encouraged by it to purchase
a microscope for yourself, I should not leave unsaid a
word or two about object-glasses. Don't think that the
thing to do is to make a flea as big as an elephant. I
have learned to educate my eye by using the lowest
powers, which, with the help of an extra eye-piece or two,
and an extension of the draw-tube, will do all you want, to

MISCELLANEOUS. 279

commence upon. A three-inch glass will be most useful ;
even a four-inch is most valuable in the examination of
living flowers. Beyond a half-inch glass magnifying one
hundred diameters, that is, ten thousand times, to begin
with, it is unnecessary to go ; when you have made steady
progress then you may venture upon higher magnifying
powers.

Never forget that in the study of the works of God, if
you would grow in knowledge, the same secret has to be
discovered as in the study of His Word — illumination.
I have known those who possessed excellent microscopes,
but who failed in the management of light. I have
reminded you of the good motto for every good thing in
every good mind, "Incessant pains the end obtains."
Preliminary failure is frequently necessary to ultimate
success. I found this saying true in my first lessons in
self-culture ; so may you. I remember once cutting out
the eyes of a house-fly and mounting them dry in a deep
cell. Imagine my surprise soon after, on examining my
object, finding that, lodged in those thousands of eyes, had
been the invisible spores of a fungoid plant, which began
to grow directly I mounted it, and, like an ivy creeping
into the church window, was filling up the facets of my
interesting object: that drew my special attention to
insects' eyes and parasitical growth, the study of which
has occupied me from that time to this hour.

And now " cometh the end," and I must reluctantly
bid farewell to this tenth volume, which henceforth shall
be an adopted child of that happy family, the Sunday
School Union. I can scarcely hope that it will be to the
reader what it has been to me, because in my own mind
it has been a recalling of past memories, the culling of old
thoughts, in which so much of true and lasting pleasure has

280 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS.

been happily associated in microscopic research, associated
with the dear ones whom I ha\ e " loved and lost awhile."

In this book, the child of my old age, I have only been
able to mention a few illustrations of the wonderful works
of God, endeavouring to keep Him steadily in view, never
forgetting the pretty story told us of the late Emperor
Frederick, of Germany, who, while attending the examina-
tion of some school-children, took a coin from his pockef,
and asked to what part of the natural kingdom it belonged,
— when he received the ready answer, " The mineral
kingdom ; " then, taking a flower from his button-hole,
he repeated the question, and " Vegetable kingdom " was
the reply ; and then he asked, " And to what part of the
kingdom do I belong?'1 Then there was a long pause,
for how could those juvenile subjects of an emperor de-
scribe him as an "animal"? At length some nervous
youngster said, " The kingdom of God" And the monarch
is said to have added, with a tear in his eye, " God grant
I may indeed belong to His Kingdom."

This threefold cord, I have ventured to use in the
preceding pages, in the fond hope that, while advocating
the possession of a microscope which will assuredly be
found to be one of the readiest, most effectual, economical,
and useful teachers in the world, will, when rightly
iapplied, not only prove to be a new sense to the mind,
but a great " aid," if there be such a thing, to faith. And
my earnest wish and loving prayer for any who may
devote a few hours to the contemplation of the truths I
have imperfectly taught is, that, rightly, reasonably, and
scripturally, taking the revelations of the microscope as
so many illustrations of the written revelation in the
Bible, they may fully and heartily and savingly accept
the one while they are privileged to behold the other ;
and then3 with me, when they come to the last chapter hi

MISCELLANEOUS. 281

the story of life, and have to say, n It is finished" they
will be as fully assured as I am of the truth of some
comforting words spoken to me, many years ago, in the
following verses : —

" There is a safe and secret place

Beneath the wings divine,
Reserved for all the heirs of grace :
Oh, be that refuge mine 1

" The weakest saint may there abide,

Uninjured and unawed :
While thousands fall on every side,
He rests secure in God.

" The angels watch him on his way,

And aid with friendly arm ;
And Satan, watching for his prey,
May hate but cannot harm.

" He feeds in pastures large and fair

Of « WORKS ' and ' WORDS ' divine 1
O child of God, O glory's heir
How rich a lot is thine !

* A Hand almighty to defend,

An ear for every call,
An honoured life, a peaceful end,
And heaven to crown it all ! '

APPENDIX

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A CORAL REEF,
(See page 240.)

I HAD just finished correcting the proof of the preceding
pages when my attention was directed^ to the geological
formation of the peninsula of Florida, in the United States.
My friend, C. C. Hoyer Miller, Esq. — having just returned
from a survey of the vast beds of phosphate for which that
place is so famous — informs me that in one county alone, con-
sisting of between 5000 and 6000 acres, he thoroughly
tested one tract of 600 acres, and the result showed upon the
analyses, from 66 to 70 per cent, of phosphate of lime, and
that the probable estimate of the entire bed of 600 acres
would yield a total quantity of 1,800,000 tons.

What is phosphate of lime ? and what is its use ? and how
came this vast deposit to be where it is now discovered ?

It was absorbed into the system, and utilised into the
structure of multitudinous polyps in the erection of their
dwellings, just as an oyster employs the material in the
structure of its shell, and it is the very ingredient neces-
sary in the fertilization of plants, and is converted by the
chemist into manure for the food of the necessaries of life,
and is a lively illustration of the words which St. James
uses when he speaks of " the course (R. T. the wlieel) of
nature" — a reference, I believe, to the acknowledged fact

APPENDIX. 283

that every bit of dust has been alive, the earth and all its
contents being used over and over again, as a wheel in action
is turning continually round.

