34 DROPS OF WATER. 



all enjoying life, and providing for their various 

 wants their beauty so great, that we can 

 scarcely bear to lose sight of them by with- 

 drawing the eye from the microscope; and 

 yet that drop is as nothing in the scale of 

 creation, and we wipe it away with hardly a 

 thought of what it contains, intent on viewing 

 fresh wonders in the next drop we may take 

 up. The educated mind, however, knows that 

 nothing is made in vain, and that even the 

 minute beings under observation have had 

 their influence in maintaining the purity of 

 the water and atmosphere, and thus spreading 

 around, benefits of which the uninstructed are 

 perfectly ignorant. 



This introduction will be concluded by a short 



