THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 47 



neither extent, figure, nor capability of being divided ; re- 

 presenting only the atoms of nature or the elements of 

 things. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



RESURRECTIONS — THE PHENIX AND PALINGENESIS. 



Some learned men want to remain absolutely as men 

 were in the last century — they must have something mar- 

 vellous. They accept without hesitation the charming little 

 histories with which the rhetorical physiologists of that 

 day embellished their epistolary correspondence, in which 

 genius and hyperbole predominated by turns. Now that 

 the precision of our instruments has rendered our observa- 

 tions a hundred-fold more exact, these savants obstinately 

 persist in carrying us back to an epoch at which experi- 

 ment had barely escaped from its swaddling-clothes. 



Some still believe, with Spallanzani and Fontana, that 

 mummies can be resuscitated — a monstrous scientific 

 heresy ! 



To others the legend of the phenix is still a reality: they 

 believe that certain Infusoria are incombustible. 



The following experiment was one day made at Paris. 

 A zoologist placed on the bulb of a thermometer some 

 earth containing a certain number of little microscopic 

 animals called tardigrades, on account of the extreme 

 slowness and awkwardness of their gait. The instrument 

 was then thrust into a stove, and when the mercury rose 

 from 145° to 153° Centig. (or from 293° to 306° Fahr.), it 



