94 



THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



organic compounds already formed, which they take, in some way 

 or other, into the interior of their body ; while the lowest plants, 

 in common with the highest, obtain their own alimentary matter 

 by absorption from the inorganic elements (water, carbonic acid, 

 ammonia, and various salts) on their exterior, and take in no 

 solid particles of any description. Judged by this criterion (the 

 only one which has any value in these days), the sponges, which 

 were formerly supposed to be plants, have been definitively 

 awarded to the animal kingdom ; while many minute organisa- 

 tions, which once figured among the ranks of the Protozoa, or 

 simplest animals, now find a more correct place among the 

 Protophyta, or lowest members of the vegetable world. 



A cursory glance at a few of the most remarkable of these 

 minutest plants will give us some idea of the wonders evolved 

 by the process of life in spaces so small as to be invisible to the 

 naked eye, and show us that Divine power shines forth as 

 brilliantly in the myriads with which it peoples a single drop of 

 water as in the creation of worlds. 



Among the simplest microscopical forms of vegetable life we 



A Encysted ' still ' cell of Protococcus. B c D E P Divisions of encysted cells into two, 

 four, eight, and thirty-two. G Motile cells after their escape from the original cell. 

 H I K L Transformations of motile cells. 



find the Protococci, globular cells surrounded by a gelatinous 

 envelope, and measuring scarce YoVof a ^ ne ^ n diameter, which 



