12G 
POSSIBLE CONTROL OF MINUTE LIFE. 
Perhaps the labors of the coralline animals might be arrested 
over a considerable extent of sea coast by similar means. The 
reef builders are leisurely architects, but the precious coral 
is formed so rapidly that the beds may be refished advan¬ 
tageously as often as once in ten years.* It does not seem 
impossible that this coral might be transplanted to the Amer¬ 
ican coast, where the Gulf stream would furnish a suitable 
temperature beyond the climatic limits that otherwise confine 
its growth ; and thus a new source of profit might perhaps be 
added to the scanty returns of the hardy fisherman. 
In certain geological formations, the diatomacese deposit, at 
the bottom of fresh-water ponds, beds of silicious shields, val¬ 
uable as a material for a species of very light firebrick, in the 
manufacture of water glass and of hydraulic cement, and ulti¬ 
mately, doubtless, in many yet undiscoverd industrial pro¬ 
cesses. An attentive study of the conditions favorable to the 
propagation of the diatomacese might perhaps help us to profit 
directly by the productivity of this organism, and, at the same 
time, disclose secrets of nature capable of being turned to 
valuable account in dealing with silicious rocks, and the metal 
which is the base of them. Our acquaintance with the obscure 
and infinitesimal life of which I have now been treating is 
very recent, and still very imperfect. We know that it is of 
vast importance in the economy of nature, but we are so ambi¬ 
tious to grasp the great, so little accustomed to occupy our¬ 
selves with the minute, that we are not yet prepared to enter 
seriously upon the question how far we can control and direct 
the operations, not of unembodied physical forces, but of 
beings, in popular apprehension, almost as immaterial as they. 
Nature has no unit of magnitude by which she measures 
her works. Man takes his standards of dimension from him¬ 
self. The hair’s breadth was his minimum until the micro¬ 
scope told him that there are animated creatures to which one 
* See an interesting report on the coral fishery, by Sant’ Agabio, Italian 
Consul-General at Algiers, in the Bollettino Gonsolare , published by the 
Department of Foreign Affairs, 1862, pp. 139, 151, and in the Annali di 
Agricoltura , Industrial e Commercio , No. ii, pp. 360, 373. 
