210 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



old familiar voice of one who is no longer with us on 

 earth can be heard speaking to us in the very tones and 

 measure to which our ears were once accustomed. And 

 this wonderful instrument, after all, simply consists of a 

 plate of metal, with apparatus capable of striking upon it 

 so as to produce a musical sound, the plate being sent by 

 post to any part of the world, and the message absolutely 

 respoken in the very voice of the sender purely by 

 mechanical agency. 



Well said Mrs. Siddons, the celebrated actress, on 

 seeing the Apollo Belvedere in the Louvre at Paris, 

 " How great must be the Being who_created the genius 

 which could produce such a form as this ! " 



Electricity has been, and is now, commonly used to 

 enable us to speak with one at a considerable distance, as 

 in the telephone, which now joins London and Paris ; and 

 they do say that the inventor is busily occupied in the 

 discovery of a method by which electricity will enable us 

 to see what is going on in any part of the world. But 

 then comes the question, What is electricity ? We get so 

 far, but no further. Is the brain a galvanic battery, and 

 all the nerves so many telegraph-wires, which, all com- 

 municating with the great central station at the top of 

 the house we live in, fetch and carry all the messages, 

 even from the furthermost member of the body, forming 

 the means whereby we hold communion with the outer 

 world, and become acquainted, through the senses, with 

 one another, and the glory and beauty of the wonderful 

 globe we live on ? 



What is life ? what is electricity ? what really is the 

 mystery of being ? Who shall tell us ? " We are but 

 of yesterday, and know nothing " (Job viii. 9). 



Our next illustration is from another object, but of a 

 similar kind to the last. It is the human knee-joint in its 



