XVI INTRODUCTION. 



lace ; and their productions need not fear comparison 

 with the point-lace of Mechlin or of Brussels. Who has 

 not admired the ingenious construction of the beehive 

 or of the ant-hill, or the delicate and marvellous struc- 

 ture of the spider's weh? The perfection of some of 

 these works is so great and so generally appreciated, 

 that when the astronomer requires for his telescope a 

 slender and delicate thread, he applies to a living shop, 

 to a simple spider. When the naturalist wishes to test 

 the comparative excellence of his microscope, or requires 

 a micrometer for infinitely little objects, he consults, not 

 a millimetre, divided and subdivided into a hundred or 

 a thousand parts, but the simple carapace of a diatom, 

 so small and indistinct that it is necessary to place, a 

 hundred of them side by side to render them visible to 

 the naked eye : and still more, the best microscopes do 

 not always reveal all the delicacy of the designs which 

 decorate these Lilliputian frustules. Mons. H. Ph. Adan 

 has lately shown, with an artist's talent, the infinite 

 beauties which the microscope reveals in this invisible 

 world. 



To whom do the manufacturers of Verviers or of 

 Lyons, of Ghent or of Manchester, apply for their raw 

 materials ? Either to an animal or a plant ; and even 

 up to the present time we have had sufficient modesty 

 not to have sought to imitate either wool or cotton. Yet 

 these animal manufacturers carry on their operations 

 overy day under our eyes, the doors wide open to every- 

 body, and none of them is as yet marked with the trite 

 expression, " No admittance." 



** The beau-ideal which we place before us in the 

 arts of spinning and weaving," said an inhabitant of the 



