STRUCTURE OF BONE. 9 



Thus, it will be seen, how easily the observer can, in a minute fragment of bone, though 

 hardly larger than a midge's wing, read the class of animal of whose framework it once formed 

 a part, as decisively as if the former owner were present to claim his property ; for each 

 particle of every animal is imbued with the nature of the whole being. The life-character is 

 enshrined in and written upon every sanguine disc that rolls through the veins ; is manifested 

 in every fibre and nervelet that gives energy and force to the breatlu'ng and active body ; and 

 is stereotyped upon each bony atom that forms part of its skeleton framework. 



Whoever reads these hieroglyphs rightly is truly a poet and a prophet ; for to him the 

 "valley of dry bones" becomes a vision of death passed away, and a prevision of a resurrec- 

 tion and a life to come. As he gazes upon the vast multitude of dead, sapless memorials of 

 beings long since perished, " there is a shaking, and the bones come together" once again; 

 their fleshly clothing is restored to them ; the vital fluid courses through their bodies ; the 

 spirit of life is breathed into them ; "and they live, and stand upon their feet." Ages upon 

 ages roll back their tides, and once more the vast reptile epoch reigns on earth. The huge 

 saurians shake the ground with their heavy tread, -wallow in the slimy ooze, or glide sinuous 

 through the waters ; while winged reptiles flap their course through the miasmatic vapors that 

 hang dank and heavy over the marshy world. As with them, so with us, an inevitable pro- 

 gression towards higher stages of existence, the effete and undeveloped beings passing away to 

 make room for new, and loftier, and more perfect creations. What is the volume that has 

 thus recorded the chronicles of an age so long past, and prophecies of as far distant a future ? 

 Simply a little fragment of mouldering bone, tossed aside contemptuously by the careless 

 laborer as miners' "rubbish." 



Not only is the past history of each being written in every particle of which its material 

 fi-ame is constructed, but the past records of the universe to which it belongs, and a prediction 

 of its future. God can make no one thing that is not universal in its teachings, if we would 

 only be so taught ; if not, the fault is with the pupils, not with the Teacher. He writes his 

 ever-living words in all the works of his hand ; He spreads this ample book before us, always 

 ready to teach, if we will only leam. We walk in the midst of miracles with closed eyes and 

 stopped ears, dazzled and bewildered with the Light, fearful and distrustful of the Word ! 



It is not enough to accumulate facts as misers gather coins, and then to put them away on 

 our bookshelves, guarded by the bars and bolts of technical phraseology. As coins, the facts 

 must be circulated, and given to the public for their use. It is no matter of wonder that the 

 generality of readers recoil from works on the natural sciences, and look upon them as mere 

 collections of tedious names, irksome to read, unmanageable of utterance, and impossible to 

 remember. Our scientific libraries are filled with facts, dead, hard, dry, and material as the 

 fossil bones that fill the sealed and caverned libraries of the past. But true science will breathe 

 life into that dead mass, and fill the study of zoology with poetry and spirit. 



