PUFF-BALLS AND TOADSTOOLS. 159 



favorable, each one will become the centre of 

 such living activities that all about it the earth 

 will respond to its call and myriad million atoms 

 will come trooping to its demand in order that 

 it may grow and furnish other " puff-balls " 

 while the earth endures. The sun is a globe 

 fourteen hundred thousand times larger than 

 this earth, and we know something of its sub- 

 stance, and the dimensions are very great, and 

 nations have worshipped it as the fountain of 

 light and the giver of life ; but, after all, one 

 may find in this little gray-skinned ball the 

 evidences of vital powers intelligently fashion- 

 ing in a few hours more of these wonderful 

 seeds than there are stars within the whole 

 range of the best telescope ! The human mind 

 is startled and amazed in the presence of such 

 microscopic marvels, and the night-sky, lit with 

 many million suns, as it surely is, does not de- 

 mand a grander cause for its existence than 

 this tiny sphere at our feet, stuffed with millions 

 of living germs wherein are held the latent 

 forces that will reproduce their kind when oppor- 

 tunity off ere. 



I make such comment as this because I am 

 persuaded that the supreme benefit of all nat- 

 ural-history studies lies in their power to arouse 

 the faculties to considerations that take hold on 



