IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 353 
the more beauty we can discover ; even the seeds ol a carrot are 
exquisitely shaped, like a star fish. 
These inquisitive naturalists will even steal the secrets of the 
flower-buds, pull off their green coats and see how they are made, 
and how they get to be flowers. They study the diseases of wheat 
and corn, and I expect one of these days they'll have a remedy for 
every one of them. Perhaps there will be vegetable doctors, and 
when a farmer's corn is struck with disease or taken sick, he'll call 
in the doctor with his microscope and medicine box. They find 
out, also, about human diseases in the same way, and are already 
having new cures. There'll soon be an end to the terrible adulter- 
ations in food, for nothing can escape the prying little instrument. 
They can tell when cotton is mixed with linen or wool in goods, for 
the minutest thread of either is vastly different from the other. 
Tney can tell when our coffee is filled with chicory or other things, 
even if ground to the utmost fineness. Every substance has its 
own shape, and no matter how small the atoms, they retain their 
own shape. 
Even the flour makers cant escape. They can tell wheat 
flour from rye, or corn, or any other grain. If a blood stain is 
under question, the little instrument readily tells what is human 
and what is animal. It is said that the microscope will even steal 
the written secrets from the ashes of paper. For instance : if you 
burn a letter and one of these searching little instruments is 
applied to the ashes, words can be read and figures made out. 
Before I stop, I must tell you a nice little feat lately performed 
by the microscope by help of photography : While Paris was in a 
state of siege, not long ago, no papers or letters were allowed to 
go into the city, so the people could know very little of what was 
going on in the world. Friends who were outside and longed to 
write to them put their wits together, and this was the result: 
They had printed, in the London Times, their letters and messages 
to their friends, and then they had the Times photographed. One 
page of the Times, which is as large as our large dailies, was pho- 
tographed on very thin paper, about as large as a postage stamp. 
This tiny photograph was sent to a town where carrier pigeons 
were sent to Paris. You know that carrier pigeons that were 
brought up in Paris may be taken anywhere away, and, when liber- 
ated, they will at once return to their homes in Paris. Well, these 
tiny photographs were tied to the pigeons and sent off. Arrived 
