THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 25 



in constructing new buildings, to sink the foundations very 

 deep, the subsidence of sundry houses having demonstrated 

 the utility of the precaution. 



A traveller exploring an elevated mountain is sometimes 

 struck by a singular phenomenon, viz. the red colour of 

 the snow. This fact, of which Aristotle, the prince of 

 naturalists, long ago took notice, is due to the presence of 

 microscopic organisms; and it is a remarkable circumstance 

 that the same creature, the Discercea nivalis, seems to pro- 

 duce it everywhere ; on the icy summits of the Alps and on 

 the snows of the farthest Polar regions to which man has 

 penetrated, for red snow is met with even in these horrible 

 realms. 



Pantheism supposed life to be disseminated through 

 all the interstices of matter. Our microscopic animalcules 

 recall this theory; abounding, as they do, even where we 

 might least expect to find them. Although our enlightened 

 age has destroyed the hypothesis of pauspermism, which 

 impregnated every i)art of creation with germs of living 

 organisms, yet it must be admitted, that if these impal- 

 pable metaphysical germs be only a ridiculous fiction, there 

 are nevertheless Microzoa which flutter hither and thither 

 even on the bosom of the atmosphere, which appears to us 

 so transparent and pure. 



The invisible population composed of aerial organisms 

 constitutes, according to Humboldt, quite a special faima. 

 But irrespective of the meteoric Infusoria, the existence of 

 which, according to this illustrious philosopher, cannot be 

 doubted, the atmosphere carries an immense quantity of 

 ordinary animalcules, both alive and dead, which its cur- 

 rents take up and transport to all parts of the globe. 

 Sometimes they abound to such an extent in the air as to 

 intercept the light and suff'ocate travellers. 



