208 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



Look at this. It is the finger of a small infant a 

 very choice specimen, because it is injected with red fluid, 

 which gives it all the appearance of life. The finger-nail, 

 nicely formed, measures only the one-tenth part of an 

 inch ; the skin is so thin that we can see through it, as 

 indeed it is not perfectly and finally formed. What 

 does it look like, and, had I kept you in ignorance of its 

 true nature, what would you have supposed it to have 

 been? 



You might say rightly, " Some beautifully fine piece of 

 needlework, worked by some fairy fingers into the most 

 exquisite pattern of tassel work." 



Now, just look at one of your own fingers. All along 

 the top there you will observe a series of lines running 

 round one another, interspersed with microscopical dots 

 equidistant from each other. If you think, you will arrive 

 at the fact that beneath the epidermis the outer skin, that 

 is corresponding with these depressions, there would be 

 an equal distribution of elevations ; that is just what you 

 are looking at. But, as we have said, these capillary loops, 

 with their fringe-like appearance, appear to resemble the 

 finest of needlework. Now hear what that eminent 

 Hebrew scholar, Dr. Mason Good, says about the fifteenth 

 verse of the Psalm already referred to. He says, " It is 

 better rendered, * ivhen I was wrought with a needle in the 

 depths of the earth,' in allusion to the sacerdotal robes 

 of the .high priest (see Exod. xxviii. 2). The indescrib- 

 able texture of the human system " (these are riot my 

 words, but his) " is, therefore, with much propriety, com- 

 pared to the exquisite needlework of the high priest's 

 vestments; 'and thou shalt make holy vestments for 

 Aaron thy brother for glory and beauty.' " 



Is this what another famous Hebrew scholar once re- 

 ferred to, I wonder, when he asked these words ? " What ! 



