PREFACE. 



To those who have had the command of accurate and powerful instruments, the field of 

 microscopic research has ever been one of delightful labor. Nearly in every direction, in which 

 their investigations have been prosecuted, new and surprising discoveries have rewarded their 

 diligence and zeal, while glimpses of others no less amazing have allured them onward in their 

 pleasing path. 



But the wondrous scenes thus revealed to the eye have hitherto been mostly confined to this 

 favored class ; they have indeed faithfully delineated the curious living and extinct forms, and 

 the beautiful configurations which have met their view, and have likewise fully recorded the 

 observations they have made upon these interesting objects, but the productions of their pencil 

 have for the most part been enshrined in rare and costly volumes, and they have seldom 

 spoken but in the dignified language of science. Thus it has happened, that of the many 

 eager and inquiring minds, which love to expatiate in the fields of Nature, a few only have 

 enjoyed the privilege of exploring the inner labyrinths of creation, and of gathering from 

 thence new treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 



When, by the mighty power of the telescope, the astronomer was first enabled to gaze into 

 space, as with the ken of an angel, and to recognise the orbs that glittered in the firmament as 

 worlds like our own, countless in number, and stretching away through widening circles in all 

 the vastness and magnificence of infinitude ; Infidelity advanced once more to the attack, 

 and argued against Revelation from the immensity of creation ; affirming that man was too 

 insignificant a creature to be the peculiar care of Him, who had filled the illimitable regions of 

 space with such stupendous works. 



Baseless as this argument is, it is nevertheless calculated to exert a pernicious influence 

 upon unstable minds ; since to good men, whose faith has never wavered, the condescension 

 of the Supreme Being, in regarding man at all, has ever appeared unutterably amazing. Lit- 

 tle was known of the glories of the universe in the age of the Psalmist, yet even he breaks forth 

 into the following strain of wonder, as he lifts his eyes to the sparkling sky : " "When I consider 

 thy heavens, the work of thy fingers ; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; what is 

 man that thou art mindful of him ?" 



Now the microscope has not only turned aside this blow of the scoffer, but caused it to recoil 

 upon himself; for by the aid of this instrument we follow the footsteps of Divinity, into fields 

 of creation so inconceivably small, that man, compared with them, is a universe in respect to 



