see 
—— years 
150 Bibliography. 
The principal value of the work is in prompting observation and render- 
ing the objects accessible in common circumstances, to all persons who 
can have the use of a microscope of considerable power. Thus they 
will become convinced that where nothing is seen by the naked eye, or 
at most a scum or a slight cloudiness or a little jelly-like matter adher- 
ing to immersed vegetables, there are often forms of exquisite structure 
and beauty, some of which are little more than mathematical points, but 
possessing all the organs necessary to their existence and functions. 
A world is thus revealed to our view of whose existence we have ordi- 
narily no evidence. 
In treating of Final Effects, the author expresses his decided con- 
viction ‘that no well regulated mind can rise from the contemplation 
of the marvels revealed by the microscope, without being so deeply 
impressed with a sense of awe, of humility, and of dependence, as to 
be secured from the arrogance and presumption of attempting to in- 
terpret the final purposes of the Erernat, éven in the minutest of his 
works. We may indeed take cognizance of some of the obvious re- 
sults of the operations of these living atoms; such for instance as their 
influence in maintaining the purity of the atmosphere and of the water, 
by the conversion into their own structure of the particles liberated by 
the decomposition of the larger animals and vegetables; and in their 
turn becoming the food of other races, and thus affording the means of 
support to creatures of a higher organization than themselves. We 
see too that many species after death give rise to the formation of 
earthy deposits, at the bottom of lakes, rivers, and seas, which in after 
ages may become fertile tracts of country and the sites of large com- 
munities of mankind.” 
The Notes on the Microscopic Examination of Chalk and Flint, are 
highly interesting and instructive, and fully support the conclusion, that 
animalcules, corals, and foraminifera or polythalmia have been largely 
concerned in these formations, and that thermal or hot water rende 
potent in dissolving silica by the aid of heat and pressure and alkalies 
in solution, has been efficiently operative in the solidification of organic 
bodies, and an appeal is carried up to operations of nature now going 
on under our eyes, and to the results of actual experiment, which can 
eave no doubt that the principal, although it may not be the exclusive 
cause of silicification, is that just indicated. 
9. Harvey’s Phycologia Britannica —Of this work, which was 
barely announced in the bibliography of our last number, the following 
notice has appeared in the London Journal of Botany for May last:— 
“Four numbers of this beautiful work are already before the ae 
and:the Judgment of that public has been pronounced upon it. 
aa but one opinion, viz. ctomeaee 
