180 FOOTNOTES FPOM 



700 square miles. A great mass of substance remark- 

 ably like paper fell during a violent storm in 1687, 

 near the village of Eanden in Courland, which excited 

 great curiosity at the time, and was found after the lapse 

 of many years, by the all-penetrating microscope of Ehren- 

 berg, to consist of a compactly matted heap of diatoms 

 and confervae. Diatoms have even been discovered in 

 the pumice and ashes ejected from the burning craters 

 of volcanoes. 



" The dust we tread upon was once alive ! " was the 

 exclamation of one great poet ; and " How populous, 

 how vital is the grave !" was that of another, but little 

 did either Byron or Young know how extensively true 

 were the words they uttered. The microscope shows us 

 how inconceivably populous is the whole world, when 

 thus the loftiest regions of the atmosphere, and the 

 fathomless depths of the ocean, and the darkest, deepest 

 abysses of the earth, where we should suppose all life 

 impossible, are peopled with myriads upon myriads which 

 the Infinite mind alone can enumerate, of minute vege- 

 table organisms, performing their allotted task in the 

 great workshop of nature, and adding a thousand times 

 more to the mass of materials which compose the 

 crust of the globe, than the bones of elephants and 

 whales ! 



To the investigation of the diatoms, we must not bring 

 any of our preconceived notions of vegetable forms and 

 structures, for we shall assuredly find them completely 

 overthrown, by the new and strange modes of organiza- 

 tion which these minute plants display. Indeed, so 

 peculiar and abnormal are some of these modes, so unlike 



