90 COMBS, AND THE FORM OF CELLS. 



train with a hundred passengers was passing over it, 

 fell down, carrying \vith it into the deep waters below 

 the whole train, not one passenger in which survived 

 to tell the tale of the most frightful railway accident 

 that ever happened. 



Or look, again, at some of our great buildings, 

 wonderfully contrived, skilfully constructed. If you 

 go to Cambridge ; there, in the magnificent chapel of 

 King's College, you will see the whole wide space 

 spanned by a roof of stone of enormous weight, 

 which from below looks too flat to form an arch, and 

 yet is so cunningly contrived and built with such skill 

 that it stands perfectly secure. 



But, after all, nothing equals the beauty and per- 

 fection of Nature's works seen all around us; and there 

 is hardly a more striking instance of this than in the 

 cell of the bee. It is absolutely perfection in every 

 way, in plan and architecture, in material and 

 strength, and in fitness for its purpose. 



Take a piece of comb like that illustrated on the 

 next page, and the first thing which we notice is the 

 shape of the cells, that they are six-sided, or hex- 

 agons, all fitting in close together. And then, if it is 

 a nice thin piece of clean comb, and we hold it up to 

 the light, we shall see very plainly that the cells on 

 one side do not correspond with the cells on the 

 other, but just the reverse — the centre of any cell on 

 one side corresponding with the spot where the sides 

 of three cells on the other side meet together. 



Then, if we cut away all the cells carefully and 

 gradually, we shall find that we have, left in our hand, 

 not a smooth piece of wax, such as would make the 



