278 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
round. It is most abundant on the sunny margins 
during the spring and early summer months, 
Gazing upon these ‘ moving spheres’ in the water, 
we are profoundly impressed with the thought that 
motion is everywhere—above us, around us, be- 
neath us. Still and fixed as the stars appear, they 
are revolving in space with inconceivable velocity, 
and are the centres of forces and movements of 
the most stupendous nature. Were our vision en- 
dowed with more than telescopic power, and were 
these sublime motions, separated by vast intervals 
of time, compressed into a day or an hour, we 
should find that everything like rest in special ex- 
istence had forthwith disappeared. We should be 
overwhelmed with the roar and the speed of the 
blazing spheres. Similarly the stars of the earth 
beneath our feet which revolve in the orbits of 
the seasons, seem motionless and spell-bound in a 
magic stillness. And yet, quiescent as they appear, 
could we penetrate with more than microscopic 
vision beneath their calm exterior, we should see 
miniature worlds of amazing activity, that would 
bewilder and distract us. But this motion is so 
frozen by distance and minuteness that we live 
between two great worlds of silence, the silence 
above us in the stars of heaven, and the silence 
beneath us in the grass of the fields, and we feel 
nature only as a soothing and solemn rest. 