! Professor Agassiz says that the southern half of the
peninsula of Florida, which is built up of coral reefs, took
135,000 years to form, and my friend has very kindly author-
ized my using the information he received from Dr. J. Schrader
illustrating the process of formation, which will exactly
answer the question, How did these vast beds of phosphate of
lime come to be in the position where he saw them ?

" Far back in the misty ages of the dead past," he says,
" countless centuries before Troy or Athens had a being,
before Nineveh was destroyed, or the Pyramids were built, — •
hundreds of generations before the Tower of Babel rose, or
the hail of fire swept Sodom and Gomorrah, — innumerable
ages before the embattled walls and turrets of ancient Baby-
lon rose above the Chaldean plains; farther, still farther
back, — thousands of years before the first rose blossomed in
the Garden of Eden, a little animal, one of the lowest orders
of animal beings, lived and toiled beneath the ocean's tide.
That animal — scarcely more animal than vegetable — was the
polyp, the coral animal, or, as it is sometimes called, the coral
insect. He must have led a monotonous life, subsisting on
limestone, and making coral day after day and year after
year, with never a change of diet or occupation, with no
neighbours of a higher order than himself, for there were
few forms of animal life in the ocean then, and none on the
land. But he was not ambitious ; and, having plenty of ' sea
room,' he applied himself diligently to his life-work, forming
coral, raising the ocean bed, and laying the foundation for
future islands and expanding continents.

" There were great swelling tides in those days ; tides
which swept with impetuous fury, far inland; lashing the
feet of the mountains ; and in their retreat, carrying back the
disintegrated rock and other calcareous matter, as fresh
material for the toiling polyps.

284 APPENDIX.

" In the remote Silurian age, at the very dawn of pale-
zoic time, the little polyps began their appointed work.
Centuries, epochs, ages pass ; and still the little animals toil
oil. The Carboniferous age is ushered in, when, as we are
told, * the waters teemed with fishes of great size and strange
forms, and the dry land was covered with a rank and luxu-
riant vegetation, of ferns and coniferous trees, and strange
forms, like gigantic reeds and club-mosses.'

" Still the * whirligig of time ' revolves. The Keptilian
age — when the Ichthyosaurus, the gigantic lizard, basked in
the sunshine — comes and goes. The Eocene, Miocene, and
Pliocene Epochs pass in review ; and still the industrious
little polyps never * strike,' nor ask for 'their time,' nor
demand an ' eight-hour day ' ; but, content with their hard
fare, they go right on, rearing beautiful submarine structures
in accordance with the original plans of the Great Architect.

" Now, as the result of numberless" ages of incessant
labour, coral reefs appear, over which the great river of the
ocean, the Gulf Stream, swirls, frets and breaks, depositing
the sediment brought from distant climes. The polyps
retire (to take another contract farther out in the deep) and
other forces of nature continues the work. In time, the
coral reefs become a cluster of little islands. Meanwhile,
change succeeds change on the broad face of the globe. In-
numerable fishes fill the seas; and on land, the mastodon,
the glyptodon, the dinotherium, and the prehistoric elephant
live their appointed time, and become extinct, to give place
to other forms of animal life. The calm waters of the bays,
inlets and estuaries among the islands are well suited to the
habits of molluscs, crustaceans, radiates, and cephalopods ;
and here, oysters, clams, lobsters, sea urchins, cuttlefish,
octopods, the nautilus, and many other naughty things, find
an abode. Generation after generation, century after cen-
tury, living, dying and casting their untenanted shells upon
the substratum of coral, they are unconsciously forming a
bed of marl,

At»PENDtX. 285

*• These quiet retreats also attract the monsters of the great
deep, and here the porpoise and the dolphins play ; and the
plesiosaurus and the great shark engage in deadly conflict,
crimsoning the limpid waters with their life blood, while
pelicans, cormorants, and other fish-eating birds watch the
combat with selfish glee. Layer upon layer of the bones of
fishes and marine animals are strewn on the bed of marl;
the sea-birds contribute their share to the up-building, and
still the work goes on. From the accumulation of animal
matter, ocean drifts and sediment from the Gulf Stream, the
sea-bed continues to rise. The cluster of islands becomes an
everglade, with here and there a tufted elevation; while
upon the shores the ocean surf casts the seeds and roots of
trees and plants, contributions from every land to the rising
savanna. A little later, many elevated spots or islands are
merged into one ; others are connected by narrow strips of
land ; the deeper bays have become lakes, and the estuaries
have become rivers. And now the incipient peninsula is the
favourite haunt of the manatee, the alligator and count-
less millions of animals and birds. A few thousand more
years elapse ; and an adventurous navigator discovers the
finished work, which the humble polyps began. The coral
reef, the cluster of islands, the everglade, the savanna has
now become a bold peninsula, traversed by rivers, dotted
with sparkling lakes and clothed in tropical vendure.

" It was Palm Sunday (Pascua Floridae), when Ponce Do
Leon stepped upon the shore ; and, as if to commemorate the
day, the oaks were festooned with mosses; rich ferns and
grasses lined the beach ; bright flowers were flashing in the
sunlight ; and high above them, the graceful fronds of stately
palms were swaying in the breeze. Thus, in honour of the
day, and as an expression of admiration, he called this land
of beauty — Florida.

" Three hundred and seventy-two more years had passed,
when a son of Adam, in the pursuit of applied science,
blazing the way for the extension of a great nation's com-

286 APPENDIX.

merce, discovered in this lovely peninsula with its forests of
orange groves, the vast sepulchre of millions of creatures
which died only to live again in vegetation, and to con-
tribute to the comfort and happiness of man. This antedi-
luvian sepulchre is the phosphate field of the two counties."

A PALM GEOVE.

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