252 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



says they have heat enough to preserve a small circle of 

 water unfrozen when all the rest is ice, and another circle 

 to preserve coolness enough to sustain life when the 

 temperature is raised to 200, water boiling at 212. 



The most common object is often the most interesting, 

 not only to a beginner but even to one well " np " in the 

 use of the microscope. A piece of wheat-straw cut down 

 the stalk, dividing it, then the siliceous skin stripped off 

 and laid between two pieces of glass, with a low power, 

 \\ill disclose a world of wonders ; and remember that it 

 was the great " Starry Galileo," as he was called, who, 



Siliceous cuticle of wheat-straw, the flinty skeleton only being seen 

 (magnified). 



when in his Spanish prison, where he lay persecuted for 

 maintaining that the world went round the sun, said, 

 while pointing to the common wheat-straw upon which he 

 lay, " From the structure of that object alone, I can infer, 

 with certainty, the existence of an intelligent Creator." 



You will sometimes hear about "aids to faith." Did 

 faith require aid from without, surely it were no longer 

 faith. The palrn tree in Scripture is the true emblem ot 

 the righteous, and its growth is from within. Study the 

 structure of plants, and you will be amazed at their glory 

 and beauty and suggestiveness. " Consider the lilies, how 

 they grow," and realize, in all its fulness, the profound 



