THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 

 CUBIOSITIES 
 
 ANIMAL LIFE; 
 
 THE RECENT DISCOVERIES OF 
 THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
 } 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE object of the writer is to unfold a few 
 pages of the immense and deeply interesting 
 volume of Natural History, relating to those 
 simple, but wonderful forms of life, of which 
 little, as yet, is known. And as the results 
 of scientific observation are often repulsive to 
 the general reader, from the form in which 
 they are given and their numerous technical- 
 ities, he has aimed to render them popular and 
 attractive. 
 
 The inspired truth that " the works of the 
 Lord are great, sought out of all them that 
 have pleasure therein," exerts far too little 
 influence. God has "magnified his word 
 
 47762 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 above all his name/' but, as Chalmers has re- 
 marked, " It is a most Christian exercise to 
 extract a sentiment of piety from the works 
 and appearances of nature." 
 
 Under this conviction, the reader is now 
 invited to the devout contemplation of 
 
 " Things curious, 
 Yet unfamiliar ;" 
 
 while in Milton's words it may be said : 
 
 " Thy desire, which tends to know 
 The works of God thereby to glorify 
 The great Workmaster, leads to no excess 
 That reaches blame, but rather merits praise 
 The more it seems excess; * * * 
 Tor wonderful indeed are all His works, 
 Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all 
 Had in remembrance always with delight." ; 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE . . iii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTEREST or THE SCIENCE or NATURAL HISTORY .... 9 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 THE MICROSCOPE 13 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE 20 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ORGANIC NATURE DIVIDED INTO ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES . 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE SPONGE THE HYDRA 44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CORALLINES 62 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE SEA ANEMONE AND Moss CORALS 83 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CORALS AND MADREPORES 103 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 POLYGASTRIC ANIMALCULES 122 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 PARASITIC ANIMALS 145 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE SEA NETTLES 165 
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 THE WHEELBEARING ANIMALCULES 176 
 
ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LENS (Fig. 1) 15 
 
 LENS (Fig. 2) 16 
 
 THE YEAST PLANT. BUDDINGS OF THE YEAST PLANT. MUL- 
 TIPLIED CELLS FROM BUDS 23 
 
 VENUS'S ELY-TRAP DION.EA MUSCIPULA 36 
 
 SPONGES 50 
 
 ACTION OF A LIVING SPONGE 53 
 
 CILIA OF A POLYP 54 
 
 SECTION OF THE BROWN HYDRAHYDRA FUSCA .... 56 
 
 THE LONG-ARMED HYDRA 59 
 
 THE GREEN HYDRA, OF THE NATURAL SIZE 61 
 
 SERTULARIA LENDIGERA 65 
 
 SERTULARIA ABIETINA 66 
 
 SERTULARIA PLUMA . . . . . 67 
 
 PLUMARIA FALCATA 69 
 
 DYNAMENA OPERCULATA 70 
 
 TUBULARIA INDIVISA 71 
 
 CAMPANULARIA VOLUBILIS, WITH A SICKLE CORALLINE . . 72 
 
 ANTENULARIA KAMOSA 74 
 
 VESICLES OF THE SERTULARIA PRIMATA 75 
 
 SERTULARIA TAMARISCA SERTULARIA POLYZOMA VESICLES 
 
 OF THE ANTENULARIA EAMOSA 76 
 
 THE SEA ANEMONE, OR ACTINIA 84 
 
 SECTION OF ACTINIA 87 
 
 ZOANTHUS 90 
 
 FLAXEN ELUSTRA PLUSTRA CARBACEA 93 
 
 POLYP OF ELUSTRA CARBACEA 94 
 
 POLYP AND CELL OF VALKERIA IMBRICATA, (immature) . . 100 
 
Vlll ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 UPPER SURFACE OP THE SEA MUSHROOM FUN GIA ACTINI- 
 
 FORMIS 105 
 
 SPECIES OF MADREPORE 106 
 
 THE RED CORAL. GORGONIA PUSTULOSA 107 
 
 Isis HIPPURIS 108 
 
 FRAGMENT or MADREPORE CELL OF THE MADREPORE . . 109 
 
 SECTION OF MADREPORE 110 
 
 PAVONIA LACTUCA Ill 
 
 TUBIPORA, WITH POLYPS ISSUING FROM SOME OF THE TUBES . 112 
 
 POLYP OF A TUBIPORA 113 
 
 ALCYONIUM WITH POLYPS 114 
 
 POLYP OF THE CYDONIUM 115 
 
 A SEA PEN PENNATULA. POLYPS OF A BARB OF THE SEA PEN 116 
 
 GONIA 124 
 
 PROTEUS. AMOEBA. 125 
 
 EUPLCEA CHARON * 126 
 
 PARAMECIUM AURELIA. CILIA OF THE VORTICELLA . . . 127 
 
 THE ELASK ANIMALCULE 131 
 
 INCREASE BY BUDS 132 
 
 INCREASE OF THE VOLVOX GLOBATOR 133 
 
 INCREASE OF THE MONAD 134 
 
 CONVALLARIA. 135 
 
 INCREASE OF THE GONIUM 136 
 
 FOSSIL ANIMALCULES 141 
 
 LlNGUATULA ... 147 
 
 COMMON HYDATLD. MAGNIFIED HEAD 153 
 
 CEREBRAL HYDATID. ONE OF THE HEADS MAGNIFIED . . 154 
 
 CUVIERIA CARIOSCHROMA 165 
 
 THE CYDIPPE, OR BEROE. 168 
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS CESTUM VENERIS 168 
 
 THE PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR THE PHYSALUS . . . . 169 
 
 THE PYROSOMA . 173 
 
 PINCERS or AN ANIMALCULE. GIZZARD OF AN ANIMALCULE. 180 
 
CURIOSITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTEREST OF THE SCIENCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 THAT the science of Natural History is invested 
 with great interest, is a fact universally admitted. 
 Objections to its study have sometimes arisen from 
 the neglect of naturalists to ascribe all its wonders 
 to the great First Cause. It is hoped that no such 
 charge will be alleged against the present volume. 
 Its aim is to illustrate the power, wisdom, and good- 
 ness of our Heavenly Father ; and to give to God 
 the honour due to his name. . 
 
 It may be well to premise, that the attention of 
 the reader will be directed successively to the 
 Microscope, with its recent improvements, so 
 important an auxiliary to diligent and careful in- 
 vestigation ; to Life, and its Phenomena ; to the 
 Distinction between Animals and Vegetables ; and 
 then, from the simplest forms of organic existence, 
 to the Wheel Animalcules. 
 
INTEREST OP MINUTE OBJECTS. 
 
 The descriptions given of this series of animated 
 beings will be those of the best authorities at the 
 present time, confirmed, in many instances, by per- 
 sonal observation ; and the feeling they are designed 
 to produce, is that so well indicated in the words of 
 old Samuel Purchas : 
 
 " Nicocastrus, an JElian, finding a curious piece 
 of wood, and being wondered at by one, and asked 
 what pleasure he could take to stand as he did still 
 gazing on it, answered, ' Hadst thou mine eyes, my 
 friend, thou wouldst not wonder, but rather be 
 ravished, as I am, at the inimitable art of this rare 
 and admirable piece. I am sure no picture can 
 express so much wonder and excellency ; but we 
 want Nicocastrus' eyes to behold it.' 
 
 " And the praise of God's wisdom and power 
 lies asleep and dead in every creature, until men 
 actuate and enliven it. I cannot, therefore, altogether 
 conceive it unworthy of the greatest mortals to con- 
 template the miracles of Nature ; and that, as they 
 are the most visible in the smallest, and almost 
 contemptible creatures for then most lively do they 
 express the infinite power and wisdom of the Great 
 Creator, and direct and draw the minds of the most 
 intelligent to the first and prime Cause of all things, 
 teaching them, as the power, so the presence of the 
 Deity, in the smallest creatures." 
 
 As Baxter remarks : 
 
 " It is God appearing in the creatures, that is 
 the life, and beauty, and excellence, and use of the 
 
GOD SEEN IN HIS WORKS. 11 
 
 creatures. Without Him they are but carcases, 
 deformed, useless, vain, insignificant, and very 
 nothings," 
 
 Let us then adopt the language of the psalmist : 
 
 " Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised ; 
 And his greatness is unsearchable. 
 One generation shall praise thy works to another, 
 And shall declare thy mighty acts." PSALM cxlv. 3, 4. 
 
 And well will it be for every servant of the Most 
 High to add to the utterance of these words, the 
 devout resolution of their inspired author : 
 
 " I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, 
 And of thy wondrous works." VERSE 5. 
 
 For the truly Christian mind, the task on which 
 we have now entered must have a peculiar and 
 transcendent interest. Nothing is more clear on 
 the page of revelation, than that the Saviour, in 
 whose atoning blood and perfect righteousness he 
 implicitly trusts, whom, though unseen, he supremely 
 loves, and whose example he is constantly concerned 
 to imitate, is the Creator of the universe. In the 
 love which so condescendingly and graciously 
 bends towards us, we discern his infinite majesty ; 
 in the eye which melted over our woe, his infinite 
 knowledge ; and in the arm which brought salvation, 
 his almighty power. 
 
 " Lo, this is our God ; 
 We have waited for him, and he will save us." ISAIAH xxv. 9. 
 
 If, therefore, all things that are in heaven and in 
 earth were created by the Lord Jesus, he must have 
 
12 THE CREATOR AND LORD OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 a right to the most unqualified property in them. As 
 he is " Head over all things," he demands the highest 
 love of all his intelligent and rational creatures. 
 
 " Whom have I in heaven hut thee ? 
 And there is none upon earth that I desire heside thee," * 
 
 should therefore be the language of every heart. 
 And well is it when the study of any part of His 
 works affords to his disciples a stimulus to gratitude 
 and confidence ; while a sense of the necessity of a 
 more full revelation than that of nature, leads others 
 to the belief of the gospel, through the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit, and to an entire reliance on that 
 Saviour, who, because he was " obedient unto death, 
 even the death of the cross," is " highly exalted," and 
 has " a name which is above every name."f 
 
 * Psalm Ixxiii. 25. f Philippians ii. 8. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 A LARGE amount of valuable information would 
 have been acquired in reference to natural objects, 
 had they been surveyed only by the unassisted 
 eye. Scientific research would obviously have 
 been aided by the simple magnifying glasses so 
 commonly used ; but at length an instrument 
 was obtained surpassing all others. Its name, Micro- 
 scope, is derived from two Greek words meaning 
 " to see small things," Its early history is involved 
 in obscurity ; and we can only glance at a few 
 striking facts illustrative of its invention, and 
 indicative of the still more wondrous results of its 
 further improvement. 
 
 It is remarkable that Seneca should state, that 
 " letters, although minute and obscure, appear larger 
 and more clear through a glass vessel full of 
 water ;" and yet that no valuable application should 
 have been made of the discovery by the ancients. 
 A single microscope may be easily obtained by 
 piercing a small circular hole in a slip of metal, 
 and introducing into it a drop of water, which will 
 assume a spherical form on each side of the plate ; 
 
14 INVENTION OF THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 but no trace of it appears in the history of many 
 ages. 
 
 Claims to its actual invention have been preferred 
 in behalf of more than one individual. In a work 
 published in 1665, the writer assigns the credit of 
 it to Jansen, the reputed contriver of the telescope. 
 Among the testimonies he adduces, is a letter from 
 William Boreel, envoy from the States of Holland, 
 who had frequently been in the shop of Jansen. 
 He had often heard that the microscope was invented 
 by that person, or by him in connexion with some 
 members of his family ; and being in England in 
 1619, he saw in the hands of his friend Cornelius 
 Drebell, an instrument six feet in length, consisting 
 of a tube of gilt copper, supported by thin brass 
 pillars in the shape of dolphins, on a base of ebony, 
 and adapted to hold any objects to be examined ; 
 which Jansen had presented to prince Maurice, and 
 Albert archduke of Austria. No account, however, 
 is given of the internal structure of this microscope. 
 
 Fontana, a Neapolitan, formed a microscope in 
 1618, of two double convex lenses that is, each one 
 having two spherical surfaces, as represented in the 
 annexed diagram, L L and wrote an account of it in 
 a work which appeared some years afterwards. It 
 seems, therefore, that a microscope of some kind 
 was invented by Jansen, and that the honour of 
 this one in particular is due to Fontana. 
 The structure of a lens, (a name derived from the 
 Latin for a small bean,) must immediately have led 
 
STRUCTURE OF A LENS. 
 
 15 
 
 to the discovery of what is popularly termed its 
 magnifying power, but in reference to which many 
 errors prevail. The following diagrams will aid 
 the reader. 
 
 MN is an object placed before a convex lens L L, 
 every point of which will send forth rays in every 
 direction. Those rays which fall upon the lens will 
 be refracted to foci behind the lens. Since the focus 
 where any point of the object is represented in its 
 image is in the straight line drawn from that point 
 of the object through the middle point c of the lens, 
 the upper end M of the object will be represented 
 somewhere in the line M c m, and the lower end N 
 somewhere in the line N c n, that is, at the points m, n, 
 where the rays L m, L m, L n, L n, cross the lines 
 M c m, N c n. Hence m will represent the upper, 
 and n the lower end of the object m n. It is also 
 evident, that in the two triangles M c N, m c n, m n, 
 the length of the image, must be to M N, the length 
 of the object, as c m, the distance of the image, is to 
 c M, the distance of the object from the lens. 
 
16 MAGNIFYING POWER OF LENSES. 
 
 In order to explain the power of lenses in 
 magnifying objects and bringing them near us or 
 rather, in giving magnified images of objects, and 
 bringing the images near us we must examine the 
 different circumstances under which the same object 
 appears when placed at different distances from the 
 eye. If an eye placed at E looks at a man c b, fig. 2, 
 placed at a distance, his general outline only will be 
 seen, and neither his age, nor his features, nor his 
 dress will be recognised. When he is brought 
 gradually nearer us, we discover the separate parts of 
 his dress, till at the distance of a few feet we per- 
 ceive his features ; and when brought still nearer, 
 we can count his very eyelashes, and observe the 
 minutest lines upon his skin. At the distance E b, 
 the man is seen under the angle b E c ; and at the 
 
 distance E B he is seen under the greater angle 
 BE A or bEA',; and his apparent magnitudes, cb, 
 A'b, are measured in those different positions by 
 the angles b E c, B E A, or b E A'. The apparent 
 magnitude of the smallest object may therefore be 
 equal to the apparent magnitude of the greatest. 
 The head of a pin, for example, may be brought 
 so near the eye that it will appear to cover a whole 
 
MAGNIFYING POWER OF LENSES. 17 
 
 mountain, or even the whole visible surface of the 
 earth ; and in this case the apparent magnitude of 
 the pin's head is said to be equal to the apparent 
 magnitude of the mountain, etc. 
 
 Let us now suppose the man c b, to be placed 
 at the distance of 100 feet from the eye at E, and 
 that we place a convex glass of 25 feet focal distance 
 half way between the object c b and the eye, that is, 
 50 feet from each ; then, as we have previously 
 shown, an inverted image of the man will be formed 
 50 feet behind the lens, and of the very same size 
 as the object, that is, six feet high. If this object 
 is looked at by the eye, placed six or eight inches 
 behind it, it will be seen exceedingly distinct, and 
 nearly as well as if the man had been brought 
 nearer from the distance of 100 feet to the distance 
 of six inches, at which we can examine mi- 
 nutely the details of his personal appearance. 
 Now, in this case, the man, though not actually 
 magnified, has been apparently magnified, because 
 his apparent magnitude is greatly increased, in the 
 proportion nearly of 6 inches to 100 feet, or of 
 200 to 1. 
 
 But if, instead of a lens of 25 feet focal length, we 
 make use of a lens of a shorter focus, and place it in 
 such a position between the eye and the man, that 
 its conjugate foci may be at the distance of 20 and 
 80 feet from the lens that is, that the man is 20 feet 
 before the lens, and his image 80 feet behind it 
 then the size of the image is four times that of the 
 
18 THE ACHROMATIC LENS. 
 
 object, and the eye placed six inches behind this 
 magnified image will see it with the greatest dis- 
 tinctness. Now in this case the image is magnified 
 four times directly by the lens, and 200 times by 
 being brought 200 times nearer the eye ; so that 
 its apparent magnitude will be 800 times larger 
 than before.* 
 
 Not thirty years ago, it was asserted by men of 
 no less eminence than Dr. Wollaston and M. Biot, 
 that the compound microscope would never rival 
 the single one ; and for this conclusion there appeared 
 to be weighty reasons. And yet existing difficulties, 
 which pressed heavily on their minds, have all been 
 surmounted. More than one name is entitled to 
 honour in this service; especially the late Mr. Tulley, 
 of London, who was induced by Dr. Goring to 
 attempt the construction of an achromatic^ object 
 glass for a compound microscope. 
 
 The white light which comes from the sun, or 
 any other luminous body, is composed of seven dif- 
 ferent kinds of light red, orange, yellow, green, 
 blue, indigo, and violet. Mr. Tulley, therefore, 
 produced a glass composed of three lenses, which 
 gave to the vision a distinctness not previously at- 
 tained, by combining the colours of which light is 
 composed, and causing objects to be seen in white 
 light. Great importance was once attached to 
 
 * Brewster on Optics, pp. 45 4?8. 
 
 f An optical term derived from the Greek, and signifying " without 
 colour." 
 
DIFFUSION OF LIVING BEINGS. 19 
 
 glasses of considerable size, but now achromatic 
 lenses vary from two inches to a twelfth or six- 
 teenth of an inch focal length. The Microscopical 
 Society of London was expressly formed to render 
 this instrument still more available for scientific 
 research. 
 
 Wherever we turn whether we search our own 
 dwellings, the meadow or the moorland, the hill or 
 the forest, the ruin crumbling into dust, or the sea- 
 shore, whether we examine the waters of springs, 
 rivers, lakes, or oceans, or the fluid contents of the 
 living internal tissues, there may be discovered 
 plants and animals, alike unknown to our unaided 
 vision, yet endowed with organs perfectly adapted 
 to their respective necessities, and, with regard to 
 the latter, to their full and high enjoyment. Even 
 in the aqueous vapours, and dust of the atmosphere, 
 are germs of living beings, which the microscope 
 can alone present to our interested and delighted 
 contemplation. Of this the succeeding pages of this 
 volume will afford ample evidence. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE. 
 
 THE natural objects by which we are surrounded, 
 to an extent at which we have just rapidly glanced, 
 are arranged, almost intuitively, under two great 
 classes the Inorganic and the Organic ; the living 
 and the lifeless. The question, therefore, immedi- 
 ately arises, What is life ? What is that, the effects 
 of which appeal so forcibly and constantly to our 
 senses, as to render the distinction just made one of 
 our most familiar ideas the first and almost un- 
 conscious result of our earliest observations ? 
 
