80 
THE LAST OF THE LITTLE. 
a monstrous serpent ever extending its sinuous length to thirty, ay, 
and forty leagues. Yet all this is but a dance of imperceptible 
animalcules ! What are their numbers ? At this question the im¬ 
agination starts back aghast; it perceives in the distance a nature of 
gigantic force, of terrific wealth, but possessing little relation to the 
other, the well-ordered, and, in a certain degree, economical nature, of 
the higher life. 
It is impossible to speak of insects or molluscs without naming 
these animalcules, which seem to be their rough outline, and in the 
extreme simplicity of their organism already foretoken, indicate, and 
prepare for them. With a good microscope you can discern these 
miniatures of the insect, which simulate their organism and mimic 
their movements. When you are able to distinguish the Rotifers, 
you think that in the aggregations and in the tentacles of their mouth 
you recognize them as little polypes. The Rliizopods, though almost 
imperceptible, are furnished, nevertheless, with good solid carapaces, 
which are equally as good a protection for them as their great shells 
are for the molluscs, the oyster and the snail. The microscopic Tardi- 
gradce are, in fact, closely connected with insects, and the Acarina 
with worms. 
What are these least of the little ? Simply the architects or 
builders of the globe which we inhabit. With their bodies and their 
remains they have prepared the soil now echoing under our feet. 
Whether their tiny shells be still distinguishable, or whether they have 
been decomposed into chalk, they are not the less the foundation of 
immense portions of our earth. A single bed of this chalk stretches 
from Paris to Tours; that is, for fifty miles. Another, of enormous 
breadth, spreads over all Champagne. Pure chalk, or Spanish white, 
which we find everywhere, is composed of pounded shells. 
And it is these most minute of organisms which have wrought the 
grandest of works. The imperceptible rhizopod has built for itself a 
nobler monument than the Pyramids; nothing less than Central Italy, 
a notable portion of the chain of the Apennines. But even this was too 
insignificant: the colossal masses of Chili, the prodigious Cordilleras, 
which look down upon the world at their feet, are the funeral monu- 
