MISCELLANEOUS, 271 



is a commonplace saying with which all are familiar, 

 " Take care of the pence ; the pounds will take care of 

 themselves : " the words apply to many other things than 

 gold and silver. " Little things ! " Why, Ehrenberg, to 

 whom I have previously referred you, carried his little 

 microscope, which he tells us he bought in the streets 

 of Berlin for thirty shillings, to all parts of the world, for 

 the purpose of observing the microscopic and invisible 

 beings that inhabited the earth. And what did he discover ? 

 Amongst a multitude of other things, that the mountain 

 meal, as it is called, in Norway, contained eighty per cent, 

 of animal matter, consisting of infinitely little organic 

 bodies, being so little, that ten millions of millions of them 

 might be required to fill the space of one cubic inch, and 

 yet in the smallest of those creatures there might have 

 been found several stomachs besides other organs. While, 

 from their little siliceous (flinty) bodies, the solid rocks 

 and big mountains were formed, and out of them, when 

 lime and soda were added, the finest glass was manu- 

 factured, from which lenses might be fabricated for the 

 microscope ; whilst other purposes, such as the fusing of 

 metals, and the preparation and composition of food in 

 the time of famine, were included in their usefulness. 



" To what strange uses " do these invisible animalcules 

 " come at last " ! In the earlier part of our story I have 

 told you of what Dr. Dallinger, about two years since, 

 said about the glasses he employs, in these words: "No 

 instrument in the hands of science has touched a higher 

 perfection than the microscope. The last quarter of a 

 century has seen such an advance in optical perfection 

 and mathematical formulae as the wildest enthusiast never 

 dreamed of, and still immense strides are being made." 

 He had lenses in his possession then, he added, that were 

 made so perfect as to astonish experts, who would, only 



