1 70 GUANO LIEBIG . 



But it is impossible to conceive that infinite 

 wisdom, and power, and goodness, can give 

 vitality to such atoms without a direct and a 

 beneficial design. Science has, indeed, recently 

 had its reward in discovering such a design 

 in the infusorial animalcules in their living 

 state. '' A wise arrangement of nature," says 

 Liebig, " has assigned to the infusoria the 

 dead bodies of higher orders of beings for 

 their nourishment ; and has in these ani- 

 malculse created a means of limiting to the 

 shortest possible period, the deleterious influ- 

 ences which the products of dissolution and de- 

 cay exercise upon the life of the higher classes 

 of animals. The recent discoveries which have 

 been made respecting these creatures are so 

 extraordinary and so admirable, that they 

 deserve to be made universally known." The 

 principal fact in these discoveries is, that the 

 functions of animal nature are reversed in 

 these animalcules, and that instead of evolving 

 carbonic acid gas, they evolve pure oxygen. 

 Count Rumford made a similar discovery many 

 years ago; but it was, like numerous other 

 good facts, totally buried in oblivion. The 

 air bubbles given out by water containing 

 these animalcules contain such pure oxygen. 



