62 VIEWS OF THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD. 



some degree, be indebted to these ever active, invisible scavengers for the salubrity 

 of the atmosphere, and the purity of water. Nor is this all ; they perform a still 

 more important office in preventing the gradual diminution of the present amount 

 of organized matter upon the earth. For when this matter is dissolved or suspended 

 in water, in that state of comminution and dtxjay which immediately precedes its 

 linal decomposition into the elementary gases, and its consequent return from the 

 organic to the inorganic world; these wakeful members of nature's invisible police 

 are everywhere ready to arrest the fugitive organized particles, and turn them back 

 into the ascending stream of animal life. Having converted the dead and decom- 

 posing particles into their own living tissues, they themselves become the food of 

 larger Infusoria, and of numerous other small animals, which, in their turn, are 

 devoured by larger animals: and thus a food, fit for the nourishment of the highest 

 organized beings, is brought back by a short route from the extremity of the realms 

 of organized matter. These invisible animalcules may be compared, in the great 

 organic world, to the minute capillaries in the microcosm of the animal body ; 

 receiving organic matter in its state of minutest subdivision, and when in full 

 career to escape from the organic system, and turning it back by a new route 

 towards the central and highest point of that system." 