 Life cannot be considered abstractedly, but only 
 in the phenomena of organic bodies. Its full in- 
 vestigation is strictly within the province of the 
 physiologist ; and great and absolute results, con- 
 stituting the essential characteristics of animated 
 beings, depend on laws imperfectly understood, or 
 absolutely beyond the research of human industry ; 
 but all that can be effected by diligent observation 
 and just reasoning, is solemnly incumbent on the 
 reflective Christian mind. If " the works of the 
 Lord are great," neglect, indifference, or a slight and 
 passing attention, must be proportionately culpable. 
 
 In the study of organic bodies, the first thing that 
 strikes us is the vital union of their constituent 
 
ORGANIC BODIES. 21 
 
 particles, which is totally unlike every other com- 
 bination of matter. If, for example, we merely 
 place an acid and an alkali together in a glass, the 
 particles will remain in juxtaposition, and yet in 
 perfect quietude, because they are only mechani- 
 cally combined. But water poured on the mass 
 becomes the means of a chemical union, which is 
 strikingly apparent in immediate effervescence. In 
 like manner, a combination of nitre, sulphur, and 
 charcoal, is familiar to us as gunpowder the parti- 
 cles of these substances being mixed mechanically ; 
 but no sooner does a spark fall on the train, than the 
 affinities between these substances produce so inti- 
 mate a union, that we are astounded, perhaps, by 
 the result. Still, as there is a marked distinction 
 between a mechanical and a chemical union, there 
 is one far more palpable between inorganic and 
 organic bodies, as the consequence of vital force. 
 
 In crystals, or any other inorganic bodies, it may 
 also be remarked, we observe a determinate and 
 settled form ; but in those which are organic, a per- 
 petual change is carried on by the agency of vital 
 power. Thus, particles which were lately incorpo- 
 rated, are thrown off, and others, foreign and inor- 
 ganic, are taken up to be incorporated and thrown 
 off, in their turn. Life maintains its triumph over 
 the laws of dead matter, preserving for its appointed 
 time the identity of the plant or the animal, until 
 vitality ceases, and its operations give place to the 
 laws of chemical affinity, which being unopposed, 
 
22 VITAL POWER. 
 
 exert their full influence. Death is, in fact, the 
 conquest of the vital forces by the physical. 
 
 Another fact demanding attention is, that every 
 animated being is the product of an antecedent, 
 called its parent, which it essentially resembles, as 
 like produces like, according to a law unknown to 
 inorganic matter. The lily does not aspire to the 
 magnitude of the cedar, or the lamb to the stature 
 of the giraffe. Life springs from life, which has been 
 transmitted through an unbroken chain of being, 
 since the fiat of the Creator, whose exclusive prero- 
 gative it is to call any creature into existence. But 
 the offspring, whether of the plant or animal, is not 
 produced at once, with all its parts and powers 
 developed in full maturity; on the contrary, its first 
 state is that of a germ, often astonishingly mi- 
 nute, and most marvellously prepared, according to 
 its circumstances, by the great Author of life, for 
 its subsequent and complete development. 
 
 Were we asked, What is that microscopic object 
 which we cannot but regard as the most simple and 
 wonderful ? we should answer, A vesicle, or cell. The 
 cell is the elementary organ of organic bodies. This 
 statement requires illustration ; but it may be abun- 
 dantly given from all the circumstances in which 
 life can be traced. 
 
 One of the simplest forms of vegetation may 
 be observed, for example, in yeast. Let a small 
 portion of it be examined at intervals, under the 
 microscope, and it will prove to be one congeries 
 
THE YEAST PLANT. 23 
 
 of cells. But if, after an interval, we resume 
 
 our examination, each of these little vesicles will 
 be seen putting forth one or 
 
 more prolongations or buds, ^ ^ 
 
 which in time become new ^^^\ o 
 
 vesicles, like their parents; ^ ^'p 
 
 these perform the same pro- ^ & 
 
 cess, and the multiplication G 
 goes on, so that within a few 
 
 i . ! .11 THE YEAST PLANT. 
 
 hours, each single vesicle has 
 
 developed itself into a row of four, five, or six. 
 
 Another process may sometimes be witnessed ; for 
 the vesicles burst, and dis- 
 charge a number of small 
 grains, all of which form them- 
 selves into new cells. In due 
 time, on ordinary occasions, the 
 brewer comes in to stop the 
 marvellous process of vegeta- BUDDINGS O P THE YEAST 
 tion which has been going on, PLANT. 
 
 of which probably he has not the slightest idea ; but 
 it will prove, on examination, to be, when five or 
 six vesicles are formed in each 
 group. At this crisis, the 
 groups separate into individu- 
 als, resembling those which 
 first formed the yeast, and 
 thus the brewer actually takes 
 out more than he put into 
 
 A i n i MULTIPLIED CELLS PROM 
 
 the fluid. BUDS> 
 
24 CELLULAR TISSUES. 
 
 The most simple or elementary texture of vege- 
 tation is a somewhat similar structure to that which 
 exists in animals. The first trace of the latter that 
 can be observed consists of a very soft and pulpy 
 cellular tissue, which, at this early period, is loaded 
 with fluid. In its nature, it is homogeneous, pre- 
 senting neither interstices nor fibres ; but it may 
 readily be permeated by air or liquids so as to pro- 
 duce small cells, and it may likewise be drawn out 
 into glutinous filaments. 
 
 And how amazingly minute are these constituents ! 
 The white glistening threads traversing fibrous mem- 
 branes, may be discerned by the naked eye ; but so 
 far from being single, they are actually bundles of 
 fibres, requiring a microscopic power to distinguish 
 any one of them. It is probable that those forming 
 the cellular tissue are the most minute ; they are 
 said to vary from ^ to ^ of a line in diameter 
 a line being one-twelfth of an inch ; their edges 
 are quite smooth, they are transparent, and appear 
 to be composed of gelatine. Not only do they form 
 bundles, and thus constitute larger fibres, but ar- 
 ranged side by side they become the most delicate 
 membranes. 
 
 In the species of animals placed at the bottom of 
 the scale, cellular tissue is generally believed to 
 constitute the entire body. In such instances, some 
 of which we shall hereafter consider, the body of 
 the animals consists of a soft gelatinous substance, 
 composed of translucent globules, which, however, 
 
VITAL POWER. 25 
 
 are not perceptibly joined together, and have 
 nothing of that fibrous structure which is the great 
 characteristic of the cellular membrane in beings of 
 a higher order. 
 
 In proportion as the several organs are developed, 
 the cellular tissue acquires greater consistency, 
 and is at the same time diminished in quantity. 
 It is diffused through the whole fabric of an adult 
 animal, entering into the composition of every 
 organ, however minute, with which it is endowed. 
 So entire is its diffusion that it has been said, if 
 all the particles of other kinds of structure and 
 all the deposits in its interstices were removed, 
 there would still remain a kind of frame work, in 
 which the form and arrangement of every portion 
 of the body would be perceptible. 
 
 Cellular tissue appears designed to unite the 
 various constituent parts of the body, and to keep 
 them in place, by the contractile force with which 
 it is marvellously endowed ; to facilitate their 
 movements by means of its lubricating fluid, thus 
 preventing the injurious effects of friction and con- 
 cussion ; and to furnish an appropriate structure 
 for their reception. It has been also supposed 
 that, being a bad conductor of heat, it tends to 
 preserve the uniform temperature of the body. How 
 many purposes are thus secured by the all-wise 
 God, by means of this exquisitely simple sub- 
 stance ! 
 
 On minutely examining the internal organization 
 c 
 
26 NUTKITION. 
 
 of every living body, we discover a union of solids 
 and fluids ; the solid parts consisting of minute 
 particles, so arranged as to form fibres and tissues 
 of various density and structure. Everywhere these 
 solids are pervaded by a circulating fluid, from which 
 the particles composing them are elaborated, and by 
 means of which the organic system is nourished. 
 When we attempt to investigate the intimate texture 
 of the solids beyond a certain point, we are foiled ; 
 no eye can scan, no instrument can follow, the 
 mysteries of organic structure, or its circulating 
 fluids. 
 
 As vitality is essential to the circulation of the 
 fluids of the system, so it is by the same power that 
 certain tubes are enabled to absorb particles of 
 extraneous matter, carry them into the mass of cir- 
 culating fluid, and become incorporated with the 
 body. On the other hand, the system throws off 
 by transpiration, particles which, having been in- 
 tegral portions of itself, are now useless ; and hence 
 it may with truth be said, that no living body is, 
 after a certain period, the same, particle for particle, 
 as it was, though its identity remains. From this 
 view we shall be readily led to conclude, that a due 
 proportion of aliment is required, in order that the 
 loss be counterbalanced ; and that where this is 
 withheld, the- -body becomes emaciated, till at last 
 the vital energies yield, and no longer sustain the 
 organic structure. But in order to the growth of 
 an organic body, the accession of particles must 
 
VITAL FORCES. 27 
 
 preponderate over the loss ; and hence, from birth to 
 maturity, there is not only a rapid circulation of the 
 vital fluid through the system, deposited everywhere 
 from its stores, but a rapid reception and assimilation 
 of extraneous matter, and, accordingly, an unceasing 
 demand for aliment. 
 
 There is, it may be observed, a remarkable 
 attraction through an animal or vegetable membrane, 
 of a thin fluid by one that is denser. Thus, 
 Dutrochet found that if he filled the swimming 
 bladder of a carp with thin syrup, and placed it in 
 water, the bladder gained weight by attracting 
 water through its sides. To this he gave the name 
 of Endosmose, from two Greek words, from the 
 principal current flowing inwards. He also dis- 
 covered that if he filled the same bladder with 
 water and placed it in thin syrup, it lost weight, 
 its contents being partially attracted through the 
 sides into the surrounding syrup ; and this, from 
 the flow being outwards, he called Exosmose. The 
 same result occurred in the transmission of fluids 
 through the tissue of plants. It was found possible 
 to gorge parts of vegetables with fluid by merely 
 placing them in water, and to empty them again 
 by rendering the fluid in which they were placed 
 more dense than that which they contained. 
 Dutrochet says, that water thickened with sugar in 
 the proportion of 1 sugar to 2 water, produced a 
 power capable of sustaining a column of mercury of 
 127 inches, or the weight of 4J atmospheres. 
 
28 WHAT IS LIFE ? 
 
 The forces thus apparent are, however, dependent 
 on life. They are not exerted by the roots of dead 
 plants. The wick of a lamp sucks up oil only when 
 it is lighted, so that the fluid already absorbed is in 
 some degree removed, and thus capillary attraction 
 supplies what is lost by combustion. Just so, as the 
 plant exhales from the leaves, the endosmose will 
 keep up the supply ; but, let vitality be destroyed, 
 and absorption will cease. 
 
 Organic bodies grow, therefore, not by the action 
 upon them of external agents, but by rendering 
 these subservient to their purpose. The primary 
 and leading feature of vitality is indeed the 
 process of nutrition ; and it can only be ex- 
 emplified by an organic being. Its first operations 
 appear in the alteration of the medium by which 
 it is surrounded. Oxygen is the great supporter 
 of life ; it is indispensable to the performance 
 of every vital operation ; deprived of it, organic 
 existence ceases, or is incapable of developing into 
 activity. 
 
 In vain, however, do we ask, What is life ? If 
 we apply to chemistry, what do we learn from its 
 researches ? Only that the elements of organic 
 bodies are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, azote, and 
 alkaline and earthy salts. Chemistry, potent over 
 the vast empire of inert matter, is unable to ascertain 
 what life is. Within its own dominions it can 
 analyze and combine ; make solids fluid, and fluids 
 solid ; resolve things into their elementary gases and 
 
IRRITABILITY. 29 
 
 recombine them; ascertain the necessary proportions 
 in which two or more bodies unite, whence shall 
 result a product totally differing from each com- 
 ponent in character and properties : all this and 
 more is within its power ; but it cannot recompose 
 a single fluid, nor a single solid of any organic 
 body. Here its penetration is baffled, and its art 
 at fault. If, then, chemistry cannot ascertain the 
 true nature of the constituents of organic bodies, 
 neither can it discover the means by which they 
 maintain their specific differences, not only as it 
 regards the form, but the quality of their substance ; 
 quality, which widely differs even where the same 
 nutriment is in each instance received. The same 
 soil, the same water, the same air, may nourish 
 the vine and the aconite, the rose and the hemlock, 
 the nutritious plant and the deadly poison; their 
 very roots and leaves may be intertwined ; but 
 their identity and their specific properties will con- 
 tinue unaltered. 
 
 It is evident, however, that the great Creator has 
 endowed organic nature with a remarkable pro- 
 perty, which the tubes of all having life possess, 
 and upon which their action depends, termed by 
 physiologists irritability. It denotes a power 
 residing in the fibrous parts of organic bodies, of 
 responding to the action of various and appropriate 
 stimuli, external or internal ; and exhibited in 
 contractile or expansive movements. It renders the 
 tubes or vessels agents in the propulsion of the 
 
30 IRRITABILITY. 
 
 circulating fluid. It is displayed by the sensitive 
 plant, when its leaves, on being touched, collapse ; 
 by the sunflower, when it bends to the refreshing 
 light ; and by the night-folded blossom, expanding 
 with the return of day. 
 
 In animals, we see this property residing to a 
 wonderful degree in the fibres of the muscles, whether 
 the muscles be of the class termed involuntary, such 
 as the heart ; of a mixed character, such as those of 
 respiration ; or purely voluntary, as those of loco- 
 motion. Many consider the irritability of muscular 
 fibres as depending immediately upon the influence 
 of the nerves with which they are supplied, and not 
 as an independent faculty. Now, that volition acts 
 as a stimulus to the voluntary muscles through the 
 medium of the nerves, is obvious, for we can move a 
 limb at pleasure. That the agitation of the nervous 
 system, from whatever cause, influences the action 
 of the voluntary muscles, and even those of volition, 
 is also manifest. Yet in all this there is nothing to 
 contradict the opinion, that irritability is an inde- 
 pendent property of muscular fibre, since it is not 
 annihilated by the cutting off of all communication 
 between the nerves and the brain, or the spinal 
 marrow, which are their great centres. If, for 
 instance, the heart of a frog be removed from the 
 body, it continues to act for a considerable period, 
 and even after action has apparently ceased, its 
 contraction will be repeated on the application of 
 stimuli. The same fact may be observed, also, in 
 
DECAY. 3 1 
 
 the heads of recently slaughtered animals ; the 
 muscles of the ox, for example, when skinned and 
 hung up, may be seen contracting and relaxing, 
 their movements vigorously responding to the 
 application of stimuli. 
 
 The growth or development of living beings, 
 for which such wondrously minute and exquisite 
 arrangements have been made by the great Creator, 
 is determinate. At the appointed time, maturity is 
 reached and a change is easily discoverable : the 
 demands of the system for nutrition are less pressing; 
 assimilation is not so rapid; the circulating fluids 
 are propelled feebly; and all the phenomena of life 
 are languidly carried on. This decline, the har- 
 binger of death, proceeds from the gradual exhaus- 
 tion of the vital energy an exhaustion for which 
 we cannot account. We call it, indeed, a law of 
 nature ; but why should not the organic machine, 
 having once begun, go on for ever? Why should 
 not the powers which conducted it to maturity and 
 enabled it to make good its losses and injuries, still 
 continue in all their mysterious energy ? Who can 
 tell why ? 
 
 " It appears," says Cuvier, " that life ceases from 
 causes similar to those which interrupt all other 
 known motions, and that the hardening of the fibres, 
 and the obstruction of the vessels, would render 
 death a necessary consequence of life, as rest is that 
 of every movement not occurring in a vacuum, 
 when that event shall not be forestalled by a 
 
32 DEATH. 
 
 multitude of extrinsic causes." There is something, 
 however, beyond this rigidity of the fibres, this 
 obstruction of the vessels. These must be them- 
 selves the effects of an antecedent cause, and will 
 not bear to be compared with the phenomena pro- 
 duced by chemical agents. In short, the bounds of 
 the duration of living beings are prescribed by laws 
 as certain, but as mysterious, as those which deter- 
 mine form or regulate growth. With the cessation 
 of the vital principle, every phenomenon which dis- 
 tinguished between organic and inorganic matter, 
 ceases also. The outward form, indeed, may remain 
 for a shorter or more protracted period ; but it is 
 now no longer under the influence of the laws 
 of life. Its component particles are the subjects 
 of another empire; they form new combinations, 
 and become lost and mingled with the elements 
 around. 
 
 To such a transition, inorganic matter presents no 
 analogy. However it may be increased or dimi- 
 nished, or, whatever may be its mutations, every 
 change it displays is the result of extraneous agen- 
 cies, and dependent on the laws of chemistry and 
 mechanics. But here there is no vital bond ; death 
 is a necessary consummation of life, the goal to 
 which it inevitably tends, the irrevocable destiny of 
 organic existence. 
 
 As to the dissolution of our race, there is no 
 mystery. " By one man sin entered into the world, 
 and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, 
 
HUMILITY BECOMES US. 33 
 
 for that all have sinned." " Thanks be unto God 
 for his unspeakable gift." Through the great 
 Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ 
 Jesus, "life and immortality" are brought "to 
 light through the gospel." And happy are they, 
 who, receiving his testimony, "set to their seal 
 that God is true," and exclaim, in the enjoyment 
 of "things present," Death and things to come 
 are ours ! 
 
 In leaving this part of our subject, we feel that 
 what life is, even in its humblest forms, must remain 
 inscrutable. Here, as in numerous natural objects, 
 a barrier is placed which we cannot pass. The 
 sphere of man is bounded, his researches are limited, 
 and the hidden mysteries around and within him, 
 are far too deep for him to fathom. Let us then 
 take our proper station. To deny, as some do, what 
 is unseen, or not fully within their grasp, although 
 attested by ample evidence, is, at once, their greatest 
 folly, and most awful crime. It is for us to be 
 humble ; the only attitude that becomes us, is that of 
 reverent and devout disciples. In the highest and 
 noblest efforts of man, we may detect the weakness 
 and infirmity of his fallen nature ; but in the works 
 of God we have a revelation of his character, a 
 mirror in which we may behold his infinite perfec- 
 tions. Let it then be our concern, amidst our igno- 
 rance and errors, gratefully to appeal to him who 
 knows all things. The phenomena of life those 
 evidences of a mysterious and inscrutable principle 
 
34 HUMILITY BECOMES US. 
 
 are all arranged by him ; of that principle he is the 
 source ; he alone understands in what that " in- 
 conceivable something" consists ; on his will it 
 depends, and in his hands are the issues of life and 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ORGANIC NATURE DIVIDED INTO ANIMALS AND 
 VEGETABLES. 
 
