APPLICATIONS OF THE MICEOSCOPE. J01 



have been greatly limited, while the Odonto- 

 grapliy might not have had a being." 1 



(3.) The Microscope has unfolded to us the 

 organization of many of those gigantic plants 

 out of which the coal-measures have been ela- 

 borated, and enabled us to ascertain that here 

 the huge fern, there the quaintly-sculptured 

 sigillaria, here the stately calamite, there the 

 graceful lepidodendron played their parts, while 

 the wondrous providence of God was, in the 

 depths of past ages, and long before man ap- 

 peared on the scene, preparing those inestimably 

 precious stores of fuel, which were destined in 

 the future to make our own island the work- 

 shop of the world, and to aid in exalting Britain 

 to the foremost place among the nations. 



(4.) The author of these pages has lying before 

 him on his table, while he writes, a very minute 

 but instructive proof of the value of the Micro- 

 scope in the field of botany. In the Crystal 

 Palace Exhibition of 1851, in the West Main 



1 Dr. Fleming's LithoJogy of Edinburgh, pp. 13, 14. Mr. 

 Nicol's valuable collection is in the possession of one who can 

 both appreciate and increase its interest, Alexander Bryson, 

 Esq., Edinburgh. 



