STRUCTURE OF BONE. 
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Tims, it will be seen, how easily the observer can, in a minute fragment of bone, though 
hardly larger than a midge’s wing, read the class of animal of whose framework it once formed 
a part, as decisively as if the former owner were present to claim his property ; for each 
particle of every animal is imbued with the nature of the whole being. The life-character is 
enshrined in and written upon every sanguine disc that rolls through the veins ; is manifested 
in every fibre and nervelet that gives energy and force to the breathing and active body ; and 
is stereotyped upon each bony atom that forms part of its skeleton framework. 
Whoever reads these hieroglyphs rightly is truly a poet and a prophet ; for to him the 
“valley of dry bones” becomes a vision of death passed away, and a prevision of a resurrec- 
tion and a life to come. As he gazes upon the vast multitude of dead, sapless memorials of 
beings long since perished, “ there is a shaking, and the bones come together” once again; 
their fleshly clothing is restored to them ; the vital fluid courses through their bodies ; the 
spirit of life is breathed into them ; “ and they live, and stand upon their feet.” Ages upon 
ages roll back their tides, and once more the vast reptile epoch reigns on earth. The huge 
saurians shake the ground with their heavy tread, wallow in the slimy ooze, or glide sinuous 
through the waters ; while winged reptiles flap their course through the miasmatic vapors that 
hang dank and heavy over the marshy world. As with them, so with us, — an inevitable pro- 
gression towards higher stages of existence, the effete and undeveloped beings passing away to 
make room for new, and loftier, and more perfect creations. What is the volume that has 
thus recorded the chronicles of an age so long past, and prophecies of as far distant a future 1 
Simply a little fragment of mouldering bone, tossed aside contemptuously by the careless 
laborer as miners’ “rubbish.” 
Not only is the past history of each being written in every particle of which its material 
frame is constructed, but the past records of the universe to which it belongs, and a prediction 
of its future. God can make no one thing that is not universal in its teachings, if we would 
only be so taught ; if not, the fault is with the pupils, not with the Teacher. He writes his 
ever-living words in all the works of his hand ; He spreads this ample book before us, always 
ready to teach, if we will only learn. We walk in the midst of miracles with closed eyes and 
stopped ears, dazzled and bewildered with the Light, fearful and distrustful of the Word ! 
It is not enough to accumulate facts as misers gather coins, and then to put them away on 
our bookshelves, guarded by the bars and bolts of technical phraseology. As coins, the facts 
must be circulated, and given to the public for their use. It is no matter of wonder that the 
generality of readers recoil from works on the natural sciences, and look upon them as mere 
collections of tedious names, irksome to read, unmanageable of utterance, and impossible to 
remember. Our scientific libraries are filled with facts, dead, hard, dry, and material as the 
fossil bones that fill the sealed and caverned libraries of the past. But true science will breathe 
life into that dead mass, and fill the study of zoology with poetry and spirit. 
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