358 WHO CAN TELL f 



of supplying food to the badger, and both food and 

 clothing to the savage ; and yet we know that 

 it was fashioned for some specific purpose, if we 

 could but read and rightly interpret the pages of 

 Nature's wondrous book. If we ask ourselves, 

 Why was this or that made ? how seldom can we 

 answer the question ! Why did He, who made the 

 world, the sun, and the stars, deck the butterfly's 

 wing with tiny scales, that by a simple change in 

 arrangement produce patterns beside which the 

 most finished painting is a bungling daub ? Why 

 exist those microscopic wonders, (diatoms and in- 

 fusoria,) formed with shells of purest flint, and 

 of the quaintest devices? Why were these ato- 

 mies, that tenant every roadside pool, which 

 dance in the sunbeam, and float on the wings 

 of the breeze? Why all the prodigal variety of 

 strange forms crowding the sea, forms more 

 wonderful than the poet's wildest dreams ever 

 pictured? Who can tell? 



EXD OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



LONDON- 

 PRINTED BY 8POTTISWOODK AND CO. 

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