ARCTIC ANIMALCULES. 51 



researches we are indebted for a knowledge of 

 these minute creatures, informs us that they 

 are so numerous, in many extensive tracts of 

 sea, as to be but the fourth of an inch asunder. 

 In this proportion, he calculates, that a cubic 

 inch of water must contain 64 ; a cubic foot, 

 110,592: a cubic fathom, 23,887,872; and a 

 cubic mile, 23,888,000,000,000,000 ! And as 

 these medusae extend obviously to a great depth, 

 from the opacity produced by them in the 

 water, such a vast number as this might 

 be actually comprised within an area of two 

 miles square supposing them to extend in a 

 sea above a mile deep to the depth of only 250 

 fathoms. As such a number, as this compara- 

 tively minute portion of olive- green sea might 

 afford, is far beyond the ordinary conceptions 

 of the human mind, he illustrates its vastness 

 by observing, that it would have required 80,000 

 persons, starting to count at the period of the 

 creation of man, to complete the enumeration 

 at the present time. 



What a stupendous idea this fact gives of 

 the immensity of Creation, and of the bounty 



E '-? 



