IMPORTANCE IN CREATION. 



17 



animals higher in the scale of creation than them- 

 selves. Captain Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic 

 Voyage, speaking of a small fish found by him in 

 the South Seas, and stating by what means it 

 and many others are fed, says, " All are even- 

 tually nourished and sustained by the minute 

 infusorial animalcules, which we find filling the 

 ocean with an inconceivable multitude of the 

 minutest forms of organic life/ 3 We may infer 

 from this, the immense importance of the Infuso- 

 ria in the scale of existence, for although only re- 

 motely supporting the higher animals, yet the 

 want of them would be greatly felt. Ehrenberg* 

 states, that a single drop of water may hold five 



* A celebrated Prussian naturalist, who has devoted his life to the mi- 

 croscopic investigation of animalcules and other minute objects. 



TIT 



