144 DISTURBANCE OF NATURAL BALANCES. 
mately, doubtless, in many yet undiscovered industrial processes. 
An attentive study of the conditions favorable to the propaga- 
tion of the diatomaceze might perhaps help us to profit directly 
by the productivity of this organism, and, at the same time, dis- 
close secrets of nature capable of being turned to valuable ac- 
count in dealing with silicious rocks, and the metal which is the 
base of them. 
Our acquaintance with the obscure and infinitesimal life of 
which I have now been treating is very recent, and still very 
imperfect. We know that it is of vast importance in geol- 
ogy, but we are so ambitious to grasp the great, so little accus- 
tomed to occupy ourselves with the minute, that we are not 
yet prepared to enter seriously upon the question how far we 
can control and utilize the operations, not of unembodied phy- 
sical forces merely, but of beings, in’ popular apprehension, 
almost as immaterial as they. 
Disturbance of Natural Balances. 
It is highly probable that the reef-builders and other yet un- 
studied minute forms of vital existence have other functions in 
the economy of nature besides aiding in the architecture of the 
globe, and stand in important relations not only to man but to 
the plants and the larger sentient creatures over which he has 
dominion. The diminution or multiplication of these unseen 
friends or foes may be attended with the gravest consequences to 
all his material interests, and he is dealing with dangerous wea- 
pons whenever he interferes with arrangements pre-established 
by a power higher than his own. The equation of animal and 
vegetable life is too complicated a problem for human intelli- 
gence to solve, and we can never know how wide a circle of 
disturbance we produce in the harmonies of nature when we 
throw the smallest pebble into the ocean of organic being. 
This much, however, the facts I have hitherto presented au- 
thorize us to conclude: as often as we destroy the balance by 
deranging the original proportions between different orders of 