 IT has already been apparent that natural objects 
 comprise the inorganic and organic, and it is now 
 to be shown that the latter class is subdivided into 
 animals and vegetables. 
 
 Animals have ordinarily been briefly character- 
 ized as living, sentient, and capable of motion; and 
 vegetables as merely endowed with life. But in 
 order to arrive at more clear and definite ideas, 
 let us examine particularly the difference that is 
 manifest. 
 
 Vegetables are fixed in the earth, by the root, 
 while another part is raised into the air, and consists 
 of the stem, the branches, and the leaves. In the 
 disposition of these portions, we look in vain for 
 rigorously symmetrical arrangement ; there is, in- 
 deed, order, harmony, and a due adjustment of 
 parts : one vegetable is the type of its species, one 
 leaf the type of every leaf on the same plant, and 
 consequently of the leaves of every plant of the 
 same species; but this is all. The elm, for ex- 
 ample, has its peculiar leaf, bark, and adjustment of 
 branches, so that it cannot be mistaken for the oak ; 
 but one elm, though a type of the species, does not 
 present the same number of branches or leaves, nor 
 
36 
 
 VENUS S FLY-TRAP. 
 
 the same proportions between one part and another. 
 Moreover, the vegetable, fixed to the earth, is in- 
 capable of removing to another locality, nor does it 
 possess the power of voluntary motion. It is therefore 
 incapable of avoiding injuries; but with this inca- 
 pacity of self-protection, it is as insensible to pain 
 as it is to pleasure. A sentient being, that is, one 
 susceptible of pleasure and pain, must be capable of 
 voluntary action, and endowed with the power of 
 locomotion. 
 
 A near approximation to animal existence appears 
 in a plant commonly known as Yenus's Fly-trap, 
 
 VENUS'S FLY-TUAP DION^A MUSCIPULA. 
 
 which inhabits the southern part of the United 
 States of America. Certain of the leaves are fringed 
 
VENUS'S FLY-TRAP. 37 
 
 at their sides with a row of long spines, and have 
 the power of folding their two sides towards each 
 other, so as to inclose the insects which settle on 
 their surface. On each half of the blade of a leaf, 
 three thorns are placed, and when any one of them 
 is slightly touched, the action of the trap is com- 
 plete. So perfectly do the spines cross each other, 
 that the captured prey cannot possibly escape ; and, 
 indeed, the more it struggles, the greater is the 
 pressure it experiences. In the engraving, the struc- 
 ture and action of the leaves are clearly shown. The 
 victims thus made, appear to supply the plant with 
 needed and beneficial nutriment, probably nitrogen 
 from animal matter. When kept in hot-houses in 
 England, from which insects were excluded, it has 
 languished, but little pieces of meat placed on the 
 leaves have restored its vigour. And yet, these 
 leaves, like all the foliage of the vegetable kingdom, 
 so change the crude fluid the water, in which is 
 dissolved a small proportion of the substances of the 
 surrounding soil that it becomes nutritious sap, on 
 which the life and functions of the plant primarily 
 depend. Still, notwithstanding the analogy which 
 is presented by this curious plant to animal functions, 
 its action is not voluntary, like that of a sentient 
 being, and it must continue rooted in the earth. 
 
 If now we consider the animal, we find it com- 
 posed of parts symmetrically arranged, and consti- 
 tuting a body possessed of certain definite members. 
 Fixed by no root to one spot, in which to live and 
 
38 THE STOMACH. 
 
 perish, it is free ; it moves, it feels, it exerts the 
 power of locomotion. Such are the obvious differ- 
 ences between animals and plants ; but if we proceed 
 to a closer investigation of their respective organiza- 
 tion, we shall discover yet wider lines of distinction. 
 
 In all animals, we find an internal apparatus for 
 the reception of food, which there undergoes the 
 process of digestion. From the inner surface of the 
 stomach arise a multitude of minute tubes, termed 
 by anatomists, lacteals, which take up such particles 
 as are digested, and ultimately convey them into the 
 circulating fluid, where they lose all traces of their 
 former appearance, and become incorporated with 
 the body. Now, the very existence of such an 
 apparatus, for the preparation of food previously to 
 its admission into the system, supposes a complica- 
 tion of organs, both internal and external : internal, 
 as to the accomplishment of the change necessary to 
 be wrought on what is subjected to their action ; 
 external, as to the powers of searching for food, and 
 its acquisition when found. 
 
 No common internal cavity for the reception and 
 precursory digestion of food is discoverable in plants : 
 it is received into their system at once ; the fibres of 
 their roots resembling the absorbing tubes which 
 arise from the inner surface of the stomachs of ani- 
 mals. The food of plants is already prepared, so as 
 to adapt it to their support ; it consists of various 
 fluids and gaseous elements, presented by the soil 
 and the atmosphere, and has only to be absorbed. 
 
POWER OF LOCOMOTION. 39 
 
 Where the seed germinates, there the plant finds its 
 nutriment ; and if it be accidentally denied, there 
 must it prematurely perish. Nature has fixed the 
 plant, and has also placed its nutriment in external 
 contact with it ; nature has made the animal loco- 
 motive, and has consequently given it an internal 
 apparatus for the reception of a supply of matter, 
 whence the system may be duly nourished and sus- 
 tained till more can be acquired. 
 
 When, however, we say that animals are loco- 
 motive, we do not forget that there are some, low in 
 the scale of being, which are destitute of this faculty; 
 but, in such instances, we find a plant-like sim- 
 plicity of structure, and a plant-like arrangement of 
 external organs. Even in these, there is an internal 
 digestive apparatus, simple, it is true, while the 
 animal seeks its food ; if it cannot quit its local 
 station, it spreads abroad its arms or feelers in search 
 of what the teeming waters of the river or the sea 
 may bring, to be received internally and digested. 
 There is, then, between the polyp and the plant a 
 dear, yet narrow line of demarcation. 
 
 It is equally worthy of remark, that the plant 
 possesses no true sensation, as animals do, and that 
 the power of locomotion is necessarily connected 
 with the faculty of sensation. That a being, sus- 
 ceptible of pleasure and pain, endowed with various 
 senses, and having affections and passions should, 
 statue-like, be fixed motionless upon a life-enduring 
 pedestal, would be an outrage upon the harmony 
 
40 CHEMICAL DIFFERENCES. 
 
 and laws of nature : where such endowments exist, 
 the power is also given of seeking the good and 
 avoiding the evil. 
 
 The leading differences between animals and 
 plants may therefore be summed up, by observing, 
 that all animals possess an internal cavity for the 
 reception and digestion of food; that, with some 
 exceptions, they have organs of locomotion, sym- 
 metrically disposed; that they are endowed with 
 sensation or feeling ; that the greater number have 
 additional senses, as of sight, hearing, taste, and 
 smell, a condition connected with a high degree of 
 organization and nervous development ; and that in 
 such as are thus gifted, there are exhibited various 
 instincts, and a diversity of affections and passions. 
 We might detail the chemical differences which 
 have been discovered in the elementary structure of 
 animals and of plants ; but to what do these differ- 
 ences amount ? Plants, we are told, as it respects 
 their solid parts, contain carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, 
 with scarcely a trace of azote, and that silica is 
 sometimes incorporated with their outward covering. 
 The solid parts of animals consist of lime or mag- 
 nesia, united with carbonic or phosphoric acids ; but 
 if we compare the beings of the animal kingdom, 
 destitute of solid parts, as the medusa* * with mu- 
 cilaginous vegetables, we shall find that the gum or 
 mucilage of the plant affords no azote, but that azote, 
 
 * The round masses of jelly so often observed on the sea-shore. 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE TISSUES. 41 
 
 on the contrary, enters largely into the composition 
 of the albumen, or gelatine, of the soft animal. In 
 some plants it is acknowledged that substances 
 of an animal nature, or abounding in azote, hare 
 been detected ; not, however, constituting a whole 
 plant, but only occurring in certain situations, 
 and always in company with other substances of a 
 decidedly vegetable nature, or consisting entirely of 
 carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. But in the soft 
 animals there is no extensive combination of carbon, 
 oxygen, and hydrogen, into which azote does not 
 enter. Such, then, are the elementary or ultimate 
 principles which make up the compounds of ani- 
 mal organization ; these compounds being gelatine, 
 albumen, osmazone or extractive mucus, sugar, oils, 
 such as spermaceti, fat, and blubber, and various 
 acids, as uric, lactic, benzoic, and many others. Of 
 these chemical elements are constituted the solids 
 and fluids of the animal frame. 
 
 The conclusion thus gained, has not, however, 
 satisfied that intense thirst for knowledge, to which 
 we owe some of the most remarkable and valuable 
 attainments of the human mind. The microscope 
 has been plied minutely, accurately, and perse- 
 veringly, to examine the tissues or component 
 structures of animals and vegetables, and with some 
 degree of success. We shall soon have evidence 
 that the Corallines are chiefly animals ; but some of 
 these, admitted by Cuvier into the same series, have 
 been demonstrated, by the employment of high 
 
42 ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE TISSUES. 
 
 magnifying powers, to be actually vegetables. In 
 some instances, the microscope reveals a broad dis- 
 tinction between an animal and a vegetable tissue, 
 but in others, it is diminished until any difference 
 is scarcely, if at all, perceptible. A further study 
 of the different tissues of organic bodies will doubt- 
 less add important facts to the knowledge already 
 acquired. 
 
 Nor should it be overlooked, that "it has been 
 recently stated, and apparently upon good foun- 
 dation," as Professor T. R. Jones remarks, " that 
 there are organized forms, that are vegetables at one 
 period of their existence, and animals at another. 
 Many of the conferva," consisting of simple tubular 
 jointed species inhabiting fresh water, " for example, 
 are equally claimed by zoologists and botanists ; 
 and some among them are said to be possessed of 
 locomotion in one stage of their growth, while in 
 another they are fixed and motionless. So nearly, 
 then, do the animal and vegetable worlds approxi- 
 mate, remote and separate as they appear to be 
 when examined only in their typical forms. Light 
 and darkness are distinct from each other, and no 
 one possessed of eyesight would be in danger of 
 confounding night with day ; yet he who looking 
 upon the evening sky would attempt to point out 
 precisely the line of separation between the parting 
 day and the approaching night, would have a diffi- 
 cult task to perform. Thus is it with the physiologist 
 who endeavours to draw the boundary between 
 
ORIGINAL ORGANIC KINGDOM. 43 
 
 these two grand kingdoms of nature ; for so 
 gradually and imperceptibly do their confines blend, 
 that it is at present utterly out of his power to 
 define exactly where vegetable existence ceases, and 
 animal life begins." 
 
 The difficulty, thus apparent, of drawing a precise 
 line of demarcation between animals and vegetables 
 has led Dr. Carus to observe that, "it seems to 
 follow that we are entitled to suppose between plants 
 and animals an original organic kingdom ; nay, that 
 this is the only way in which we can succeed in 
 laying down a truly generic series of these singular 
 organizations, beginning with the most simple, and 
 losing itself in one direction in the vegetable, and 
 in the other, in the animal kingdom." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SPONGE THE HYDRA. 
 
 THE animals accounted lowest in the scale of 
 existence, are by no means the least wonderful of 
 the works of the Creator. Indeed, in some respects, 
 they excite more than common interest, as discovering 
 to the reflective mind the utmost simplicity of 
 organization, conjoined with animal, not vegetable 
 life. Their structure is surpassed in intricacy by 
 that of many vegetables, perhaps by most ; yet, 
 simple as it is, it is only the first of a series of 
 gradations, which conducts us to the highest orders 
 of animated nature. 
 
 Naturalists place a group or assemblage of animals* 
 lowest in the scale, in which no distinct nerves are 
 to be perceived. They are, with few exceptions, 
 tenants of the water. They consist essentially of a 
 gelatinous substance, the solid constituents of which 
 bear but a trifling proportion to the fluid. This 
 gelatine is sometimes unsupported by any kind of 
 framework ; but generally it either invests, or is 
 contained in a horny or a calcareous support, which 
 is elaborated from it, and varies greatly in outward 
 form and appearance. 
 
 Though no nervous fibres have been detected, it 
 * Acrita. 
 
THE LOWEST GROUP OF ANIMALS. 45 
 
 is most probable that nervous matter, in the form 
 of a subtle fluid, or of atoms hitherto beyond detec- 
 tion, may be blended with the gelatine. True 
 blood vessels do not exist ; yet in some groups 
 canals are excavated in the substance of the gelatine, 
 through which absorbed fluids circulate, and are 
 carried to a central cavity. This apparatus fulfils 
 at once the double office of aerating the system, (for 
 oxygen, as we have seen, is indispensable to animal 
 life,) and of supplying it with nutriment ; which it 
 cannot be doubted is absorbed and assimilated. In 
 some of the simplest animals, indeed, a more perfect 
 set of alimentary and aerating organs is present, and 
 their use cannot be mistaken. The power of loco- 
 motion enjoyed by these beings differs exceedingly ; 
 and many, fixed like plants, live and die on one 
 spot. None have true limbs, but many have 
 tentacles, arms, or feelers, by means of which they 
 secure their prey. 
 
 To give an example : all are familiar with the 
 lightness, softness, and elasticity of sponge. It 
 exhibits generally the same structure, having 
 numerous pores and circular holes, which lead into 
 canals permeating the whole substance. It imbibes 
 with great facility a large quantity of water, or 
 indeed any fluid, which is held in the meshes of its 
 rude and singular network, until, being forced out 
 by pressure, it acquires its former bulk. 
 
 The name of sponge is derived from the Greek 
 word to squeeze, and shows that it was early noticed 
 
4(> THE SPONGE. 
 
 for its peculiar qualities. Thus, Homer describes 
 Vulcan obeying the charge of Thetis : 
 
 " Eirst from his forge dislodged, he thrust apart 
 His bellows, and his tools collecting all, 
 Bestow'd them careful in a silver chest; 
 Then all around with a wet sponge he wiped 
 His visage, and his arms, and brawny neck." 
 
 The ancients used it also as a soft and elastic 
 lining for their heavy brazen helmets, and we employ 
 it for various purposes. . 
 
 The extent and importance of the sponge fisheries 
 of the Mediterranean and Red Sea attracted attention 
 to it in remote antiquity. Great doubt was felt, 
 however, as to its true character. Aristotle de- 
 scribed it as a stationary or rooted animal, but it is 
 probable, from other statements, that he considered 
 its place to be intermediate between the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms. Pliny, who in his account of 
 sponges is greatly indebted to the Stagyrite, places 
 them among the productions which have a third 
 or middle nature, and are neither living creatures 
 nor plants. 
 
 Nor can we be surprised at the hesitation so long 
 manifest. Who that takes up a piece of common 
 sponge, but would consider it as a kind of vegetable ? 
 Even if told that when first procured, it was 
 covered with a gelatinous film, he might reply, 
 with some degree of force, " So are many species of 
 seaweed ;" and he might add, " Where is its 
 sensibility, and its motion ? It does not betray 
 
THE SPONGE. 47 
 
 even the irritability of the sensitive plant, the sun- 
 flower, or the daisy, that folds at eventide; it is 
 rooted to one spot, it has no definite alimentary 
 canal, and it cannot even select its food." And this 
 is true ; so closely, indeed, does the animal kingdom 
 trench on the vegetable ; so nearly, at one point, do 
 they approximate. 
 
 It was long before opinion on this subject became 
 absolutely settled. Even Ray and Linnaeus placed 
 sponges among marine vegetables, and we are in- 
 debted for more correct knowledge to John Ellis, a 
 merchant of London, who devoted his leisure to 
 natural history. After entertaining some doubts 
 on the subject, he formed the mature opinion that 
 the sponge is an animal, through the pores and 
 canals of which the water circulates. His labours 
 were rewarded, in 1768, by the Copley medal of the 
 Royal Society ; and his belief is that of most natu- 
 ralists and physiologists at the present time : among 
 whom Dr. Grant is entitled to special mention, for 
 his minute and elaborate examination of the struc- 
 ture and habits of this remarkable creature. 
 
 The crumb of bread sponge is well described by 
 the name it bears, not only as it appears to the eye, 
 but as it feels to the touch. Another sponge* is 
 not uncommon in clear rivulets, adhering to stones : 
 its colour varies from bright green to pale brown, 
 and changes according to the action of light. From 
 this circumstance, it has been supposed that these 
 
 * Spongia fluviatilis. 
 
48 THE SPONGE. 
 
 fresh-water sponges are really within the pale of the 
 vegetable kingdom. But a different conclusion has 
 been arrived at, we think most justly, in reference 
 to the sponges that are marine. Many inhabit the 
 shores of the ocean between tide marks, preferring a 
 site near the low ebb, where, however, they are daily 
 covered with the water, and alternately left ex- 
 posed to the atmosphere. Others, of a fibrous or 
 fleshy texture, are the inhabitants of deeper water, 
 and are never left uncovered. When, however, 
 they are exposed, from their locality, to an unusually 
 great agitation of the sea, they are said to have a 
 structure proportionally dense and compact. In 
 the intertropical latitudes they display gigantic 
 forms, and strange or grotesque figures ; in the 
 colder latitudes, they are smaller, and of firmer and 
 more rigid texture. They often grow in places which 
 the returning tide leaves dry ; but their congenial 
 abode is in sheltered and tranquil spots, in caves 
 and fissures of rocks, where the water, never ruffled 
 by the storm, is " deeply, darkly, beautifully, blue." 
 Fixed, plant-like, to the rock, they festoon the 
 deep sea caves ; they line the walls of submarine 
 grottoes, and hang as grotesque ornaments from the 
 roof ; some, like inverted goblets, aptly termed 
 " Neptune's drinking cups ;" some, like fans, some, 
 like globes, and others, like intertwined branches of 
 uncouth growth. 
 
 In the Mediterranean Sea, about the islands of the 
 Archipelago, sponge is found adhering to the rocks, 
 
SPONGE-DIVING. 49 
 
 from which they are not detached without con- 
 siderable effort. In several of the Greek islands, 
 the inhabitants have been trained from their infancy 
 to dive for sponges. The extraordinary clearness 
 of the water facilitates their operations. At the 
 Cyclades, sponge-diving forms the chief employ- 
 ment of the population. The sea is at all times 
 beautifully clear, and the experienced divers are 
 capable of distinguishing from the surface the points 
 to which the sponge is attached below, when an 
 unpractised eye could but dimly discern the bottom. 
 Each boat is furnished with a large stone attached 
 to a rope, and this the diver seizes in his hand, on 
 plunging head foremost from the stern. He does 
 this in order to increase the velocity of his descent ; 
 thus economizing his stock of breath, as well as to 
 facilitate his ascent when exhausted at the bottom, 
 being then quickly hauled up by his companions. 
 Few men can remain longer than about two minutes 
 below ; and as the process of detaching the sponge 
 is very tedious, three, and sometimes four divers 
 descend successively to secure a particularly fine 
 specimen. 
 
