' 
; 
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ie Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 219° 
_and when the machinery of the heavens is understood, our tri- 
“umph in the amazing discovery is chastened by a profound con- 
‘sciousness of humiliation, in view of our own comparative insig- 
’ nificance. 
Geology summons to its aid all our senses; its objects are ev- 
ery where around us—they are constantly before our eyes and 
' beneath our feet ; we cannot escape from them if we would— 
_ We see them—we feel and handle them. The telescope, whose 
field of vision is the starry sky, is comparatively useless in the 
fields of geology. We do, indeed, direct it to the snowy pinna- 
cles, the inaccessible mountain cliffs, and the volcanic beacon 
lights ; it is, however, only that we may judge of their bearing, 
their distances and elevation; but the telescope, while it pene- 
trates the profound darkness of celestial space, and collects ina 
bright focus the scattered rays, that have wandered from distant 
worlds, is powerless, if directed towards the earth ; for, excepting 
the occasional glare of volcanic fires, no light comes to us from 
the profound recesses of our planet. 
MICROSCOPICAL RESEARCHES. 
Geology has, however, derived powerful aid from the micro- 
Scope, which, in astronomy, has not the smallest application. The 
microscope has revealed to us the intimate and concealed struc- 
ture of fossil plants—of petrified trees, whose delicate vessels had 
been filled with mineral matter—siliceous, cal metallic— 
or whose substance had been converted into coal; we discern the 
fibres and tissue of primeval forests converted into stone ; their 
resins and gums stored away in the dark beds of coal, are now, 
as it were, created anew, like beings of yesterday, and thus we 
restore the vegetation of remote ages. ‘The microscope has 
brought the most signal aid to comparative anatomy ; by its as- 
sistance, thin sections of both fossil and modern teeth and bones 
are compared, and thus analogies and contrasts are established 
between the ancient and the recent races of animals. ‘The earth 
is the grand mausoleum of the beings that have lived and died 
upon its surface, in its atmosphere, or in its waters. 
The laws of carnivorous as well as of vegetable regimen, and 
the ordinary course of spontaneous decomposition do, indeed, 
rg 
resolve by far the greater number of living beings into food, or 
: into new forms of animated existence—thus causing their ele- 
