12 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



derived from a comparison of the telescope and microscope : 

 " The one led me to see a system in every star ; the other 

 leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me 

 that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people 

 and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field 

 of immensity.* The other teaches me, that every grain of 

 sand may harbor within it the tribes and the families of a 

 busy population. The one told me of the insignificance 

 of the world I tread upon. The other redeems it from all 

 insignificance ; for it tells me that 



" In the leaves of every forest, in the flowers of every garden, in the 

 waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and number- 

 less as are the glories of the firmament." Rev. Dr. Chalmers. 



Nothing more perfectly demonstrates the power of Nature 

 to effect her vast designs through apparently feeble and in- 

 sufficient agents, than the coral formation. It .requires, 

 indeed, ocular proof of the labors of the madrepores, to 

 credit what stupendous submarine reefs and islands, many 

 miles in compass, are indebted for at least a great part of 

 their structure to the secretory economy of these minute 

 artificers. 



The coral insects are abundant in the Mediterranean, 

 where corallines of beautiful forms and colors are produced; 

 but it is in the Pacific Ocean and its branches that these 



* Sir John Herschel, in an " Essay on the Power of the Telescope to 

 penetrate into space," a quality distinct from the magnifying power, in- 

 forms us that there are stars so infinitely remote as to be situated at the 

 distance of twelve millions of millions of millions of mites from our earth ; 

 so that light, which travels with a velocity of twelve millions of miles 

 in a minute, would require two millions of years for its transit from those 

 distant orbs to our own ; while the astronomer who should record the as- 

 pect or mutations of sueh a star, would be relating, not its history at the 

 present day, but that which took place two millions of years gone by. And 

 when we reflect that if it were possible for us to attain to those distant 

 spheres, we should look, not on the limits, the blank wall of Creation, 

 but only into fresh fields of Creation, Power, and Wisdom, we feel that 

 our earth and all that it inherits is a mere speck in space, ar atom amid 

 the vast Universe. (See Appendix.) 



