ii 
man by the powers of the Telescope, not less perfect and wonderful to the re- 
flecting mind are those brought to light by the Microscope. In either case all is 
perfection, with this difference, that in the former we witness his perfections on 
a scale of grandeur far too magnificent for the comprehension of our limited fa- 
culties, while with the other we are easily enabled to detect organic structure in 
objects so inconceivably minute as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. 
With the aid of the former the motions through space of the heavenly bodies, 
distant many millions of miles, can be measured with such extreme accuracy as 
to show that in the course of thousands of years their rates of progression has 
not altered even a second of time, while by the latter we are enabled to trace 
evidences of complex structure and organization in the filmy dust of the moth’s 
wing, or the equally minute particle of matter constituting a grain of pollen, 
Nay further, we learn from its use, that so infinitely varied and so. constant are 
the forms of these minute objects that, in many cases, the practised observer 
can, by marking their differences, detect the families to which they belong, and 
can even tell, by the shape of the red globules ina drop of blood, whether it was 
drawn from the veins of a man or a lower animal. 7 
These are no doubt extreme cases and demand an amount of skill in the 
use of the instruments not easily attained, but much, very much that is deeply 
interesting, can be learned from either by the merest novice, and each renewal 
of the attempt to interrogate nature by their means, adds to the skill of the ob- 
server. Such then are some of the dishes composing the endless intellectual 
feast which nature provides for her votarigs and of which she, most bountifully, 
invites all to become partakers, 
The magnified figures in the accompanying plates make no pretensions to 
such perfection in displaying the minutiz of organization, but even in them are 
exhibited points of structure which could not be made out by the naked eye, and 
for the most part show, on a sufficiently large scale to be easily followed, these 
more minute and intricate portions of the flower, seed vessel, and seed, em- 
ployed in tracing among plants their relationships to each other: a knowledge 
which forms the basis of our present Natural System and which if ever the true 
Natural System of Botanical classification, now so ardently sought for by all 
philosophical Botanists, is discovered, must stil] prove equally useful not to say 
indispensable towards its acquisition, 
As it is not improbable some of my readers may only know of “ Natural 
Systems” by name without having any very precise idea of what is meant by the 
term, I shall here digressa little to endeavour to convey some information re- 
garding what Naturalists understand by it. Imperfect the effort must necessa- 
rily be for, in truth, even the most learned and philosophical among them, seem 
not to know quite clearly what they are in search of and of course can searcely 
