230 



EECEEATIYE SCIENCE. 



and thickens. The first frost, sufficiently- 

 severe to touch, the tank, causes the whole 

 green coating to peel oflf from the glass and 

 rock, and while this subsides, to add to the 

 thickness of the alluvium — ^how slightly, and 

 yet how sufficiently for an example of Nature's 

 working ! — a new growth commences, and that 

 balance is restored. Do you not see that 

 the chief teaching of geology — the piling of 

 stratum \ipon stratum, the conversion of dis- 

 rupted rock and decayed plant and animal 

 into rock again — is here exemplified in the 

 history of a domestic toy, which contains 

 already one example of stratification in the 

 silence of watery submergence? A tank 

 which has been fitted with loam, pebbles, 

 and plants of the brook and river, will, if 

 left undisturbed for three years, be in this 

 state. Those plants will all have decayed, but 

 there will be an abundant spontaneous vege- 

 tation. The accumulations of that short 

 period will have settled into a close mass, 

 almost as hard as stone ; and if fishes have 

 died in the meantime, and have not been 

 removed, their bones will be found overlaid 

 with hardened mud, just as we find them in 

 the old red sandstone, or the chalk, or the car- 

 boniferous rocks, and shall we not call them 

 OUT own fossils ? See again in this case in 

 which death has been very busy (for plants 

 of large growth soon perish in the absence 

 of sunshine, and occasional attendant acci- 

 dents will carry ofi" some of the finny pets), 

 how life has been equally active on the other 

 side, for such an aquarium will be a hundred 

 times richer in those spontaneous growths 

 we have already spoken of, and visible forms 

 of infusoria and true zoophytes will abound, 

 and every class will be more fully repre- 

 sented, down even to the twilight monad. 



Though this paper must have an end, 

 there is no end to the teaching of the aqua- 

 rium. It is a watery microcosm of living 

 and dead wonders, and we need not marvel 

 that the balance of life and death may be 

 observed in its succession of changes, because 



all the physical forces of the universe are 

 locked up within a single bead of dew, and 

 all the functions of organic creation are com- 

 prised in the economy of a monas termo. If 

 God so ordains that life shall be constantly 

 soaring from the tomb, if the story of the 

 Phoenix ceases to be a fable, need man, the 

 victim of doubts and fears, ever fail in his 

 trust of that blessed promise, that " this 

 mortal shall put on immortality, and this 

 corruptible shall put on in corruption." 

 Science may fix his mind on the appreciation 

 of God's wisdom and power as he reads the 

 handwriting of the Almighty in Nature, but 

 through faith in another revelation must we 

 hope to exclaim, triumphantly, " O death, 

 where is thy stiug P O grave, where is thy 

 victory ?" Or to pass from divine to human 

 consolations, we may take up the apostrophe 

 of the great Raleigh, and say, " O eloquent, 

 just, and mighty death! what none have 

 dared, thou hast done ; what none have at- 

 tempted, thou hast accomplished ; thou hast 

 gathered all the might, majesty, and meanness 

 of mankind, and hast covered them with these 

 two words, "hie jacet." Nature's children 

 have a dread of death, but Nature herself 

 is in friendly compact with the master of 

 silence. If the types which are the ideas of 

 God, have survived from the oldest rocks to 

 this present hour, will not the spirit which 

 lives on ideas, and evolves them as the 

 aquarium evolves its throng of animalcules, 

 live for ever ? It is not hard to believe with 

 Tennyson :— 



" That nothing walks with aimless feet, 

 That not one life shall he destroyed, 

 Or cast as rubhish to the void, 

 "When God hath made the pile complete." 



"The pile" will be complete when God's pur- 

 pose is fulfilled in man, to whom it is given 

 to hope after eternal life, and with eyes of 

 faith to pierce through the veil, and behold 

 the wondrous things of eternity. 



SniELEY HiBBEED, 



