20 Objects for the Microscope. 



This is one of the mysteries of creation, how the cells of 

 a plant so regularly secrete each its appointed store of need- 

 ful substance for the plant-life how from the earth in 

 which it grows, from the air in which it lives, from the light 

 which quickens it, each tiny chamber receives exactly that 

 portion of nourishment, and that kind of nourishment 

 which enables it to produce either the green wax which 

 colours the leaf, or the white starch -grains, or the gum, the 

 sugar, the oil, or the shining crystals, or that nucleus which 

 is the reproductive cell all this going on invisibly around 

 us in every living plant, and having been thus going on for 

 five thousand years at least, unseen, unknown by us, until 

 the revelations of the microscope. Is there no deep thought 

 stirred in our hearts by the manifest order and minute 

 care of Him who built up this living temple for His own 

 pleasure and for ours ? Do we think of all that is contained 

 in the flower we gather by the way-side, in the herb that 

 bends beneath our feet ? Is no desire kindled to see these 

 things as they are, and pass on from these slides to the 

 examination of the plant itself? There are a thousand 

 things more beautiful than raphides that cannot thus be 

 mounted or preserved. Shall I give one example only for 

 a summer hour's delight ? 



ANAGALLIS. 



In the garden or the cornfield gather a little scarlet 

 Pimpernel, the Anagallis, or the Poor Man's Weather- 

 glass, that lowly and bright little flower which opens every 

 morning at eight minutes past seven, and closes about three 

 minutes past two in the afternoon. Examine it with a 

 pocket-lens, and you will see that it belongs to the Primrose 

 tribe, with its single-leaved calyx and corolla, wheel-shaped, 

 deeply cleft into fine segments, fine slender filaments and 

 heart-shaped anthers, one-thread-shaped and clubbed 

 stigma. With the same lens you can examine the seed- 

 vessel, a little globular capsule opening all round, and, 

 raising the lid, observe the most beautiful dotted seeds 

 lying closely pressed to the pitted receptacle ; and this, if 

 once seen, will not be forgotten. Take it now to the mi- 



