32 NATURAL HISTOKY 



lose here our geometrical forms, bounded by planes 

 and lines, but we have the unfolding of a new force, 

 that uses chiefly four elements, and molds them into 

 more forms than are known to the whole mineral 

 kingdom. The vital force gives relations and devel- 

 opments entirely unlike those in the lower depart- 

 ment, not even suggested by any thing found there, 

 as the relation of parent and offspring, by which 

 matter is molded into a continued series of identical 

 forms, by a force, not in it, but above it the devel- 

 opment of vegetable and animal growth, in which 

 the perfection and beauty depends upon the con- 

 stant change of matter, while in the crystal they 

 depend upon its permanence. "We have not here 

 stepped beyond the limit of mathematical law, but 

 it is obscured by more deviations than in the most 

 complicated crystal. What myriad forms start up 

 on every side! There is the plant of a single cell, 

 cradled in the northern snow, his kindred lurking in 

 every pool the Fungus, scavenger among plants, 

 feeding on decaying fiber the Lichen and Moss, 

 picturing the broad rock with fairy groves and rings 

 the Grasses, wearing their carpets of green, and 