 The canals and pores of a living sponge are filled 
 with a fluid resembling the white of an egg, varying 
 in quantity according to the species. When a 
 drop of it is examined under a microscope, it 
 appears entirely composed of very minute transpa- 
 rent grains, either spherical or ovate, nearly all of 
 the same size, with some moisture. The fibrous 
 
50 
 
 STRUCTURE OF THE SPONGE. 
 
 structure of the sponge, with which we are all 
 familiar, is the framework, or under skeleton of the 
 living animal ; the characters presented by it 
 greatly differing in the various species, which are 
 extremely numerous. 
 
 In the common sponge, the fibres are elastic and 
 horny in their texture, and when highly magnified, 
 appear to be tubular. In other species, the frame- 
 work consists of a firm inflexible tissue, of inter- 
 
 SPONGES. 
 
 The upper figure represents one with horny fibres ; the under figure, one 
 with silicious spicula. 
 
 crossing filaments, also tubular, and the living 
 gelatine exhibits bands of a more cartilaginous con- 
 sistency than ordinary, and is also more or less 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE SPONGE. 51 
 
 replete with minute crystallized spicula. The 
 spicula are usually simple needle-like points, but 
 sometimes they are three or four pointed. 
 
 Multitudes of spicula are placed longitudinally 
 around the internal canals, of which they form the 
 walls ; they may be obtained by washing a sponge, 
 of which the animal matter is decomposing, or by 
 fusing it before the blow- pipe ; they are mostly 
 found to consist of silica or flint, and minute as 
 they are, are capable of scratching glass. 
 
 A small portion of silica has been detected in the 
 ashes of the common sponge, as one of the consti- 
 tuents in the composition of its elastic fibres. It 
 appears, moreover, that the proportion of silica 
 increases according to the firmness of the fibres of 
 sponge, and that where these are elastic, animal 
 matter predominates. The forms of the spicula are 
 constant in every species, and consequently become 
 tests in their identification. In some species, the 
 spicula are calcareous ; and whether calcareous or 
 silicious, they assume the forms which the crystals 
 of lime and silica present under ordinary circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Though every species of sponge has its charac- 
 teristic figure, still no two individuals of the same 
 species agree in external form, or in the number 
 and precise directions of their large canals. Among 
 the higher animals, every species resembles the 
 rest of its species in the form of the limbs and 
 teeth ; in the length and figure of the ears, tail, 
 
52 THE LIVING SPONGE. 
 
 muzzle, etc. and also in the arrangement and colour- 
 ing of the hairs, spines, scales, or feathers. But 
 this definiteness of figure, involving a constancy in 
 the number and arrangement of composing parts, 
 diminishes in degree as we verge towards the lower 
 groups, and when we arrive at the lowest, we see 
 diversity in the midst of sameness. 
 
 Nor can we be surprised at this, when we reflect 
 upon the condition of the nervous system, and upon 
 the vital laws by which these beings are governed. 
 No two sponges of the same species correspond in 
 figure, or in the number of their canals ; for the 
 latter multiply as the animal increases, and circum- 
 stances influence development in one part more 
 than another. 
 
 But though this be the case, there are limits to 
 the law of variation, so that no species puts on the 
 appearance of another. The cup sponges never 
 approach such as are branched, nor these such as 
 resemble tufts of moss ; though two cup sponges 
 are never precisely of the same outline, nor two 
 branched sponges of the same shape, and with 
 the same figure and proportion of their ramifica- 
 tions. 
 
 Dr. Grant put a small branch of a sponge, with 
 some sea-water, into a watch glass under the micro- 
 scope, and on reflecting the light of a candle 
 through the fluid, he perceived that there was some 
 inward motion in the opaque particles floating 
 through the water. On moving the watch-glass, so 
 
THE LIVING SPONGE. 53 
 
 as to bring one of the apertures of the sponge fully 
 into view, he beheld for the first time, he says, "the 
 splendid spectacle of this living fountain, giving 
 forth, from a circular cavity, an impetuous torrent 
 of liquid matter, and hurling along in rapid succes- 
 sion opaque masses, which it strewed everywhere 
 around. The beauty and novelty of such a scene in 
 the animal kingdom long arrested my attention, but 
 
 ACTION OF A LIVING SPONGE. 
 
 The water appears discharged downwards. 
 
 after twenty-five minutes of constant observation, 
 I was obliged to withdraw my eye, from fatigue, 
 without having seen the torrent, for one instant, 
 change its direction or diminish in the slightest 
 degree the rapidity of its course. I continued to 
 
54 INCREASE OF THE SPONGE. 
 
 watch the same orifice, at short intervals, for five 
 hours, and sometimes observing it for a quarter of 
 an hour at a time, but still the stream rolled on with 
 a constant and equal velocity." These currents 
 take place only from those parts that are under 
 water, and immediately cease when the same parts 
 are uncovered, or when the animal dies. Placed as 
 the sponge is, lowest in the scale of animated beings, 
 in no one respect has it been neglected by the all- 
 wise and beneficent Creator, whose care of it is as 
 manifest as that of the elephant in its jungle, or the 
 camel in the desert. 
 
 A remarkable illustration of this appears in the 
 increase of the sponge. At certain seasons of the 
 year, yellow jelly-like grains sprout from the sub- 
 stance which covers the skeleton of the sponge, 
 projecting more and more, as they increase in size, 
 into its cavities the germs, in fact, of a future 
 race. Each germ assumes an egg-like shape, and 
 a large portion of its surface becomes covered 
 with little hairs called cilia 
 the plural of the Latin name for 
 an eyelash, to which they bear a 
 strong resemblance all endowed 
 with the power of vibration. And 
 why has the egg -like germ such 
 an appendage ? Well may the 
 answer be pondered by those who 
 
 CILIA OF A POLYP. . A . . 
 
 think that things accounted trivial 
 are beneath the notice of the Great Supreme. These 
 
THE HYDRA. 55 
 
 vibrating hairs act as oars to the little germ, to row 
 it away, as soon as it falls on the surface of the 
 water, from its parent, to some other spot to which 
 it may attach itself ; and then, having answered the 
 purpose for which they were expressly developed, 
 the cilia fall off, leaving the germ gradually to 
 develop the peculiar form and qualities of the 
 parent sponge. 
 
 We may now glance at the natural history of 
 another very remarkable creature, not only for the 
 marvels connected with it, but also as it will serve 
 to introduce a great diversity of animals to which it 
 is allied in structure. We owe our knowledge of 
 it to M. Trembley. In 1741, he observed certain 
 fibrous bodies adhering to the leaves of some aquatic 
 plants. His first thought was that they were para- 
 sites,* but on a closer inspection, he discovered that 
 they were endowed with animal life ; and continuing 
 his observations, he wrote and published an octavo 
 volume on their structure and habits. Most inter- 
 esting and amazing are the details of this work, 
 while they suggest to us the important lesson, that a 
 diligent and persevering study of the smallest result 
 of Divine operation will furnish an ample reward, 
 manifesting as it does, equally with the greatest, the 
 power, wisdom, and goodness of the Infinite. 
 
 * Such is the raisseltoe, which issues from seeds deposited by birds 
 on the exterior of the stems and branches of trees, and so insinuate 
 their root fibres into the wood as to imbibe the ascending sap, and 
 thus to obtain support. 
 
56 
 
 THE HYDRA. 
 
 Let the reader imagine that he has cut off from 
 the small quill of a pigeon's feather about three- 
 eighths of an inch, and he will have before him the 
 shape and size of the green hydra, discovered by 
 M. Trembley, and which may still be found in 
 weedy ponds, or slowly running streams. Until 
 very recently, a hydra was described as a small 
 
 SECTION OF THE BR,OW]\~ HYDRA HYDRA TUSCA. 
 
 living tube, presenting to the eye merely a gelati- 
 nous substance, in which small grains are intermixed. 
 But M. Gervais has studied one of these creatures 
 with all the present advantages of microscopic 
 power, and shows that it is more complex than has 
 
THE GREEN HYDRA. 57 
 
 been hitherto supposed. When thus highly magni- 
 fied, the granules are visible in its texture, arranged, 
 as the reader will observe, in distinct layers, and 
 appropriated, M. Gervais thinks, to different offices. 
 Hence he concludes that while the external layers 
 serve as a covering to the animal, the internal, 
 composed of particles of a conical form, subserve 
 the digestive process. It is, therefore, highly pro- 
 bable, that the structure of the green hydra is no 
 less complicated. Arranged about the mouth are 
 some fine filaments which act as arms. 
 
 This animal is affected by light, and when con- 
 fined in a glass, always seeks its brightest side. Its 
 favourite position appears to be that of remaining 
 suspended from the surface of the water, by means of 
 its lower extremity, called its foot. It is manifestly 
 conscious of fear, for when touched roughly, it con- 
 tracts itself into a small globule, in which state it is 
 secure, as it may easily escape observation. It can 
 wander about the water at pleasure, but its usual 
 mode of proceeding along the stems or leaves of 
 plants is slow. It fixes the sucker of its foot, so 
 as to attach itself firmly, and then gently bending 
 down the body, it describes a semicircle till the 
 mouth reaches another part of the stem or the 
 leaf on which it is stationed ; then adhering by the 
 mouth, or the arms arranged about it, it unfixes the 
 sucker, draws it close to the mouth, and fastens it 
 again ; once more, it elevates the body, bends it 
 down, and adheres by the arms, and brings the 
 E 
 
58 THE LONG-ARMED HYDRA. 
 
 sucker up to the mouth as before, and thus it moves 
 on in slow but certain succession ; for a journey of 
 a few inches, in this way, occupies several hours. 
 A more expeditious progress is therefore effected 
 by a series of somersets. Adhering by the sucker, 
 the latter is detached, but, instead of being brought 
 to the mouth, it is thrown beyond it, as far as pos- 
 sible, describing a semicircle ; and a similar move- 
 ment is then made by the head. 
 
 Nor are these its only means of locomotion. In 
 the water, the hydra moves with great rapidity. 
 Suspended with its head downwards, its sucker acts 
 as a float on the surface, and it is consequently 
 drifted with the current of the stream. Wafted 
 along by the breeze, or grasping objects within the 
 reach of its arms, it propels itself onwards ; and 
 then at its pleasure it holds firmly by a stem or a 
 leaf, its little harbour after a voyage, and moors 
 itself into a state of quietude and rest. 
 
 The manner in which these creatures obtain food 
 is seen most clearly by watching the movements 
 of the long-armed hydra. If a piece of the stem, 
 or some of the leaves to which these polyps are 
 attached be put into a clear phial, filled with water, 
 and placed in a window, they will soon be observed 
 to extend their arms in quest of prey. If a small 
 worm be then dropped into the water, it will 
 instantly throw itself into violent contortions, as if 
 conscious of danger, while its enemies will be 
 roused into full activity. A hydra will soon be 
 
MULTIPLICATION OF THE HYDRA. 
 
 59 
 
 seen to stretch forth its arms, extending them, per- 
 haps, to the length of several inches, and becoming 
 as attenuated as the fibres of a spider's web, and 
 then suddenly seizing and entangling its prey, the 
 victim is instantly paralyzed. Wondrously con- 
 structed indeed are these arms ; their substance, like 
 that of the body, is jelly-like, and filled with grains ; 
 they are tubular, and so arranged that they may be 
 
 THE LONG-ARMED HYDRA. 
 
 extended or contracted at pleasure ; and they are 
 filled with fluid which is no sooner ejected than the 
 prey ceases to struggle. 
 
 Most extraordinary is the extent to which one of 
 these creatures may be multiplied. If the upper 
 part be cut off, it will soon be completed by the 
 addition of a tail ; if the tail be cut off, a head with 
 its appendages will as speedily appear. Other 
 
60 MULTIPLICATION OF THE HYDRA. 
 
 divisions will be followed by similar results ; and so 
 many additions may be made to one, by portions of 
 others, as fully to warrant the appropriation of the 
 name of hydra, first given to an imaginary and 
 many -headed being. 
 
 Our countryman, Baker, conducted many experi- 
 ments of this kind in common with Trembley. 
 Under their observation, no fewer than forty hydras 
 resulted from as many portions. Every part of the 
 animal, excepting perhaps the arms, which failed in 
 their case, is thus capable of forming a perfect 
 hydra. According to Baker, " What is still more 
 extraordinary, polyps produced in this manner grow 
 much larger, and are far more prolific in the way of 
 their natural increase, than those which are never 
 cut. It is very common, when a polyp is divided 
 transversely, to see a young one push out from one 
 or other of the parts, and sometimes from both of 
 them, in a very few hours after the operation has 
 been performed ; and particularly from the tail part 
 two or three are frequently protruded in different 
 places and in different times, long before that part 
 acquires a new head, and consequently while it can 
 take in no fresh nourishment to supply them with, 
 and yet the young ones proceeding from it, under 
 these disadvantages, thrive as fast and seem as 
 vigorous as those produced by perfect and uncut 
 hydras." 
 
 The extraordinary increase of these creatures h^s 
 a strong resemblance to that of vegetables, and may 
 
MULTIPLICATION OF THE HYDRA. 61 
 
 be observed if a few of them be kept in a glass of 
 their native water, and well supplied with food. A 
 small bud shoots forth from some part of the parent 
 body, and gradually enlarging, appears like a minute 
 hydra : strange to tell, a portion of the food 
 digested by the parent has been observed to pass 
 into the body of the offspring, but no sooner are the 
 arms of the minute hydra sufficiently strong for the 
 capture of prey, than it contributes in some degree 
 to the support of its parent. On its being equal to 
 an independent existence, it is detached from its 
 parent, and lives apart at its pleasure. The following 
 engraving will throw fresh light on what has now 
 been stated. 
 
 THE GREEN HYDRA, OF THE NATURAL SIZE. 
 
 It appears erect, walking, under the influence of fear, and with a young 
 hydra sprouting from its surface. 
 
 We now proceed to other creatures, whose history 
 is not less wonderful. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CORALLINES. 
 
 THE poet Crabbe, fond of visiting the sea shore, 
 has said : 
 
 " Involved in sea- wrack, here you find a race, 
 Which science doubting, knows not where to place; 
 On shell or stone is dropp'd the embryo seed, 
 And quickly vegetates a vital breed." 
 
 A child, for example, picks up what is un- 
 hesitatingly pronounced a piece of sea-weed, and if 
 it have not some striking quality in form or colour, 
 it is hastily, and perhaps contemptuously, thrown 
 away. And yet that object may not be the sea- 
 weed which stands on one of the borders of the 
 vegetable world ; on the contrary, it may prove, 
 when duly examined, the uninhabited tenement of 
 numerous animals which have recently quitted it. 
 A large number of these beings were called zoophytes 
 by the older naturalists ; the name is of Greek 
 derivation, signifying animal plants, and a difficulty 
 was long felt in assigning to them their proper 
 place among the works of God. Their actual 
 position being now decided, they may be accurately 
 styled " plant-like animals." The distinctive name 
 given to one of these creatures is polypus, polype, 
 
PLANT-LIKE ANIMALS. 63 
 
 or polyp ; we prefer, and shall use as the simplest, 
 the latter term. 
 
 An apothecary in Naples, Ferrante Imperato, is 
 said to have been the first naturalist who distinctly 
 declared that some of these were animals. His work 
 was printed at Venice, in 1599. It was afterwards 
 republished, yet so entirely was it forgotten, that 
 when Peyronnet announced the same discovery to 
 the Academy of Sciences in Paris, more than a 
 hundred and twenty years afterwards, it was re- 
 ceived by that body as new, and open to the objec- 
 tions usually entertained against what is novel. 
 Most unworthy was the treatment with which he 
 met ; and while we deplore it, we cannot but lament 
 that it is one of a multitude of similar instances. 
 When will men, on an assertion being made, ask for 
 the evidence on which it rests ; and only when this 
 is unsatisfactory, discard the declaration ? Hasty 
 and prejudiced judgments lead to the rejection of 
 many truths, and to the support, perpetuation, and 
 increase of formidable errors. 
 
 In the present instance, it ought to have been 
 enough to avert doubt, censure, and .obloquy, that 
 Peyronnet dealt not with speculations and fancies, 
 but with actual observation. On the coasts of 
 France and of Barbary, their native sites, he had 
 carefully studied the polyps which the fishermen 
 brought him after their searches for coral ; ascertained 
 that, unlike blossoms or flowers, which some had 
 considered them, they wore the same appearance at 
 
64 PEYRONNET. JOHN ELLIS. 
 
 all seasons ; and only described what he had actually 
 beheld. Nor was this all, he did not stop at the 
 examination of their form and movements : by 
 chemical analysis, he had discovered in polyps the 
 constituent principles of animals, and that the stony 
 part bore no trace of vegetable organization ; he 
 had found, moreover, that as they decayed the odour 
 of animal substances was exhaled. But prejudice 
 has neither eyes nor ears, and is equally deficient in 
 attention and judgment. 
 
 Our countryman, John Ellis, already mentioned, 
 is also entitled in this connexion to honourable 
 mention. Accustomed to amuse himself by^skilfully 
 and curiously arranging sea weeds and corallines on 
 paper, he was led by the beauty and elegance of the 
 latter, to examine them minutely by the aid of the 
 microscope. It was now instantly manifest that 
 they differed not more from each other in form, 
 than they did in texture, and that in many of them 
 there were indications of a nearer alliance to an 
 animal than a vegetable nature. Encouraged by 
 some of the members of the Royal Society, he pro- 
 secuted his inquiries with great ardour and sagacity, 
 and soon convinced himself that "these apparent 
 plants were ramified animals." His essay on coral- 
 lines and other marine productions commonly found 
 on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, is a work 
 which does him great credit. 
 
 The researches of Ellis left no space for doubt. 
 By the aid of the microscope, he saw the living 
 
JOHN ELLIS. 65 
 
 polyps in their cells ; he observed their sensibility 
 to outward impressions ; he witnessed their various 
 actions, and particularly their stretching forth their 
 petal-like arms for the capture of prey. It was 
 proved, moreover, that other functions were exer- 
 cised, and the process of digestion was watched 
 through its different stages. These discoveries 
 tended ultimately to set at rest the question 
 which had been vibrating in doubt for more than a 
 century. 
 
