960 Vestiges of Creation. 



taken to exclude the possibility of a development of the insects from 

 ova. The wood of the frame was baked in a powerful heat ; a bell- 

 shaped glass covered the apparatus, and from this the atmosphere was 

 excluded, by the fumes constantly arising from the liquid, for the 

 emission of which there was an aperture, so arranged at the top of the 

 glass, that only these fumes could pass. The water was distilled, and 

 the substance of the silicate had been subjected to white heat. Thus, 

 every source of fallacy seemed to be shut up. In such circumstances, 

 a candid mind, which sees nothing either impious or unphilosophical 

 in the idea of a new creation, will be disposed to think that there is 

 less difficulty in believing in such a creation having actually taken 

 place, than in believing that in two instances, separated in place and 

 time, exactly the same insects should have chanced to arise from 

 concealed ova, and these of a species heretofore unknown." — p. 192. 

 The first impulse that occurs on reading this passage, is to point out 

 that the Acarus horridus of M. Turpin, the animal to which this state- 

 ment refers, is most abundant in laboratories and chemists' shops (for 

 observations on which subject the reader is referred to p. 308 of 'The 

 Entomologist'), and that therefore there is no stretch of imagination 

 required to imagine its getting by accident under the microscope of 

 the experimenter, notwithstanding all his precautions. It appears 

 that Dr. Warwick received from Mr. Crosse specimens of this Acarus, 

 and compared them minutely with others from chemists' shops, and 

 that he found the two races perfectly identical. It is also a fact be- 

 yond the reach of doubt, that what the philosophers have dignified 

 with the name of germs of this Acarus, are simple exuviae, shed after 

 the manner of its kind. These matters would be sufficient to deter 

 a Zoologist from believing the Acarus a newly created animal, and we 

 may here observe that zoological facts are of small value, unless wit- 

 nessed by Zoologists. There are some fifty or sixty British butter- 

 flies : every one of them is well known to Entomologists : but place 

 the whole number before a person not acquainted with the British 

 butterflies, and he will feel very confident that he has seen many 

 species, quite different from any of them ; we have repeatedly seen 

 this exemplified, and we hold it a striking proof of the want of pre- 

 cise observation in persons not acquainted with the subject : no Zoo- 

 logist ever has created, or ever will create Acari ; he will raise them 

 from eggs, watch their motions, observe their economy, supply them 

 with food, but never create them, simply because he views them with 

 an understanding eye. And now, turning to our author, we may also 

 inform him, that a Zoologist would never instance an Acaridean 



