MOLECULAR AND MICROSCOPIC 

 SCIENCE, 



PAET I. 



ATOMS AND MOLECULES OF MATTER. 



SECTION I. 



ELEMENTARY CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. 



THE INVESTIGATIONS which have revealed the most 

 refined and wonderful relations between light, heat, 

 electricity, and highly elastic media; the relation of 

 these powers to the particles of solid and liquid matter, 

 new methods of analysis, and the microscopic examina- 

 tion of that marvellous creation, animal and vegetable, 

 which is invisible to the unaided eye of man, have 

 brought a new accession to the indefinitely small within 

 the limits of modern science. 



Wherever the astronomer has penetrated into the 

 depths of space, luminous points are visible ; and since 

 light merely consists in the undulations of the ethereal 

 medium, matter must exist in every part of the universe 

 of which man is cognizant, for although the lumini- 

 ferous ether is so attenuated that its very existence 

 is almost an hypothesis, its atoms are not more incon- 

 ceivably small than those of highly elastic ponderable 

 matter on earth. Atoms are the ultimate constituents 



VOL. i. *B 



