ON EAPHIDES. 
575 
may soften solitude or affliction ; they must impress us with 
meek and touching lessons of the means of happiness so 
bountifully spread before us_, and of how cheaply some of our 
best pleasures may be purchased. And^ above all, while thus 
teaching us to look for the good and the beautiful in sur- 
rounding objects, and helping us to the true riches — those 
large and best possessions — of contentment and thankfulness, 
they may incline our minds to the grateful habit of looking 
through nature up to nature^s God.'’^ 
Though we too often get into the mist of error, nature is 
ever true. And hence, in reply to frequent requests for a 
sight of my collection of raphides, I have always referred to 
Nature^s own collection, for this is the best ; and there, at 
least, we may find “ employment of idle time, then not idly 
spent. In fact, a chief object of the present paper is to show 
how she invites us gratuitously, how the visit may be paid 
with little trouble and much profit, and how even this lowly 
study of raphides may be made at once subservient to science 
and to some of our best enjoyments. 
To this end we have only to look into and compare the cells 
of the many plants besetting our country rambles, and for 
which purpose an achromatic object-glass of half an inch 
focal length will suffice. The form and contents of the cells 
may be best seen in fine sections of the stem, leaves, and other 
parts j but as such sections are not to be made without practice 
and skill, they may be dispensed with at first, and another way 
employed, rough and ready indeed, yet hkely to be rewarded 
with interesting and useful results, provided the pursuit be 
steadily coutinued. We have simply to dissect with needles, 
or scrape or mash with a penknife a fragment of the plant-tissue 
in a drop of water on a glass object-plate, and place it, either 
covered or not with a thinner bit of glass, under the microscope, 
when many of the vegetable cells will be seen with their form and 
contents perfect, and others more or less broken, and their 
contents escaped into the water ; and we must also examine 
them alone without this liquid. So easy is such sort of exami- 
nation that it may be completed in less time than that required 
for the present description thereof, thus contrasting favourably 
with the more difficult process required for displaying the 
anatomy of many seeds, and with the further advantage that 
the character we are in search of is always present in the 
species, while its seeds and organs of fructification are very 
likely to be absent. For example, if the problem be to distin- 
guish a Balsam from a plant of another and nearly allied order, 
mere shapeless fragments of the leaves or stem, without the 
slightest aid from the recognized characters of the fructiferous 
organs, would be Sufficient for the purpose. And many pleasing 
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