THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 21 



microscopic creatures of which we are speaking are so mi- 

 nute that 10,000 could be ranged on the length of an inch, 

 and the weight of each is scarcely the millionth part of a 

 milligramme (.0154 grain), for it has been calculated that it 

 requires 1,111,500,000 to weigh a gramme. 1 



Such a soil is naturally wanting in stability. This was 

 seen in the capital of Prussia, where it became necessary, in 

 constructing new buildings, to sink the foundations very 

 deep, several houses having subsided on account of the un- 

 stable ground beneath them. In many other places these 

 puny animalcules swarm by myriads of myriads, and form 

 deposits of great size on the superficial strata of the globe. 

 In his remarkable work on the earth, M. Elis^e Reclus 

 states that in the harbor of Wismar the mud is composed 

 to the extent of a third part or even a half of living species 

 heaped together in incalculable multitudes, at the rate of 

 perhaps a million cubic yards in a century. 



A traveller exploring an elevated mountain is sometimes 

 struck by a singular phenomenon, namely, the red color of 

 the snow. This fact, of which Aristotle, the prince of 

 naturalists, long ago took notice, is due to the presence of 

 microscopic organisms ; and it is a remarkable circumstance 



1 A gramme is equal to 15.4440 grains. These enormous masses of Infusoria 

 are accounted for by supposing that they are reproduced with miraculous rapidity 

 by way of subdivision. One of these animalcules divides into two ; each of these 

 quickly divides into two others : in this way four individuals are speedily formed, 

 then eight, then sixteen, etc. This phenomenon takes place with such incredible 

 rapidity, that, according to Ehrenberg, one of the organisms spoken of above can 

 produce a million descendants in twenty-four hours, and in four days about 140 

 billions ; that is to say, nearly two cubic feet of the ground on which part of Ber- 

 lin stands. 



