IN THE MUD OF THE LEVANT. 127 



I cannot close this memoir, without once more 

 drawing the attention of the Society to the im- 

 portant part which the minute and singular beings 

 now brought under our notice, play in the economy 

 of the physical world. Jf we look into the ditches 

 and pools of our immediate neighbourhood, we 

 find them teeming with some form or other of 

 these microscopic structures. The superficial 

 mud of our rivers, lakes, and estuaries, is alike 

 vital with their swarming millions. The waves 

 of the ocean, when glittering with phosphorescent 

 splendour, indicate that, however pure and trans- 

 parent they may appear to the unassisted vision, 

 they are loaded with similar forms of organic life. 

 From the stormy seas of the Northern Pole to 

 the wild and desolate shores of Mount Erebus,* 

 these atoms of creation exist in all their variety 

 of structure, and wondrous diversity of movement. 

 They form some of the earliest instruments by 

 which inorganic elements are transmuted into 

 an organized condition. They constitute the 

 pabulum of myriads of those bulkier creatures 

 which, though of so much more apparent import- 

 ance, could be better spared without deranging 



* Ehrenberg, on Microscopic Life in the Ocean at the 

 S. Pole. Annals Nat. Hist. No. 90, p. 169, 



