16 VIEWS OF THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD. 



sorial animalcules exist in countless numbers often swarming to such an extent, 

 as even to color the element in which they live. One species tinges the water 

 with a blood-red hue, another causes it to appear of an intensely vivid green ; 

 while a bright orange hue indicates the presence of a different species. They are 

 likewise found in strong acids, and in the fluids contained in animal bodies and 

 living plants, and have also been detected alive in moist earth, sixty feet below 

 the surface of the soil. The broad rivers are their home, and far from shore, 

 upon the tropic seas, the ocean swarms, for leagues, with their congregated 

 myriads ; and as the bark of the mariner nightly cuts the wave, the dazzling 

 track it leaves upon the waters, and the fiery spray that flashes from its bows, 

 tell of the presence of life enshrined within an infinity of living atoms. Nor is 

 the bed of the ocean without its minute inhabitants ; for the mud brought up 

 by the deep sea-lead, from the depth of sixteen hundred feet, is full of organic 

 life. There is also every reason for believing, that the atmosphere abounds with 

 the eggs of animalcules, as it does with the seeds of minute plants ; and that 

 these germs, being inconceivably light, are raised by evaporation, and borne 

 about by the winds in unseen clouds ; ready to burst into life whenever a con- 

 currence of favorable circumstances facilitates their development. Lifted at one 

 time to the loftiest mountain tops, at another carried down to the lowest dells 

 and deepest caverns ; they cross seas, sweep over continents, and interchange 

 climes and seasons. In this manner are these invisible forms disseminated over 

 every part of the world ; for wherever investigations have been prosecuted, infu- 

 sorial animalcules have been discovered. 



Through the patient and persevering labors of distinguished naturalists, no less 

 than seven hundred and eighty-six different species of animalcules have been dis- 

 tinctly recognised and delineated, and grouped into families and classes ; distin- 

 guished from each other by their forms, manner of progression, habits, and 

 modes of reproduction. One kind are beheld dwelling harmoniously together 

 within a delicate transparent shell, which in one case assumes a spherical, and in 

 others a quadrangular form ; the living globes with all their inhabitants, as if 

 actuated by a single will, rolling in perfect freedom within the confines of a drop 

 of water. And within each of these globes smaller globes are discerned, enjoy- 

 ing their existence equally with those from which they are separated by the 

 surrounding crystalline sphere. Other infusoria possess the power of changing 

 their forms at will, and in the space of a few minutes pass through a variety of 

 curious and grotesque shapes. 



Another class shoot up in the form of beautiful shrubs, crowned with bell- 

 shaped flowers, whose margins are encircled with a fringe of slender hairs ; but 

 the flower-cups are living beings, and the mimic tree is instinct with vitality in 

 every branch. At one moment, it is seen spreading outward and upward from 

 the base, with all its living flowers in full expansion ; and at the next, should 

 danger threaten, every shoot suddenly contracts, and the whole group of animal- 

 cules shrink down in spiral coils, into the smallest compass. The great variety 

 of form possessed by these interesting objects, can only be fully conceived by ex- 



