4< OF MATTER AND ITS PROPERTIES. 



It is extremely curious to observe to what an 

 amazing extent the actual division of matter may 

 be carried. A grain of gold is hammered by the 

 gold-beaters, until it is the thirty thousandth part 

 of a line in thickness, and will cover fifty square 

 inches. Each square inch may be divided into 

 two hundred strips, and each strip into two 

 hundred pasts, each of which may be seen by the 

 eye; consequently a square inch contains forty 

 thousand visible parts, which, multiplied by fifty, 

 the number of square inches which a grain of gold 

 will make, gives two million parts which may be 

 seen by the naked eye. A still more striking in- 

 stance is afforded by the manufacturer of gold 

 lace. In making this, they gild a bar of silver, 

 and afterwards draw it out into wire, by passing it 

 successivelv through holes of various magnitudes 

 in plates of steel. By this means, the surface is 

 prodigiously augmented; notwithstanding which, 

 it remains gilded, so as to preserve an uniform 

 appearance, even when examined with the micro- 

 scope. It has been calculated that sixteen ounces 

 of gold, which, if in the form of a cube, would not 

 measure one inch and a quarter in its side, will 

 completely gild a quantity of silver-wire sufficient 

 to circumscribe the whole globe of the earth. 



In animalcules which can be seen only by the 

 microscope, we perceive an organization which is 

 probably accompanied by a circulation of certain 

 fluids, in the same manner as in larger animals. 

 How inconceivably small must then be the particles 

 of their blood or juices through parts of their 

 bodies which are too small to be discerned by the 

 highest magnifiers ! 



Odoriferous bodies also afford extraordinarv 



