THB CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 165 



living beings that occupy the lower divisions of the 

 ani mal scale ; some swimming in countless myriads 

 near the surface; some dwelling in the inaccessible 

 depths of the ocean ; some attached to shells, or other 

 solid structures, the productions of their own bodies, 

 and which in process of time, form, by their accumula- 

 tion, enormous submarine mountains, rising often from 

 unfathomable depths to the surface. What sublime views 

 of the magnificence of creation have been disclosed by 

 the microscope, in the world of infinite minuteness, 

 peopled by countless multitudes of atomic beings, 

 which animate almost every fluid in nature ? Of these a 

 vast variety of species have been discovered ; each ani- 

 malcule being provided with spontaneous powers of 

 motion, and giving unequivocal signs of individual 

 vitality. The recent observations of Professor Ehren- 

 berg, have brought to light the existence of Monads, 

 which are not larger than the 24,000th part of an inch, 

 and which are so thickly crowded in the fluid as to 

 leave intervals not greater than their own diameter. 

 Hence he has made the computation that each cubic line, 

 which is nearly the bulk of a single drop, contains 

 500,000,000, of these Monads, a number which almost 

 equals that of all the human beings existing on the 



