President's Address. 
301 
planets around their Suns in slowly rocking orbits, — of Suns 
linked in circling round with their fellow Suns, blue, and 
orange, and green, and crimson, — of Universe linked with 
Universe, — of immeasurable rings and clusters, and com- 
plicated spiral whirlpools, lustrous with countless myriads 
of Suns. But who shall recount to him the unimaginable 
mysteries of being, — of life, and mind, and soul, called forth 
by the voice of the Almighty, around each radiant centre ! — 
Who shall report " their holy triumphs out of evil wrung ! " 
— Who shall tell of the great Hosanna, arising throughout 
these illimitable creations, for ever before the all-pervading 
mercy-seat of God ! 
Again ; — this green duck-pond presents no inviting or 
miraculous appearance. But the philosopher, still a wonder- 
ing child, places a drop of its slime under the highest power 
of the microscope, and a world of beautiful fish-like creatures 
starts into view, — tl:|,e green Euglenas. He notes the accu- 
rate wave-lines of their taper forms, — the long, lashing 
trunks by which they scull themselves along, — the brilliant 
crimson eye-speck, which hints of a sense perhaps unknown 
to man, — the wonderful provision made for their multipli- 
cation and preservation, — how a single Euglena, by inces- 
sant self-division, becomes an infinite host, — how, when the 
summer sun is drying up the puddle which is its Universe, 
it seals up itself in a cell of horn, like the Indian Fakir, and 
lies hard and dry in the mud, or floats a speck of dust upon 
the breeze, until a welcome shower restores it to liberty and 
life, when it creeps out of its cell again, not one, but a sw^arm 
of little Euglenas.* 
The filthy scum that coats the common sewer, and hangs 
in long floating fringes from every stick and stone in our 
Water of Leith, becomes in like manner transformed into 
vast assemblages of the most wonderful and beautiful of all 
animalcules, — into forests of Carchesium, each animal of 
which is as a many-branched tree of glass, — each branch in- 
stinct with life, slowly extending, or quickly contracting itself 
* There can be little doubt that the Euglenas are plants, endowed with 
motion and sensation for light, I have plentifully obtained oxygen gas by ex- 
posing these organisms to strong sunlight. 