 SERTULARIA LENDIGERA. 
 
 A particle of one of these corallines, no larger 
 than the little figure placed at the side of the 
 engraving, when seen in the microscope, exhibits a 
 remarkable animal structure. There is a central 
 stem from which branches diverge, which may be 
 
66 
 
 CORALLINES. 
 
 pulled out to the extent of two or three inches, each 
 of which is furnished with a row of cells containing 
 polyps. 
 
 Another is very elegant ; 
 it adheres by its tubes to 
 most kinds of shells, and 
 also to stones ; it grows 
 very erect ; and is fre- 
 quently infested with mi- 
 nute shells. It consists 
 of a central stem around 
 which several cells appear, 
 each one opening into it, 
 and being the tenement 
 of a separate polyp. This 
 coralline' rises to the 
 height of eighteen inches, 
 and is of common occur- 
 rence. 
 
 Another example shows 
 a very different structure, 
 which the engraving re- 
 presents as highly magnified. This coralline, ob- 
 served on mussels and other shells, is common on the 
 southern coasts of England, and is to be found also 
 on those of Ireland and Scotland. It is frequently 
 seen attached to seaweeds by a flexuous, horny, 
 tubular fibre, in colour like mother of pearl, which 
 throws up at intervals plumous shoots, from an inch 
 to an inch and a half in height. They are very 
 
 SERTULAEIA ABIETINA. 
 
CORALLINES. 67 
 
 elegant and erect when in the sea, and when dry 
 become curved. They have been aptly compared to 
 the flower of the lily of the valley, having the 
 rims cut into eight equal teeth. 
 
 " Each plume," says Lister, in reference to a 
 specimen of this species, " might comprise from 
 four hundred to five hundred polyps." Another 
 described by Dr. Johnson, of no unusual size, had 
 
 SERTULAHIA PLUMA. 
 
 twelve plumes, with certainly not fewer cells on 
 each than the larger number mentioned, thus 
 affording habitations to six thousand polyps. In 
 a specimen taken by Mr. J. D. Dana, in the East 
 Indies, there are about twelve thousand polyps 
 
68 CORALLINES. 
 
 to each plumose branch ; and as the whole zoo- 
 phyte, being three feet long, bears these plumes, 
 on an average, every half inch on opposite sides, 
 the whole number of polyps is not less than 
 eight hundred millions ; all the offspring of a 
 single germ, and produced by successive bud- 
 dings. 
 
 Lister mentions a curious fact in reference to one 
 of these corallines : " After I had kept the clusters 
 in a large bowl for two days, I observed the animals 
 to droop and look unhealthy. On the third day, the 
 heads were all thrown off, and lying on the bottom 
 of the vessel, of a pink colour, and when it had stood 
 quietly for two days, it became a very fine powder. 
 Thinking that the tubes were dead, I was going to 
 throw them away, but I happened to be under the 
 necessity of quitting home for two days, and on my 
 return, I found a thin transparent film being pro- 
 truded from the top of every tube. I then changed 
 the water every day, and in three days every tube 
 had a small body reproduced upon it. The only 
 difference I could discover in the structure of the 
 young from the old heads, consists in the new ones 
 wanting the small red papilla with which the others 
 are provided, and in the absence of all colour in the 
 animal ! " 
 
 A variation from the last-noticed form is apparent 
 in another coralline, which adheres to rocks and shells 
 near low-water mark, and is also found in deep 
 water. This elegant species, which is very common, 
 
CORALLINES. 69 
 
 rises frequently to the height of eighteen inches, in 
 wide spiral turns, and sends out from its stem a 
 series of cells, and at regulated intervals, spreading 
 
 PLUMAKIA FALCATA. 
 
 branches, which are placed one above another on 
 the outer side. The size of the specimen placed 
 in the microscope, is shown at the side of the 
 engraving. 
 
 Another variety among corallines is common on 
 some parts of the British coasts, near low- water 
 mark, on aquatic plants. The representation now 
 given, like some others, was drawn from a specimen 
 by Mr. Boswell of Ozengall, near Ramsgate, who has 
 
70 
 
 CORALLINES. 
 
 collected a great di- 
 versity of these mi- 
 nute beings from that 
 part of the southern 
 coast. It grows from 
 two to four inches 
 high. The shoots are 
 slender, and always 
 erect ; the polyp cells 
 are exactly opposite. 
 Each of them is pro- 
 vided with a lid, 
 whence the name of 
 this coralline is de- 
 rived. The outer angle 
 of the aperture of the 
 cell is produced into 
 an acute point, and 
 there is a sharp tooth 
 on each side. 
 
 We now proceed to a form unlike any already 
 noticed, which is found on shells and stones in deep 
 water, on our southern coasts, in the north of 
 England, and also in Scotland. The tubes are 
 simple, about as thick as a common sized pin, 
 but some are almost, or quite as large as those 
 in the engraving. They are sometimes divided at 
 the base, where they are twisted and flexuous, some- 
 times wrinkled at distinct intervals, horn-coloured, 
 and from six to twelve inches in height. Ellis 
 
 DYNAMENA OPERCULATA. 
 
CORALLINES. 71 
 
 describes one of these tubes as like part of an oat 
 straw with the joints cut off. They are filled with a 
 soft, almost reddish pink pulp ; the polyps project from 
 the open ends of the tube, and are not retractile 
 
 TUBULARIA INDIYISA. 
 
 within them. The body, or naked portion of the 
 polyp, forms a globular knot of a scarlet colour, pro- 
 duced above, into a sort of proboscis, encircled with 
 a series of short arms of the same character. Around 
 the base of this body there is another circle of much 
 longer arms, from thirty to forty in number. The 
 
72 CORALLINES. 
 
 neck of the polyp is greatly constricted. A recent 
 tube is marked with several longitudinal pale lines, 
 placed at equal distances, which are evidently caused 
 
 CAMPANULARIA VOLUBILIS. 
 
 "With a Sickle Coralline, so called from its resemblance to that 
 instrument. 
 
 by some structure of the internal pulp, for when 
 empty the tubes exhibit no such appearance. As 
 the animal becomes weak when kept in a basin of 
 sesi water, the head drops off like a flower from the 
 stalk ; and if it is immersed, even when most 
 
CORALLINES. 73 
 
 vivacious, in fresh water, the pulp is expelled from 
 the tubes till they are almost emptied. 
 
 But though the head falls soon after recovery 
 from the sea, according to sir J. G. Dalyell, it is 
 renewed at intervals of from ten days to several 
 weeks, but with the number of external organs 
 successively diminishing, though the stem is always 
 lengthened. It seems to rise within the tubular stem 
 from below, and to be dependent upon the internal 
 tenacious matter with which the tube is occupied. 
 A head springs from the remaining stem, very near 
 the root ; and a redundance of heads may be obtained 
 from artificial sections, as in the instance of the 
 hydra already described, apparently beyond the 
 ordinary provision of nature. Thus twenty-two 
 heads were produced in the course of five hundred 
 and fifty days, from the sections of a single stem. 
 
 Johnstone says, of the coralline now presented, 
 " I have seen the antennae of a crab so pro- 
 fusely infested with this zoophyte as to resemble 
 hairy brushes. The creature had chosen, in this 
 instance, a station where it had all the advantages of 
 locomotion. This species is very minute. The 
 stem is a hair-like, horny tube, which creeps and 
 twists itself upon its support, throwing out at 
 alternate intervals a long slender twisted stalk, that 
 supports a bell-shaped cup of perfect transparency, 
 and prettily serrulated round the brim." 
 
 The stems of another coralline* are clustered ; it 
 * Antenularia raraosa. 
 F 
 
74 
 
 CORALLINES. 
 
 is erect, straight, cylindrical, of a clear yellowish 
 horn colour, irregularly branched or undivided, and 
 attaining the height of eight inches. The branches, 
 when dried, resemble the antennae of a lobster. 
 They are exceedingly like the primary shoot, equally 
 furnished with hair-like branchlets, and arranged 
 in numerous whorls. They carry the polyp cells, 
 which are distinct and small, with entire rims, and 
 divided from each other by a 
 joint. 
 
 Thus far we have traced 
 a very remarkable structure 
 of microscopic beings. We 
 have seen in several instances 
 a series of cells, each one the 
 habitation of a polyp, and 
 having often a marked pecu- 
 liarity of form, arranged in 
 exact but varied order about 
 the central stem. Another 
 wonder now demands especial 
 notice ; for a living thread 
 runs through not only the 
 stem of every coralline, but 
 also every branch, constituting 
 in fact, of the whole struc- 
 ture, one living animal. The 
 polyps are merely the active 
 auxiliaries to its existence 
 and support. It used to be said that the jackal was 
 
 ANTENULARIA RAMOS A. 
 
VESICLES OF CORALLINES. 75 
 
 the lion's provider, and the polyps may be repre- 
 sented as the jackals of the coralline. How mar- 
 vellous are the arrangements of this complicated 
 being ! "We have not a solitary coralline, to be 
 contemplated on taking it from the waters, but one 
 of a long series of greatly diversified species, each 
 one having some peculiarity, and not unfrequently 
 many, by which it may be easily distinguished from 
 all others. Every peculiarity answers moreover the 
 design of the All-wise and Supreme Artificer, and 
 shows how minute are the arrangements he makes 
 for the existence and continuance 
 of the humblest of his creatures. 
 
 Nor is the tale of wonder yet 
 finished. For, as the eye dwelt 
 upon the engravings over which 
 we have just passed, it could not 
 fail to notice other objects to 
 which as yet no allusion has been 
 made.* These are vesicles, which 
 are apparent on corallines in the 
 spring of the year, and exhibit, 
 in common with every other part 
 of such structures, great variety. 
 The vesicles of the Sertularia 
 abietina are scattered, smooth, and 
 
 , , , , rr( , VESICLES OF THE SER- 
 
 nave a tubulous mouth. They TULARIA PRIMATA. 
 are always on the upper edge of the branch from 
 which they originate. In Plumaria falcata, they 
 * See pp. 66-70. 
 
76 
 
 VESICLES OF CORALLINES. 
 
 are scattered irregularly on the 
 branches, stalked, ovate, or pear- 
 shaped, with a short tubulous 
 aperture, and occasionally wrin- 
 kled longitudinally, when dry. In 
 the Sertularia pluma, they are 
 large and remarkably curious : 
 they are produced from the 
 main stalk, and resemble a swol- 
 
 SERTULARIA TAMARJSCA. i i i i i -^i / 
 
 len pod, girded round with from 
 five to nine ribs or bands, pro* 
 ceeding from a dorsal tube, and 
 rising into short spines on the 
 anterior margin; when recent, 
 they are translucent. The ves- 
 icles of the Dynamena oper- 
 culata are large, smooth, .egg- 
 shaped, the top often covered 
 
 SERTULARIA POLYZOMA. 
 
 VESICLES or THE 
 
 ANTENULARIA. 
 
 RAMOSA. 
 
 the Tubular ia indivisa clusters 
 of oviform gemmules appear at 
 certain seasons. The vesicles 
 of the Antenularia ramosa, on 
 the contrary, are attached to the 
 central stem, and not to the 
 branches. 
 
 The vesicles, of which only a 
 few specimens have now been 
 given, are the seed vessels of the 
 
 P , TT ,-t n 
 
 future race. Here the germs float 
 
VESICLES OF CORALLINES. 77 
 
 about in a fluid. In one case described by Dr. Grant, 
 they are large, of a light brown colour, semi-opaque, 
 nearly spherical, composed of minute transparent 
 granules, ciliated on the surface, and distinctly irri- 
 table. On placing an entire vesicle, with its germs, 
 under the microscope, the cilia were seen through 
 the transparent sides, actively vibrating, and the 
 currents that were produced in the fluid within, 
 by their motion. When the vesicles were opened 
 with needles in a drop of sea water, the germs 
 were observed to glide to and fro through it, 
 at first slowly, and afterwards more quickly, the 
 cilia propelling them, with the same part always 
 forward. 
 
 They are highly irritable, and frequently contract 
 their bodies into singular forms. This is especially 
 observable when they come into contact with a hair, 
 a filament of seaweed, a grain of sand, or any other 
 minute object. Such changes are likewise fre- 
 quently observable when a germ is busied in attach- 
 ing itself permanently to the surface of the glass. 
 After the germs are fixed, they become flat and 
 circular, and their more opaque parts radiated, so 
 that they now appear, even to the naked eye, like so 
 many minute grey-coloured stars, having the inter- 
 stices between the rays filled with a colourless 
 transparent matter, which seems to harden into 
 horn. The grey matter swells in the centre where 
 the rays meet, and rises perpendicularly, surrounded 
 by the transparent horny matter, so as to form the 
 
78 VESICLES OF CORALLINES. 
 
 stem of the future zoophyte. The rays first formed 
 are the fleshy central substance of the roots, and the 
 portion of that substance which grows perpen- 
 dicularly, forms the fleshy part of the stem. 
 
 What surprising metamorphoses do we witness in 
 the animal kingdom ! In one part of it we hear a 
 voice directing us to trace the course of " the help- 
 less crawling caterpillar," 
 
 " Which to the tomb a willing guest descends. 
 But when revolving months have won their way, 
 When smile the woods, and when the zephyrs play, 
 When laughs the vivid world in summer's bloom, 
 He bursts, and flies triumphant from the tomb ; 
 And while his new-born beauties he displays, 
 With conscious joy his alter'd form surveys." 
 
 Well might the poet add : 
 
 " And deems weak man the future promise vain, 
 When worms can die, and, glorious, rise again ?" 
 
 But in the history of these corallines we see germs 
 provided with cilia in constant rotatory motion, by 
 which their birth seems to be facilitated; and when 
 at liberty in the water, moving and swimming about 
 as if they were guided by volition and sense, 
 whirling at the same time on their own axis. This 
 freedom of motion may continue for several hours, 
 or even for two or three days, before a proper site 
 for permanent stay and future growth is found. Yet 
 this being determined, they become fixed corallines, 
 and begin to shoot up into those beautiful forms, 
 which the Supreme Being has ordained in accord- 
 ance with their particular species. 
 
WONDERFUL METAMORPHOSES. 79 
 
 While growth and reproduction are proceeding 
 in the coralline, the older parts of it die. The 
 polyps disappear, and the lower branches frequently 
 drop off, leaving the trunk in this part bare. Thus 
 budding and dying are simultaneous in different 
 parts of corallines. In the large species, the main 
 stem or midrib becomes lifeless, or the mere support 
 for the numerous lateral plumes or branchlets. 
 
 Some of these polyps are said to be absorbed 
 in their cells, and after a while to reappear. This 
 fact has been observed to occur at nearly regular 
 intervals. Thus all the cells of a living group have 
 been found empty after a certain period, or with 
 only the remains of the wasted polyps, the whole 
 evidence of vitality being the continued vibration 
 of the fluid of the trunk. The polyp heads seem 
 to drop off like a deciduous flower, yet, after ten 
 days or more, they are reproduced. Harvey observes, 
 that after he had kept a Tubularia two days, the 
 heads began to look unhealthy, and on the third 
 they were thrown off, and lay at the bottom of the 
 vessel. After another three days, during which the 
 water was changed, the polyps were entirely renewed, 
 with no essential difference except the absence of 
 colour. The cold of winter is said to strip off some- 
 times the polyp flowers, which remain apparently 
 dead till spring, when the coralline is warmed 
 anew into life, and the flowers are once more 
 apparent. 
 
 According to Van Beneden, some corallines, when 
 
80 PKODUCTION OF POLYPS. 
 
 first developed, are like little medusas or jelly-fishes 
 in shape, and have eight eyes, which are lost as the 
 animal attaches itself to some object. Sir J. G. 
 Dalyell, who had previously observed their forms, 
 states that the young, after the arms are formed, 
 advance by means of them, and being inverted, move 
 as on so many feet, apparently to select a site ; when, 
 again resuming the natural direction of the arms, 
 the lower surface fixes itself, and the animal becomes 
 rooted there for the whole time of its being. 
 
 The polyp cells of Laomedia gelatinosa are 
 deeply cupped, transparent, with a wide even 
 margin. The vesicles are urn-shaped, and smooth, 
 shooting from the axils of the pedicles ; they are 
 matured during the summer months, " when," says 
 Dr. Johnstone, " we find them filled with ova of 
 a circular flattish form, marked with a dark speck 
 in the centre. At first they fill not more than half 
 of the vesicle, but by their increase in size, they 
 soon come to fill the whole cavity, and are ultimately 
 extruded from the top, after which the empty 
 vesicle soon disappears. The ova, while in the 
 vesicle, are arranged round a central column, and 
 the lid which closes the vesicle, is a mere expan- 
 sion of this column, which appears to be composed 
 of two pieces soldered together, where, perhaps, 
 the ova are more immediately affixed in their im- 
 mature state. . 
 
 The polyps have about twenty long arms 
 roughened with minute tubercles, placed in whorls. 
 
PHOSPHORESCENT ZOOPHYTES. 81 
 
 In their centre is the mouth, which sometimes 
 assumes the shape of a rounded projecting tubercle, 
 at others of a narrow column, and sometimes of a 
 broad flat disc with a stricture under it, simulating 
 a neck. It leads directly to the stomachal cavity, 
 which is large and undivided, and I have occasionally 
 witnessed within it currents of a fluid filled with 
 minute granules, that has been more fully noticed by 
 Mr. Lister and Dr. Fleming." 
 
 How exquisite are these marvellous arrangements 
 of Infinite Wisdom ! In microscopic beings, we 
 discover a variety of essential and important parts 
 and movements, the organs of which we have as yet 
 no power to trace. Still it is truly said 
 
 " The minutest throb 
 That through their frame diffuses 
 
 The slightest, faintest motion, 
 Is fix'd and indispensable 
 
 As the majestic laws 
 That rule yon rolling orbs." 
 
 As many zoophytes are phosphorescent, they may 
 well be described as 
 
 " Spangling the wave with lights as vain, 
 As pleasures in this vale of pain, 
 That dazzle as they fade." 
 
 Dr. Johnstone says, " Every member of one 
 family is luminous, at will, perhaps, although they 
 light up their tiny lamps apparently when under 
 the influence of some painful irritation ; will-o'-the- 
 wisps of the sea, put out to frighten feeble assailants." 
 
82 PHOSPHORESCENT ZOOPHYTES. 
 
 Crabbe has noticed the same effect. In describing 
 sea-side objects, he says with great truth : 
 
 " While thus with pleasing wonder you inspect, 
 Treasures, the vulgar in their scorn reject, 
 See as they float along the entangled weeds, 
 Slowly approach upborne on bladdery weeds ; 
 Wait till they land, and you shall then behold 
 The fiery sparks, those tangled fronds infold 
 Myriads of living points ; the unaided eye 
 Can but the fire, and not the form descry." 
 
