ON" THE STUDY OP NATURfi. g 



the Universe, and view the Heavens, what an asto- 

 nishing field of admiration is again afforded us. This 

 huee world that we tread is but a sncck in the solar 

 system ; and that sy.-tem, immense as it is, is lost 

 in the immensity of the space around, our Sun be- 

 coming a Star to Planets revolving round other Suns, 

 as their Suns become Stars to us. Of tliese no fewer 

 than sevenl')'-five m'lUiofis m;"iy be discovered in th,e 

 expanse exposed to our investigation : but what are 

 even all these when compared with the multitudes 

 distributed through the bouiidless space of air ! The 

 Universe must contain such numbers as exceed the 

 utmost stretch of human imagination. — To obtain 

 some faint conception of tlie wonderful extent of 

 space, we may remark that stars of the first magni- 

 tude, or such as seem to us the largest, are near 

 19,000,000,000,000 miles from our Sun; and that 

 some of the smaller ones are many times that dis- 

 tance ! " Great is our God, and great is his power ! 

 Q God, who is like unto thee 1" 



But to return to the animal pait of the Creation, 

 we fmd there innumerable proofs of our hypothesis : 

 we see all the smaller creatures that serve us for food 

 particularly fruitful, and increasing in a much greater 

 proportion than others ; and in tlie bird ivind it is 

 extremely remarkable, that, lest they siiouid iali short 

 of a certain number of egii,s, they are endowed with 

 the power of laying others in the place of those that 

 ^re taken away ; but when their number is complete, 

 they invariably stop. Here is an operation, like many 

 others that we shall ha\e to observe, much beyond 

 ^ur comp.rehension. How the mere privation of part 



