218 MEMORANDA. 



Royal Institution.' In short, the probability is that his 

 knowledge of astronomy was equal to that of " A Fellow of 

 the Royal Astronomical Society ; " but he had sensus com- 

 munis enough to know that in point of real profit (that is to 

 say use) to man, the revelations of the telescope pale in insig- 

 nificance before those of the microscope. And this leads me 

 to remark that I earnestly wish some one, capable of the 

 task, would give us an elaborate paper, in your journal, upon 

 the subject of the really practical use of the microscope. I 

 have met with numerous gleanings in various works, but we 

 sadly want a digest of them all ; such as its importance in 

 diagnosis, and the determination of the nature of diseases. 

 Its forensic importance ; such, for example, as the decision 

 of the questions, whether the red matter upon the knife with 

 which it is supposed a murder has been committed, is or is 

 not human blood, — whether certain fibres adhering to it are 

 of linen or cotton, &c. At what station on the railway a box, 

 &c., was filled with sand, after its contents had been sur- 

 reptitiously abstracted ; also in the detection of poisons, 

 and various adulterations. Then its discoveries in geology, 

 botany, and natural history in general, are immense. In 

 short, it would require considerable space even to enumerate 

 all the points of real use — the question at issue — in which 

 the microscope beats the telescope completely out of the 

 field! 



Moreover it is really a contracted view that the marvels of 

 the telescope are so much more mighty and grand than those 

 of the microscope ; for the words great and small have reference 

 only to man's poor and finite notions. The Creator makes 

 no such distinctions. A great authority assures us that with 

 Him one day is " as a thousand years, and a thousand years 

 as one day." (2 Peter iii, 8.) 



And it may as confidently be stated that the sun and a 

 monad, the planet Saturn and a diatom, &c., are the same 

 in the great view of that Being, 



" Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ; 

 Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, 

 And now a bubble burst, aud now a world." 



All equally show creative power ; for it is equally as im- 

 possible for man to create a single particle of sand as the 

 whole solar system. From what I have said all really in- 

 telligent readers will see that microscopic objects are just as 

 great, in the true sense of the term, as telescopic objects ; 

 and, therefore, have no need to '' pale in insignificance " 