 The naturalist appears more clearly in these 
 words than the poet, for if a leaf of the Fucus 
 seratus with the Sertularia upon it, receive a smart 
 stroke with a stick in the dark, the whole coralline 
 is most beautifully illuminated, every denticle 
 appearing to be on fire. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SEA ANEMONE AND MOSS CORALS. 
 
 IT is delightful to visit the shores of the ocean, 
 when the heat of mid-day is past, and the refreshing 
 sea breezes invigorate the frame. Such circum- 
 stances are the last in which the lover of nature can 
 be idle ; for there may be observed beings of which 
 there are countless multitudes, varying in form, 
 character, and habits, all exhibiting the perfections 
 of Him who called them into existence. 
 
 If, for example, in our walk on the sands of the 
 seashore, when the retiring tide has left bare a low 
 cluster of weed-covered rocks, with little pools 
 between, we have an opportunity of observing a 
 species of polyp frequently found there, it will be 
 well to examine the little creature. It is the 
 Actinia ; and from the radiation of its arms, which 
 may be distinctly observed on its upper surface, 
 it has been called the sea anemone, the sea sunflower, 
 as well as other names, indicative of similarity. 
 
 The actinia consists of a soft, fleshy, cylindrical 
 body, attached by its base to the surface of the rock, 
 the opposite extremity having a mouth, surrounded 
 by several rows of arms, which can expand, con- 
 tract, or move about, as may be required. 
 
 The appearance of the actinia is very beautiful 
 
84 THE SEA ANEMONE. 
 
 when the arms are fully expanded, and the effect is 
 increased by the fine colours which they often 
 assume, and which vary in different individuals. 
 
 THE SEA ANEMONE, OR ACTINIA. 
 
 These animals are endowed with great sensibility, 
 contracting not only when touched, however deli- 
 cately, but even when a dark cloud passes over the 
 sky, as if apprehensive of impending danger from the 
 sudden obscuration of the light. They can lengthen 
 their bodies, and turn with expanded arms from side to 
 side, either to enjoy the rays of the sun, or in quest 
 of prey. If a person endeavours to disengage them 
 from the rock to which they are attached by their 
 sucker-like base, they forcibly contract themselves 
 into a firm round mass, with a slimy surface, and 
 are not easily removed without injury. They are 
 not, however, so fixed that they cannot change their 
 situation ; they can slowly glide upon the surface of 
 the rock, or they can become detached entirely, and 
 
THE SEA ANEMONE. 85 
 
 filling themselves with water, so as to be nearly of 
 the same specific gravity as their native fluid, suffer 
 themselves to be carried by the current to another 
 spot ; and it has been asserted, that they can turn 
 themselves, and crawl about by means of their 
 tentacles. 
 
 The actinia is very voracious ; it preys on animals 
 with which it might appear to be totally unfit to 
 contend, such as crabs ; and for these it waits with 
 expanded arms, ready to grapple them at the 
 moment of contact. In clear water, it may be 
 watched thus engaged ; and it is curious to observe 
 the wandering crab instantaneously brought within 
 the grasp of these arms and pertinaciously grasped, 
 the arms closing gradually around it, and by their 
 contraction forcing the prey within the mouth, 
 which opens to devour it. It endures, however, 
 long abstinence without apparent inconvenience, 
 though it is probable that the animalcules, which 
 abound in the water, may contribute in some slight 
 degree to its nourishment. Yet it may be preserved 
 in a vessel of sea water, duly changed, for upwards 
 of a year without having visible food ; but woe to the 
 mussel or crab that is offered for its reception ! A 
 crab as large as a hen's egg, or two mussels, shells 
 included, will serve an actinia for a meal. The 
 work of digestion is rapid : in two or three days the 
 shells will be disgorged, not a particle of the soft 
 contents of the prey remaining. 
 
 Mr. Bennett, in his " Wanderings," states a re- 
 
86 THE SEA ANEMONE. 
 
 markable fact in reference to one of these creatures. 
 " I had once brought to me an actinia* that might 
 have been originally two inches in diameter, and that 
 had somehow contrived to swallow a valve of the 
 common scallop, j of the size of an ordinary saucer. 
 The shell fixed within the stomach was so placed 
 as to divide it completely into halves, so that the 
 body, stretched tensely over, had become thin and 
 flattened like a pancake. All communication be- 
 tween the inferior portion of the stomach and the 
 mouth was of course prevented ; yet, instead of 
 emaciating and dying of atrophy, the animal had 
 availed itself of what had undoubtedly been a very 
 untoward accident to increase its enjoyments, and 
 its chances of double fare. A new mouth, furnished 
 with two rows of numerous arms, was opened upon 
 what had been the base, and led to the under 
 stomach. The individual had, indeed, become a 
 sort of Siamese twin, but with greater intimacy 
 and extent in its union !" 
 
 The external part of the actinia consists of bundles 
 of muscular fibres, running in various directions, 
 some perpendicularly, others transversely. In the 
 intervening spaces between these fibres thus inter- 
 laced, are numerous small granular bodies, which 
 are universally distributed, except on the sucking 
 base or disc. Over this tissue is a mucous layer, 
 forming a species of outer skin, which appears to be 
 thrown off at intervals and renewed. The stomach, 
 * Actinia gemmacea. f Pecten maximus. 
 
THE SEA ANEMONE. 87 
 
 a simple membranous sac, seems to be a continu- 
 ation of the external tissue. 
 
 The arms, of the same structure as the body, are 
 tubular, having a minute orifice at their extremity ; 
 and their interior communicates with a compart- 
 ment between the stomach and the external tissue, 
 or wall of the body. This compartment is divided by 
 longitudinal membranous partitions into numerous 
 chambers, between which there is a free communi- 
 
 SECTION OF ACTINIA. 
 
 Showing the chambered cavity with the eggs on the left. 
 
 cation. This chambered or divided cavity is the 
 respiratory or aerating receptacle, and is filled with 
 the sea water taken in through the arms, and 
 expelled by them when the animal contracts ; a fresh 
 supply being absorbed on the dilating of the body. 
 It appears to be thus under the creature's volition ; 
 
88 THE SEA ANEMONE. 
 
 and it has been observed, of examples kept in 
 vessels, that as the fluid in which they are confined 
 becomes deficient of air, and consequently less fitted 
 for the purpose of aquatic respiration, they fill 
 themselves with it almost till they burst, and re- 
 semble inflated bladders. This is evidently done 
 because it is only in a great volume of such fluid 
 that the quantity of air necessary for the support of 
 life, and which a much smaller volume of unex- 
 hausted water would supply, is now contained. 
 
 In these respiratory compartments, the eggs are 
 arranged in clusters on a delicate convoluted mem- 
 brane ; and it appears, that on being detached from 
 it, they either pass, by means of a minute orifice, 
 into the bottom of the stomach, whence they escape, 
 or are transmitted through the arms. It is said by 
 some authorities that the eggs are hatched internally, 
 the young being extruded ; by others, that the eggs 
 are hatched after expulsion. There is, however, 
 much in the economy of these animals yet to be 
 investigated. 
 
 The actinia has a power of reproduction equal to 
 that of the hydra. Any one may be divided, each 
 part becoming a perfect animal ; but when cut 
 asunder transversely, the basal portion is about 
 two months in gaining its rows of arms. 
 
 Hughes, in his Natural History of Barbadoes, 
 describes some of them as found in a sub-marine 
 rock basin. " In the middle of it," he says, " there 
 is a fixed stone or rock, which is always under 
 
THE SEA ANEMONE. 89 
 
 water. Round its sides at different depths, seldom 
 exceeding eighteen inches, are seen at all times of 
 the year, issuing out of little holes, certain sub- 
 stances that have the appearance of fine radiated 
 flowers, of a pale yellow, or a bright straw colour, 
 slightly tinged with green, having a circular border 
 of thickset petals, about the size of, and much re- 
 sembling, those of a single garden marigold, except 
 that the whole of this seeming flower is narrower at 
 the setting on of the leaves than any flower of that 
 kind." 
 
 After describing various unsuccessful efforts to 
 capture one, the same writer adds : 
 
 " I once cut off with a knife which I had held 
 for a long time out of sight near the mouth of a 
 hole out of which one of these animals appeared 
 two of these seeming leaves. These, when out of 
 the water, retained their shape and colour ; but 
 being composed of a membrane-like substance, sur- 
 prisingly thin, it soon shrivelled up and decayed. 
 Many people coming to see these strange creatures, 
 and occasioning some inconvenience to a person 
 through whose grounds they were obliged to pass, 
 he resolved to destroy the objects of their curiosity. 
 That he might do so effectually, he caused all the 
 holes out of which they appeared, to be carefully 
 bored and drilled with an iron instrument, so that 
 we cannot suppose but their bodies must have been 
 entirely crushed to a pulp ; nevertheless, they ap- 
 peared in a few weeks from the very same places." 
 
 G 
 
90 
 
 THE SEA ANEMONE. 
 
 In ordinary circumstances, the young, already 
 formed, are seen issuing, sometimes from the mouth ; 
 and at others the base of the parent is dissevered, a 
 portion remaining attached to the rock, where it 
 continues to live, increasing in size, becoming more 
 and more rounded, while in a short time, a mouth, 
 stomach, and arms are formed, presenting to the 
 
 ZOANTHUS. 
 
 well-grounded astonishment of the observer, a com- 
 plete actinia. At length, the side portions of this 
 base give out globules, which being detached,, fix 
 themselves on adjacent rocks, where they grow, and 
 form a new colony like the parent animal. 
 
 Each species generally selects a peculiar haunt, 
 
MOSS CORALS. 91 
 
 but they are found in every sea ; many of them 
 being used as food in tropical countries, on whose 
 coasts they are more numerous than in colder 
 climates. Some appear suspended from the vaults 
 of submarine reefs, others covering the more ex- 
 posed sides of rocks with a sort of flower, like 
 tapestry, and others confining themselves to the 
 smooth sands. 
 
 Nearly allied to the genus actinia is that termed 
 Zoanthus ; the polyps, indeed, closely resemble the 
 actinia, but they are united together on a common 
 base, and are therefore, individually, not so inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 There is a large class of animals, almost all of 
 microscopic minuteness, often called Bryozoa, or 
 moss corals. Of these, hundreds of microscopic 
 fossil species have been recently detected by the 
 researches and unwearied labours of Ehrenberg and 
 d'Orbigny ; and it would appear that their shelly 
 cases, or cells, enter into the composition of chalk 
 beds, compact mountain limestone, the flints of the 
 Jura limestone, the seasand of Europe, the Mau- 
 ritius, the Sandwich and adjacent islands, and the 
 sands of the Lybian desert. Many are invisible to 
 the naked eye; others resemble minute grains. 
 Of these fossil forms of bryozoa, not a few are 
 found still existing in a living state. Ehrenberg 
 has determined fifty- seven species in the Adriatic 
 sea and open ocean to be identical with fossil 
 species. 
 
92 MOSS CORALS. 
 
 Some idea of the minuteness of various species 
 of these fossil moss corals may be formed, when it is 
 known that in the finest levigated whiting, multi- 
 tudes are present, without having suffered change in 
 the preparation of the chalk ; and that, by the aid of 
 the microscope, a mosaic work of moss corals may 
 be seen, of varied and beautiful forms, on the chalk 
 coating upon the walls of a room. 
 
 The best way of observing these minute fossils is, 
 to place a drop of water on a delicate film of mica, 
 and add to it as much of fine chalk powder as 
 the top of a penknife will take up. Let this be 
 spread out like a very thin layer, the water be drained 
 off, and with it the floating particles. When the 
 layer is quite dry, it should be coated over with 
 pure Canada balsam, holding it during the addition 
 of the balsam over a spirit lamp till it becomes 
 slightly fluid ; but clear and without froth. In the 
 management of this, some dexterity and practice are 
 requisite ; but when effected with delicacy, the 
 preparation generally proves successful. 
 
 Some of the moss corals appear as a cluster of 
 minute cells, or open vesicles, of a calcareous struc- 
 ture, forming patches of greater or less extent, on 
 all marine productions, vegetable, animal, or inor- 
 ganic. Their minuteness often causes them to be 
 overlooked by the ordinary eye, nor is their true 
 character to be discovered except by microscopic 
 examination, when they are seen distinctly as 
 clusters or groups of cells. Each of the cells is 
 
THE FLAXEN FLUSTRA. 93 
 
 inhabited by a polyp, which extends at will its 
 ciliated arms. 
 
 The Flustra carba- 
 cea or flaxen flustra, is 
 found on shells from 
 deep water on the 
 southern coast, on that 
 of Durham, on Leith 
 shore, and on the coast 
 of Ireland. It is fixed 
 by a small disc, nar- 
 row at the base, with 
 thickened margins di- 
 lating upwards, and 
 becoming very broad 
 in proportion to the 
 height, which at most 
 is about two inches ; 
 it is thin, yellowish 
 brown, deeply divided, ^r*unmu. PLUSTHA CAKBACEA. 
 
 and the segments are broad, and somewhat rounded 
 at the apex. 
 
 The cells on one side are large and smooth, the 
 polyps have about twenty-two arms, which are 
 nearly one-third of the length of the body, and 
 there appear to be about fifty cilia on each side of 
 an arm, making 22,000 cilia on each polyp. In this 
 species, there are more than eighteen cells in a 
 square line, and 1,800 in a square inch of surface, 
 and as the branches of an ordinary specimen 
 
94 
 
 THE FLAXEN FLUSTKA. 
 
 present about ten square inches of surface, it has 
 more than 18,000 polyps, 396,000 arms, and 
 39,600,000 cilia. Often in such observations are 
 we reminded of the words of Lucretius : 
 
 " How many animals whose middle part 
 The sharpest eye can't see ! 
 How, then, each little member of the whole !" 
 
 In the Flustra foliacea there are at least twice 
 as many, or 36,000 living beings, all actively 
 employed in the seizure of food, all working their 
 arms, and rapidly vibrating the cilia which cover 
 them. 
 
 Others present stems, or leaves 
 of a horny texture, sometimes cel- 
 lular on one side only ; sometimes 
 on both. The large foliaceous flus- 
 tra, just mentioned, has cells on 
 both sides, with elevated margins ; 
 the margin of each being armed, at 
 its upper part, with two spines. The 
 extension of the cells of the flustra 
 takes place laterally, the innermost, 
 or most central, being often destitute 
 of polyps, while the external series 
 
 POLYP OF FLUSTRA / * 
 
 CARBACEA. of cells is tenanted. The aperture 
 of each cell of the Flustra foliacea is defended 
 by four projecting spines, which arise from the 
 calcareous margin of the cell. There are two 
 spines on each side of the aperture ; the upper two 
 being twice the length of the lower pair, and slightly 
 
THE FLAXEN FLUSTRA. 95 
 
 curved upwards. When we look transversely on 
 the surface of a branch, the spines appear to be 
 arranged in very regular transverse curved rows ; 
 and when we observe the surface longitudinally, 
 they appear to be arranged in very regular longi- 
 tudinal straight lines. 
 
 The spines are calcareous, tubular, cylindrical, 
 shut at their extremity, and obviously appear in- 
 tended to protect the expanded polyp. The two 
 pairs of spines belonging to each cell are placed 
 on the upper half of the cell, though from the 
 contiguity of the cells, the lower half of each is like- 
 wise defended by the spines of the adjacent cells, so 
 that they also serve to protect the polyps when in a 
 retracted state. No projecting spines of this kind 
 are found in the Flustra carbacea. 
 
 According to Dr. Farre, the transparent horny 
 cell which closely embraces the body of the animal 
 is nearly unyielding in its lower two-thirds, but 
 terminates above by a flexible portion, which serves 
 to protect the upper part of the body when the 
 whole is expanded, in which state it is of the same 
 diameter as the rest of the cell ; but when the 
 animal retracts, is folded up and drawn in after it, 
 and completely closes the mouth of the cell. 
 
 The flexible part consists of two portions : the 
 lower half being a simple continuation of the rest of 
 the cell ; the upper, consisting of a row of delicate 
 bristle- shaped processes, which are arranged parallel 
 with each other round the top of the cell, and are 
 
96 THE FLAXEN FLUSTRA. 
 
 prevented separating beyond a certain distance, by 
 a membrane of excessive tenuity, which surrounds 
 and connects the whole. This mode of the termi- 
 nation of a cell is one of constant occurrence, and is 
 evidently a provision for allowing of the freest 
 possible motion of the upper part of the body in its 
 expanded state, to which, at the same time, it affords 
 support and protection. 
 
 The aperture of the cells in the Flustra foliacea 
 is formed by a semicircular lid, convex externally, 
 and concave internally, which folds down when the 
 polyp is about to advance from the cell. The 
 opening of this lid in the Flustra truncata, where 
 it is very long, appears, Dr. Grant tells us, when 
 seen through the microscope, like the opening of a 
 snake's jaws, and the organs by which this motion 
 is effected are not perceptible. The lid of the cells 
 opens and shuts in flustrce, without the slightest 
 perceptible synchronous motion of the polyps. 
 
 Hooke, in his Micrographics says : " For 
 curiosity and beauty, I have not among all the plants 
 or vegetables I have yet observed, seen any one 
 comparable with this seaweed," referring to the 
 Flustra foliacea. When recent it exhales a pleasant 
 scent. Pallas compares it to that of the orange ; 
 Dr. Grant, to the perfume of violets ; and a friend 
 of Dr. Johnstone's, to the mingled odour of roses 
 and geraniums. 
 
 In the vesicle of the Flustra carbacea, there is 
 but one egg, and as it enlarges it rises higher, till, in 
 
THE FLAXEN FLTJSTRA. 97 
 
 its mature state, it occupies the broad upper part 
 of the cell. When it has thus gained the summit, 
 we may observe a distinct wide helmet-shaped 
 capsule, surrounding it and separating it from the 
 cavity of the cell. On examining the egg within 
 this capsule by the microscope, we perceive its 
 cilia in rapid motion, and Dr. Grant has frequently 
 seen the egg in this situation contract itself in 
 different directions, shrink back in its capsule, and 
 exhibit many signs of irritability before its final 
 escape. The helmet-shaped capsule is open at the 
 top, and connected with the aperture of the cell, so 
 that the egg readily escapes by' contracting its body 
 and moving its cilia. On escaping from the cell, 
 the egg glides to and fro by their action, and after 
 fixing, it is changed into a single complete cell, from 
 which new cells shoot forward. Polyps make their 
 appearance in short sacs at the bottom of the new 
 cells, when they are sufficiently forward to protect 
 them. When the egg has escaped from the cell, the 
 dark round spot in the centre of the cell enlarges, 
 and the new polyps shoot out from that point, so 
 that at the proper season we may observe young 
 polyps in every situation of the branches ; the whole 
 of the old cells are thus never found entirely deserted, 
 the same cells may repeatedly produce eggs and 
 polyps, and the whole zoophyte retain its energy 
 for several seasons. 
 
