358 WHO CAN TELL? 
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? 
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
LONDON 
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND OO. 
NEW-STREET SQUARE 
cine ? A On oy ( Fi 
aj +4 — 