 With regard to the cells of these polyps, it must 
 be observed that they constitute an integral part of 
 
98 FLUSTKA FOLIACEA. 
 
 the animal itself ; they are not, like the sheU of the 
 snail, merely a calcareous, or horny deposition, 
 moulded on the body of the animals, but are, in fact, 
 a portion of the tegumentary covering of the polyps, 
 which, by the secretion of calcareous particles in its 
 tissue, assumes a firm consistence, without ceasing 
 to receive nutriment. Thus, then, the cells clustered 
 together, form a vital and organic bond of union 
 between the polyps, which may be regarded as so 
 many seizing and digesting organs, labouring for the 
 good of the general mass, or common skeleton. 
 
 At different ages, the cells undergo certain modi- 
 fications of form ; a proof that they are in vital 
 connexion with the animal, and not extraneous. 
 In species where the young spring from the sides of 
 those first formed, and there remain, examination 
 will satisfy that the configuration of the cells not 
 only changes with age, but that it is upon the external 
 surface that these changes are chiefly effected. If, 
 then, we take up &flustra, (&sF.foliacea,) we may 
 regard the whole, with justice, as a living skeleton, 
 " presenting a long series of generations linked to 
 each other ;" the relative ages of the individuals, 
 composing the general whole, being indicated by the 
 position they occupy; those along the margin, 
 and at the extremity, being the last produced. We 
 sometimes observe parts in calcareous zoophytes, 
 possessing distinct powers of motion, though appa- 
 rently unconnected with the body of the polyp. 
 Thus in the Cellaria avencularia,whosQ polyps have 
 
THE BOWERBANKJA DENSA. 99 
 
 the same structure and the same connexion with the 
 cells as the flustrce, Dr. Grant has observed in living 
 specimens a constant motion of flexion and exten- 
 sion in certain remarkable testaceous processes, 
 shaped like a bird's head, and attached by a kind of 
 stem to the outside of all the cells. These processes 
 and organs are likewise provided with lateral folds, 
 like the valves of a shell, which have a distinct and 
 regular motion corresponding with the flexion and 
 extension of the entire process. 
 
 One genus* comprehends a very singular group 
 of moss corals, of which the cells, in dense clusters, 
 are irregularly scattered on the stem, which is usu- 
 ally attached to the common seaweed. f The best 
 known species is the Sowerbankia densa of Dr. 
 Farre. In its early stage of development, the cells 
 do not spring from a stem, or raised polypary, but 
 spread in a single layer over the surface of the 
 seaweed ; and afterwards, a stem rises. Mr. Hassell 
 gives a figure of the perfect zoophyte, from which 
 the annexed figure is taken. 
 
 It is, however, to Dr. Farre that we owe our 
 knowledge of the structure of this singular animal; 
 his account, which refers to the immature of the 
 species, we shall give as briefly as possible. 
 
 The polyp inhabits a transparent horny tube, 
 
 about a line in length ; and of these tubes, small 
 
 clusters, arising from a common base, may not un- 
 
 frequently be detected. When protruded from the 
 
 * Valkeria. f Fucus vesiculosus. 
 
100 
 
 THE VALKERIA IMBRICATA. 
 
 orifice of its tubular cell, the polyp spreads out ten 
 long slender arms surrounding the mouth. On 
 their outer surface is a row of stiff spines ; and 
 besides these, a number of minute vibrating cilia, 
 which are thrown continually into the most rapid 
 movements, so as to produce a vortex, a mimic 
 whirlpool, gyrating to the mouth, and carrying with 
 it particles of food. Sometimes the arms themselves 
 grasp minute objects, and 
 draw them in. The mouth 
 surrounded by the arms, a, is 
 a simple orifice leading into a 
 capacious gullet, b : this gra- 
 dually narrowing, terminates 
 in a muscular gizzard, c, of a 
 rounded figure, with fibres 
 radiating from two dark spots, 
 and internally furnished with 
 minute bruising teeth. To 
 this succeeds a stomach, d, 
 apparently furnished with nu- 
 merous glands. 
 
 POLYP AND CELL OE VAL- ^ intestinal Q ^l, 6, 
 
 KERIA IMBRICATA, (im- 
 
 maturo.)!. Horny base, emerges from the upper por- 
 2. Soft part of tube, tion of the stomach, and run- 
 3 Bristles, supporting a , . 
 
 filmy transparent web. nm g upwards, terminates below 
 
 the base of the arms. When 
 
 the animal withdraws into its cell, by the aid of certain 
 
 muscles, the alimentary canal is thrown into tortuous 
 
 folds. Two of these retractor muscles may be seen, 
 
THE VALKERIA IMBRICATA. 101 
 
 one, /, arising from the lower part of the tube, and 
 inserted into the upper part of the gullet ; the other, 
 #, into the bottom of the stomach. But besides 
 these muscles, there is a set connected with the 
 tentacular apparatus, for closing them up ; in order, 
 however, to understand how this is effected, we must 
 attend more minutely to the cell itself. 
 
 The cell may be divided into three portions : 
 1. A basal, horny, transparent portion, firm and 
 unyielding. 2. A soft, flexible continuation ; and, 
 3. A marginal circle of bristle-shaped appendages, 
 connected like the rays on the fins of a fish by a 
 most delicate tissue. 
 
 When the animal withdraws itself, the arms are 
 first folded up into a close bundle, and then retracted; 
 the gullet being drawn down at the same time. 
 With the descent of the ossophagus the soft part of 
 the tube begins to be inverted, and the setce, or 
 bristles, gradually close together. These are then 
 drawn inwards till they disappear, the soft tubular 
 part forming a sheath around them, the whole con- 
 stituting a sort of stopper, shutting up the animal in 
 its horny case. The muscles by which this retrac- 
 tion of the tentacles is effected, are six in number ; 
 they arise from the horny part of the shell, and 
 are inserted into its flexible portion, on which 
 they act. 
 
 How marvellous are the facts on which we are 
 dwelling ! Well may they lead us to say with 
 Fenelon : " my God, he who does not see thee 
 
102 THE HAND OF GOD. 
 
 in thy works, has seen nothing ! He who does not 
 confess thy hand in the beautiful productions of 
 this well-ordered world, is a stranger to the best 
 affections of the heart. He exists as though 
 he existed not ; and his life is no more than a 
 dream." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CORALS AND MADREPORES. 
 
 AT various depths of the ocean, objects are often 
 observed of great interest and beauty. To quote an 
 old poet, Du Bartas : 
 
 " Seas have, 
 
 As well as earth, vines, roses, nettles, melons, 
 Mushrooms, pinks, gilliflowers, and many millions 
 Of other plants more rare and strange than these, 
 As very fishes living in the seas." 
 
 Southey, in closing his wild description of 
 Thalaba, says : 
 
 " Meantime with fuller reach and stronger swell 
 
 Wave after wave advanced : 
 Each following billow lifted the last foam 
 That trembled on the sand with rainbow hues ; 
 The living flower, that rooted to the rock 
 
 Late from the thinner element 
 Shrunk down within its purple stem to sleep, 
 
 Now feels the water, and again 
 
 Awakening, blossoms out 
 All its green anther-necks." 
 
 " There are few things," says captain Basil Hall, 
 when in the West Indies, " more beautiful to look 
 upon than the corallines, when viewed through two 
 or three fathoms of clear still water. It is hardly 
 an exaggeration to assert, that the colours of the 
 
104 THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN. 
 
 rainbow are put to shame on a bright sunny day, by 
 what meets the view on looking into the sea in 
 these fairy regions." 
 
 On another occasion, lieutenant Wellsted says : 
 " Through the bright blue and pellucid water, we 
 could discern the minutest objects at an immense 
 depth, andj the secrets of the deep, thus laid open to 
 us, afforded us the most magnificent spectacle that 
 could be conceived ; although there were neither 
 
 * Wedges of gold, vast anchors, heaps of pearls, 
 Nor other treasures of the vasty deep.'" 
 
 Ehrenberg was so much struck by the corals 
 in the Red Sea, that he exclaimed with enthu- 
 siasm, " Where is the paradise of flowers that can 
 rival in variety and beauty these living wonders of 
 the ocean ?" 
 
 The growing coral field is singularly attractive. 
 Such a combination of two terms, indeed, the one 
 calling up the idea of inorganic, and the other of 
 organic matter all the difference, in fact, between a 
 stone and a vegetable may appear strange ; yet, on 
 due consideration, the junction of the two will be 
 found not only warrantable, but appropriate. For 
 in the depths of the ocean, trees, shrubs, and other 
 plants of various kinds, not merely of horny, but 
 calcareous substance, grow mingled together, like 
 the plants of the land, and often in the richest 
 profusion. Nor is this similarity confined to general 
 form ; for the coral-making polyps are flowers both 
 
THE SEA MUSHROOM. 
 
 105 
 
 in figure and beauty of colouring. Like the aster 
 or the pink, they have a bulbous star-like disc ; and 
 though some are minute, others vary in size from 
 half an inch to two inches in diameter. 
 
 It will be well, however, here to notice an animal, 
 which is a kind of borderer on the coral race. Let 
 a polyp be supposed to de- 
 posit within itself a calca- 
 reous or earthy secretion, 
 to form a rude skeleton or 
 internal support, and to 
 which a sort of skin will be 
 formed of the gelatine, and 
 we have before us the Sea 
 Mushroom. The calcareous 
 axis of these animals, from 
 the Southern Ocean, is cir- 
 cular, or oval, formed of UPPER SURFACE or THE SEA MUSH- 
 thin vertical plates, radi- ROOM. FUNGIA ACTINIFORMIS. 
 ating from a common centre. Over the whole of 
 this is spread the living gelatine, which dips into the 
 intervals between every plate, and covers these also. 
 The mouth is oval, and placed in the centre of the 
 disc, surrounded with tubercles ; and over the whole 
 of the upper surface are distributed hollow tentacles, 
 or arms, not unlike a number of minute leeches, which 
 seize and direct to the mouth the minute animals on 
 which this polyp feeds. When these animals are 
 roughly touched, or irritated, the arms are with- 
 drawn between the thin plates, and the flesh shrinks 
 
106 THE SEA MUSHROOM. 
 
 down and accumulates in their interstices. Being 
 free, they merely repose on the sand at the bottom of 
 the water. Their power of locomotion is very limited. 
 
 The sea mushroom might, however, be easily 
 supposed liable to danger : a violent agitation of the 
 water, for example, might reverse it ; and how then, 
 it might be asked, shall it regain its position ? The 
 Creator has provided for the well-being of this, as well 
 as every other creature. The living jelly that covers 
 its surface, is so endowed as to secrete within its sub- 
 stance little bubbles of air ; these act as floats, and 
 thus the lighter side is kept uppermost on the waters. 
 
 In the animal just referred to, we observe a single 
 polyp covered with gelatine, but in other instances 
 a gelatinous expansion appears common to many 
 associated polyps. The difference is here apparent 
 between a house with a solitary inhabitant, and a 
 large number of persons dwelling under the same 
 roof, which the engraving will illustrate. A similar 
 
 SPECIES OF MADREPORE. 
 
 instance appears in the red coral of commerce : it is 
 a branching calcareous tree, secreted by the gelatine, 
 which spreads round it like a rind; while the various 
 
MADREPORES. 
 
 107 
 
 polyps, which make it 
 their common dwelling, 
 come forth at pleasure, 
 like so many flowers. 
 
 The shortness and 
 hardness of coral is well 
 known, and its conse- 
 quent adaptation to bear 
 the action of the water. 
 But other instances ap- 
 pear in which branches, 
 secreted by a similar 
 process, are of consider- 
 able length, and would 
 thus be liable to be easily 
 broken. Here then we 
 
 THE RED CORAL. 
 
 GORGONIA PUSTULOSA. 
 
 Two branches showing the gelatinous covering ; in the third, the flexible 
 horny stems appear. 
 
108 
 
 MADKEPOKES. 
 
 discover a special provision : for the stem, instead of 
 being hard, resembles horn, and is more or less 
 flexible ; or is composed of flexible horny matter, 
 with calcareous knots, placed at regular intervals. 
 How obvious here is all-wise design ! 
 
 ISIS HIPPURIS. 
 
 In which may be observed the living gelatine with its polyps, and the 
 intermixture of horuy and calcareous matter in the stem, 
 
 If the branching stems of a madrepore be exa- 
 mined, the unassisted eye may observe multitudes of 
 minute cavities on its surface. But let the micro- 
 scope be employed, and each of these cavities proves 
 to be a beautifully constructed cell, remarkable for 
 the exquisite precision of its form, as the engraving 
 will demonstrate. 
 
MADREPORES. 
 
 109 
 
 FRAGMENT OF MADREPORE. 
 
 CELL OF THE MADREPORE. 
 
 In the living madrepore, every part of the surface 
 of each stem is covered over with a living gelatine, 
 furnished with millions of minute polyps that issue 
 from the multitudes of cavities observable on the sur- 
 face of that substance. The following engraving illus- 
 
110 MADREPORES. 
 
 trates the structure of the brain-stone, so called from 
 its outer surface resembling in its convolutions that 
 essential part of the human economy. Of the process 
 of forming this curious mass, a clear and correct idea 
 
 SECTION OP MADREPORE. 
 
 may easily be entertained. As in the sponge, 
 already described, the surface of the mass, and, of 
 course, all its sinuosities, were covered with a living 
 gelatinous film. When first deposited on the rock, 
 a minute nucleus was only thus covered ; but as the 
 creature grew, it went on building from its little 
 centre, depositing one stony particle after another, 
 and that as regularly and accurately as if it worked 
 by compasses and rule, until it attained the diameter 
 of one, two, or perhaps three feet. What wondrous 
 power has God conferred on the delicate tissue that 
 produces such fabrics ! 
 
 But other marvels demand our attention. The 
 Pavonia lactuca, from the shores of the South Sea 
 
MADREPORES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 PAVONIA LAdTUCA. 
 
 Islands, is distinguished by the beautiful foliated 
 expansions of the calcareous axis, resembling a 
 cluster of cup-like flowers; each cup contains a 
 polyp. 
 
 In the genus Astrcea, the polyps are situated in 
 deep polygonal laminated cells, and are connected 
 by a thin gelatinous expansion covering the dark 
 calcareous mass, which is generally of a convex or 
 rounded form, externally. When the polyps of the 
 Astrcea viridis protrude themselves, and expand their 
 numerous arms, consisting of a large and small one 
 alternately, they resemble beautiful green flowers 
 with a blue centre, the oral disc being tinted with 
 the latter colour. 
 
 In other instances, we observe a collection of 
 tubes into bundles, like reeds bound together, and 
 open at one end, through which the polyps protrude, 
 
112 THE TUBIPORA. 
 
 and into which they can retire. So it is with the 
 group represented below. One example is a native 
 
 TUBIPORA, WITH POLYPS ISSUING FROM SOME OF THE TUBES. 
 
 of the Indian seas, the beautiful Tubipora musica, 
 deriving its name from its resembling a cluster of 
 organ pipes in miniature. 
 
 Though the fine red tubes of this zoophyte are 
 compacted together, often closely, and secured by 
 transverse floors or stages, whereon one set of 
 pipes opens above another, the animals inhabiting 
 them appear to be distinct from each other ; that is, 
 they are not vitally united, but merely build up 
 a sort of town, the result of their combined labours, 
 each constructing its own domicile. 
 
 In this case, each polyp is a crimson tube, while 
 the arms are of pure green. When retracted, they 
 are closely folded like the bud of a flower, as the 
 engraving will show, and lodged, as is also apparent, 
 within the folds of a membrane continuous with 
 the margin of the tube. Thus the mechanism is 
 
THE TUBIPORA. 
 
 113 
 
 provided for the movements of the 
 little polyp. As the membrane is 
 placed all round the base of the 
 animal, its contraction brings the 
 polyp towards the opening of the 
 cell, while it is retracted by the 
 contrary action. The minute glo- 
 bules, which appear like strings 
 of beads, are the germs of a future 
 race. How often, in our study of 
 the natural world, may we be re- 
 minded of the poet's words : 
 
 POLYP OF A 
 TUBIPORA. 
 
 " In human works, though labour'd on with pain, 
 A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain ; 
 In God's, one single can its end produce, 
 Yet serves to second too some other use." 
 
 And thus it is not enough that the membrane of 
 this minute polyp should enable it to rise or to descend 
 by a beautifully simple mechanism ; for it extends 
 to where the earthy matter bounds the residence of 
 the animal. Indeed, the calcareous tube, which 
 is its dwelling, is produced by a gradual petri- 
 faction of the membrane itself as it rises ; for when 
 it attains a certain elevation, its funnel-shaped edge 
 expands horizontally, and, doubling itself, forms, by 
 depositing calcareous particles in its substance, a 
 stage composed of two plates soldered together ! 
 As, too, all the polyps act simultaneously in the same 
 manner, and upon the same plane, the stages are pro- 
 duced which bind the bundles together ; for the. 
 
114 THE TUBIPOEA. 
 
 margins of the extended membrane of each polyp 
 meet and coalesce. This being effected, the polyp 
 increases, and the lining tissue rising, continues the 
 cone-like orifice of the tube. From the base of the 
 arms extend eight filaments, running through the 
 tube, and attached to its lining membrane. On 
 these the germs of the future race are attached by 
 a neck or stalk, like minute eggs. How they are 
 expelled, whether during the polyp's life or not, 
 and how they cluster together and form bundles of 
 pipes upon the old ones, or in new situations, are 
 points utterly unknown. The limestone rocks of 
 Derbyshire abound with fossils of this creature. 
 
 ALCYONIUM WITH POLYPS. 
 
 Distinct from the polyps now considered are 
 those in which a tough body, often with calcareous 
 
THE TUBIPORA. 115 
 
 spicula like those of some sponges, interspersed 
 through it and containing numerous canals, is studded 
 with polyps like hydras. These are all seated in 
 little cells on the surface, from which they can pro- 
 trude and expand their arms. 
 
 The different species assume a variety of forms ; 
 all of which, however, are fixed on other substances, 
 as stones and shells. The upper 
 surface is dotted with cells, in 
 which the polyps reside ; and when 
 they are all protruded, they cover 
 the common pulpy mass with 
 clusters of flowers, or stars. From 
 the cavity of the stomach of each 
 polyp of Cydonium of which a 
 
 single one is here represented, POLYP OF THE 
 , , , . CYDONIUM. 
 
 removed from the mass and magni- 
 fied a tube is extended, conveying nutriment to the 
 general mass ; a tubular filament also opens into the 
 stomach, which contains the germs of a future pro- 
 geny. When mature, they pass from the tube into 
 the digestive cavity of the parent polyp, and thence 
 through the mouth into the sea. 
 
 Though these polyps and the general mass par- 
 ticipate in one common life, as far as nutrition is 
 concerned, yet there appears to be no community of 
 feeling between them, for they expand and contract 
 independently of each other. When one is rudely 
 touched, it withdraws itself; but the rest remain 
 unaffected. Local injury on one portion of the 
 
116 THE SEA PEN. 
 
 general mass, seems to be unperceived, or unfelt at 
 a remote portion ; but a general shock being given, 
 the whole mass, and the polyps, contract together. 
 
 Cuvier regards the sea-pens as forming a distinct 
 section, and terms them swimming, or detached 
 polyps. 
 
 A SEA PEN. PENNATULA. 
 
 These animals, however, have a calcareous axis, 
 though not fixed. Their name is derived from 
 their resemblance to a quill feather, a double set of 
 branches, occupying both sides of a shaft. Each 
 branch is furnished with a row of polyps, resembling 
 the barbules along the filaments, or barbs, com- 
 posing the vane of a quill. 
 
 POLYPS OP A BARB OF THE SEA-PEN. 
 
 Almost endless is the variety of form which the 
 fixed zoophytes exhibit, in the warmer latitudes of 
 the ocean ; affording abundant employment for the 
 
THE SEA PEN. 117 
 
 philosophic investigator of nature. He beholds 
 them like submarine forests, stretching out their 
 branches in strange contortions but all motionless ; 
 he sees them resembling waving plumes, fans of 
 network, in clustered masses, gemmed as if with 
 flowers of richest tints ; or forming sea caves, on 
 which the blue water sleeps tranquilly. Nor are 
 they excluded from among the materials which 
 man applies to common purposes. At Djeddah, in 
 Arabia, and on many other parts of the coast of the 
 Red Sea, the houses are constructed with blocks of 
 beautiful madrepore. In the Indian isles, as well 
 as in those of the Eastern Ocean, madrepores are 
 used for the manufacture of lime. At Martinique, 
 men drag them for that purpose from the bottom 
 of the sea. 
 
 " There, too, we see the living pile ascend 
 The mausoleum of its architects, 
 Still dying upwards as their labours closed ; 
 Slime the material, but the slime was turn'd 
 To adamant by their petrific touch ; 
 Trail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, 
 Their masonry imperishable. All 
 Life's needful functions, food, exertion, rest, 
 By nice economy of Providence, 
 Were overruled to carry on the process, 
 Which out of water brought forth solid rock." 
 
 " To get an idea of the nature and structure of 
 an individual coral reef," says Mr. Jukes, " let the 
 reader fancy to himself a great submarine mound of 
 rock, composed of the fragments and detritus of 
 corals and shells, compacted together into a soft, 
 
118 CORAL REEFS. 
 
 spongy sort of stone. The greater part of the 
 surface of this mound is quite flat, and near the 
 level of low water. At its edges it commonly slopes 
 gradually down to a depth of two, three, or four 
 fathoms, and then pitches suddenly with a very 
 rapid slope into deep water, twenty, or two hundred 
 fathoms, as the case may be. The surface of the 
 reef when exposed, looks like a great flat of sand- 
 stone, with a few loose slabs lying about, or here 
 and there an accumulation of dead, broken coral 
 branches, or a bank of dazzling white sand. It is, 
 however, chequered with holes and hollows more or 
 less deep, in which small living corals are growing, 
 or has, perhaps, a large portion always covered with 
 two or three feet of water ; and here are fields of 
 corals, either clumps of branching madrepores, or 
 round stools and blocks of meandrina and astraea, 
 both dead and living. 
 
 " Proceeding from this central flat towards the 
 ridge, living corals become more and more abundant ; 
 as we get towards the windward side, we encounter 
 the surf of the breakers long before we can reach 
 the extreme verge of the reef; and among these 
 breakers we see immense blocks, often two or three 
 yards or more in diameter, lying loose upon the 
 reef. If we approach the lee edge of the reef, we 
 find it covered with living corals, commonly mean- 
 drina, astrsea, and madrepore, in about equal abun- 
 dance, all glowing with rich colours, bristling with 
 branches, or studded with great knobs and blocks. 
 
CORAL KEEFS. 119 
 
 Where the slope is gentle, the great groups of living 
 corals and intervening spaces of white sand can be 
 still discerned through the clear water to a depth of 
 forty or fifty feet, beyond which the water recovers 
 its usual deep blue. A coral reef, therefore, is a mass 
 of inert matter, living only at its outer surface, and 
 chiefly on its lateral slopes." 
 
 The quotation just made, may present less of the 
 picturesque than the reader might expect from pre- 
 ceding statements ; but it will not be so with the 
 following : 
 
 " In a small bight of the inner edge was a 
 sheltered nook, where the extreme slope was well 
 exposed, and where every coral was in full life and 
 luxuriance. Smooth round masses of meandrina and 
 astraea were contrasted with delicate leaf-like and 
 cup-shaped expansions of explanaria, and with an 
 infinite variety of branching madreporse and serin- 
 toporae ; some with mere finger-shaped projections, 
 others with large branching stems, and others again 
 exhibiting an elegant assemblage of interlacing 
 twigs, of the most delicate and exquisite workman- 
 ship. Their colours were unrivalled vivid greens 
 contrasted with more sober browns and yellows, 
 mingled with rich shades of purple, from pale pink 
 to deep blue ; bright red, yellow, and peach-covered 
 nulliporaa clothed the masses that were dead, 
 mingled with pearly flakes of escara and retepora, 
 the latter looking like lacework in ivory. In among 
 the branches of the corals, like birds among trees, 
 
120 COKAL REEFS. 
 
 floated beautiful fish, radiant with metallic greens 
 or crimsons, or fantastically banded with black and 
 yellow stripes. Patches of clear white sand were 
 seen here and there for the floor, with dark hollows 
 and recesses beneath overhanging ledges. All 
 these, seen through the clear crystal water, the 
 ripple of which gave motion and a quick play of 
 light and shadow to the whole, formed a scene of 
 the rarest beauty, and left nothing to be desired by 
 the eye, either in elegance of form or brilliancy and 
 harmony of colouring." Such is the wonderful 
 masonry of polyps. 
 
 " Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, 
 Nor comprehend their motions ; till minute 
 And curious observation caught the clue 
 To this live labyrinth, where every one, 
 By instinct taught, perform'd its little task, 
 To build its dwelling and its sepulchre 
 Trom its own essence exquisitely modell'd ; 
 There breed and die, and leave a progeny 
 Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers, 
 To frame new cells and tombs : then breed and die, 
 As all their ancestors had done, and rest 
 Hermetically sealed, each on its shrine 
 A statue in this temple of oblivion ! 
 Millions of millions, thus from age to age, 
 With simplest skill and toil unweariable, 
 No moment and no movement unimproved, 
 Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, 
 To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mount 
 By marvellous structure, climbing towards the day. 
 Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought, 
 Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments 
 By which a hand invisible was rearing 
 A new creation in the secret deep." 
 
COKAL ISLANDS. 121 
 
 In like manner, slowly and silently, millions of 
 tiny arms, the members of a compound whole, ply 
 the task, generation after generation, till the cal- 
 careous fabric, based on some submarine volcanic 
 hill, rises to the surface, and there appears, 
 
 " A coral island, stretching east and west, 
 In God's own language to its parent saying, 
 Thus far, nor farther shalt thou go, and here 
 Shall thy proud waves be stayed !" 
 
 Here the sea birds repair, and uninterrupted, 
 save by the noise of the tempest- tossed billows 
 around, rear their broods for many a returning 
 season. Here the waves and winds carry seeds, and 
 throw them on it ; they germinate, the vegetation 
 decays, and in process of time a rich mould is pro- 
 duced. Soon the cocoa waves its graceful head, 
 and forests rise. At length, by chance as he would 
 term it, but as we should say, according to the 
 determination of Almighty Wisdom, comes man, and 
 claims it as his own. Such is many a South Sea 
 Island such its origin, such its founders, while as 
 the traveller recalls it, he perhaps adds, 
 
 " A sea-lake rose amidst the fossil isle, 
 Reflecting in its ring its cliffs and caverns, 
 With heaven itself seen like a lake below." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ANIMALCULE S. 
 
 AN amazing spectacle is presented when an 
 assemblage of dissimilar forms is seen in one drop 
 of water in which there is any decomposing animal 
 or vegetable matter. They are from i. to part 
 of a line in diameter, and are often so crowded toge- 
 ther that the intervals between them are still more 
 minute than themselves. Yet some move with 
 arrow-like rapidity, almost eluding the detection of 
 the eye ; while others " drag their slow length 
 along," like the leech. Some revolve quickly, as if 
 a portion of their body served as a pivot, a contrast 
 to others apparently quiet or torpid. A series of 
 gentle undulations secures the movements of some 
 animalcules, but others give themselves to leapings 
 of an inconsiderable extent. Amid their diversified 
 gambols, however, all have the power of avoiding 
 obstacles in their course, and their neighbours, who 
 are in such close proximity. 
 
 Some species of animalcules are far more com- 
 mon than others ; but the rarer kinds may generally 
 be procured by steeping dried grass, or leaves, par- 
 ticularly sage leaves, in a vessel of water, and 
 
TENANTS OF A DROP OF WATER. 123 
 
 leaving it for a few days exposed to the influence of 
 the sun and air, when the infusion will be found 
 swarming with animalcules. A drop of this infu- 
 sion, or of water from any pond or ditch, if put 
 upon a thin slip of glass, made for the purpose, and 
 viewed through a good microscope, will then present 
 an astonishing spectacle. A little practice in the 
 management of the instrument, and also of the eye, 
 is necessary ; for experience greatly improves the 
 eye in the use of the microscope. It is important 
 to observe, that as these creatures were first dis- 
 covered in infusions, and were supposed to be re- 
 stricted to them, they were primarily denominated 
 Infusoria. 
 
 Some microscopic animalcules are termed Poly- 
 gastrica, from their being supposed to possess a 
 number of internal sacs, generally regarded as 
 stomachs, and which are easily seen through the 
 transparent covering of the animals, when viewed 
 under a powerful microscope. No nervous filaments 
 are discernible in their composition ; nor any brain 
 or central mass to which the impressions received 
 from external agents can be transmitted. It is 
 supposed that the nervous matter, instead of rami- 
 fying like threads through the system, is diffused 
 universally throughout their composition, and is 
 blended with it ; but this theory is not positively 
 proved, although probability favours it. Still, each 
 one is fully prepared to enjoy existence. So far 
 from forming a solitary class, twenty-six species of 
 
124 MONADS. 
 
 the monad, the simplest of animalcules, are already 
 known. The only locomotive organ hitherto dis- 
 covered is a proboscis issuing from near the mouth ; 
 the vibratory or rotatory motions of which give it 
 the appearance of numerous cilia. 
 
 The characteristic of another species is a minute 
 red eye-like speck, situated within the creature, at 
 the anterior part of the body, which is considered to 
 be a rudimentary visual organ. And a minute and 
 careful inspection of these living atoms, proves that 
 they have a sensitive organization as conformable to 
 their particular uses, and as well adapted to the 
 wants and comforts of these microscopic beings, as 
 the largest fish. One family of these creatures is 
 provided with a distinct, gelatinous, membranous, 
 
 or shell-like substance, termed a lorica, in which 
 they are more or less inclosed. This covering 
 appears in different forms ; sometimes as an open 
 
THE GONIUM. 
 
 125 
 
 shield, at others of a closed box or a pitcher, ap- 
 proaching the shell of the oyster or mussel. 
 
 The breast-plate Gonium is, in fact, a cluster of 
 animalcules, consisting of sixteen spherical bodies, 
 enclosed within a transparent shell, and dispersed 
 regularly in a quadrangular form, like the jewels 
 in the breastplate of the Jewish high priest. Some- 
 times the cluster appears irregular ; this happens 
 when the larger animalcules have arrived at ma- 
 turity, and some of them are separated from the 
 cluster. They are of a beautiful transparent green 
 colour. 
 
 All the polygastric animalcules have been divided 
 
 PROTEUS. AMOEBA. 
 
 into two primary groups : the loricated, or shell- 
 covered, and the soft, or shell-less class. Some 
 animalcules, as the Proteus (amoeba), belonging to 
 the shell-less group, form for themselves locomotive 
 
126 THE PROTEUS. 
 
 organs at pleasure, and are thus perpetually exhibit- 
 ing changes of figure. These temporary oars are 
 produced by the animal shooting out finger-like 
 appendages, from different parts of its semi-fluid 
 body, which are retracted, or which sink down at 
 will, others being again protruded, as in the en- 
 graving on the preceding page. 
 
 Ehrenberg describes the organ of locomotion of 
 another animalcule as a fleshy, undivided, sole-like 
 foot, proceeding from the central opening, and 
 resembling the part by which snails move from spot 
 to spot. Nor does it allow the creature merely to 
 creep; for by this means the animalcule when at 
 rest can draw objects to it, and push away things 
 by it. 
 
 Some of these animalcules, again, are furnished 
 with jointed " bristle-like ap- 
 pendages, which are movable, 
 and by their action propel them 
 
 L/fff^sizfr - along ; in addition, some have 
 = U little hooks, which enable them 
 
 EUPLCEA CHARON. to stick to other bodies, as 
 in the annexed engraving. 
 
 Others again, and by far the most numerous, 
 have vibratory cilia, as locomotive organs, either 
 disposed on parts of the body, or distributed uni- 
 versally over its surface ; their action is supposed 
 to be circular, or in other words, they are believed 
 to sweep round and round, and they produce a 
 tremulous and very perceptible current in the con- 
 
ORGANS OP LOCOMOTION. 
 
 127 
 
 tiguous fluid, as they thus propel the body onwards. 
 In some species, as the Paramecium aurelia and 
 others, these cilia are 
 regularly arranged, so 
 as to encircle the body; 
 but in most, they only 
 encircle the mouth, or 
 are ranged in its 
 
 PARAMECIUM AURELIA. 
 
 vicinity. Besides act- 
 ing as organs of loco- 
 motion, they are agents in the acquisition of food; 
 they produce by their incessant vibration a current 
 in the water converging to the mouth, and hurry- 
 ing along with it either 
 smaller animalcules or 
 minute portions of vege- 
 table matter, on which 
 they feed, and which, but 
 for this singular provision, 
 they could not otherwise 
 obtain. 
 
 The mouth of the 
 polygastric animalcules is 
 generally found to be a 
 simple dilatable and con- 
 tractile orifice ; but in some species, it appears 
 under the form of a small projecting beak, or rather 
 tube, composed of numerous teeth of an elongated 
 shape, and calculated both Tor the prehension of 
 food, and for bruising it previously to its being 
 
 CILIA OF THE YORTICELLA. 
 
128 MOUTHS OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 swallowed. In .these species, the mouth does not 
 appear to be surrounded with cilia, which would be 
 unnecessary, but which, when the mouth is a 
 simple orifice, are required for the direction of the 
 food to it. The proboscis of some animalcules is 
 situated, as we have seen, at the anterior extremity 
 of these microscopic beings : this portion, Ehren- 
 berg says, is cleft so as to represent a two-lipped 
 mouth ; the upper lip, bearing the proboscis, being 
 very readily distinguished. 
 
 The term polygastrica, by which the present group 
 is distinguished, refers to the supposed complexity of 
 the digestive apparatus, which is stated to consist of 
 a number of internal sacs, or stomachs ; in some, 
 arising from the mouth itself by separate tubes, in 
 others, appended to a kind of intestinal canal, which 
 traverses the body, and terminates either at the 
 extremity of the body opposite to the mouth, as in 
 Paramecium aurelia, or which, winding up, 
 terminates in a depression near the mouth, as in 
 vorticella. 
 
 The sacs, though distinguishable in the animals 
 under ordinary circumstances, are rendered more 
 conspicuous when the animals have swallowed 
 water in which colouring matter is suspended, in a 
 state of very minute division, but not chemically 
 dissolved. Trembley, in his investigation of the 
 structure of the hydra, adopted this method, and 
 Gleicher attempted it, though unsuccessfully, in his 
 investigations as to these animalcules. The fact is, 
 
DIGESTION OF ANIMALCULES. 129 
 
 that many of our metallic or earthy colouring 
 materials immediately poison these creatures, when, 
 of course, the experiment fails. Ehrenberg tried 
 in vain with the indigo and gum-lac of commerce, 
 these substances being always contaminated with a 
 slight admixture of white lead, which acts as an in- 
 stantaneous poison ; but with pure indigo, or pure 
 carmine, the experiments were successful. 
 
 When a minute portion of a very weak solution 
 of indigo is added to a drop of water containing 
 vorticella, an animated scene ensues. Eager for the 
 food, which they swallow with avidity, they throw 
 the cilia into rapid action, producing currents in the 
 water, hurrying with them the particles of the 
 indigo in gyrations converging to the mouth. In a 
 short time, a number of dark blue circular dots 
 begin to show themselves on the transparent body 
 of the animalcule, which are occasioned by the 
 particles of the indigo accumulated ;in these situ- 
 ations ; they also make manifest the intestinal tube, 
 and their progress can be gradually traced through 
 its extent. It is thus by a series of experiments 
 that Ehrenberg was at length enabled to determine 
 the number of the sacs, or stomachs, and the course 
 of the intestinal tube. But it appears that all the 
 sacs are not filled at the same time ; many con- 
 tinue long without receiving any particles of colour- 
 ing matter, and the whole range of the alimentary 
 tube is not simultaneously tinted. The num- 
 ber of sacs thus distinguished, amounts to two 
 
130 DIGESTION OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 hundred in some species ; in others, they are less 
 numerous. 
 
 It is on the characters and positions of these sacs, 
 and on the course of the presumed intestinal tube, 
 that Ehrenberg has founded the divisions of this 
 class ; but professor Jones, while he acknowledges 
 that the views of this naturalist are sanctioned by 
 general consent, is not disposed to admit their 
 accuracy in all respects, and states that his own 
 observations (made by means of a compound achro- 
 matic microscope, and employing powers nine-tenths, 
 one -half, one-fourth, and one-eighth of an inch 
 focus) have led to very different conclusions. The 
 positions of the orifices for the reception and rejec- 
 tion of aliment he found to be such as Ehrenberg 
 has indicated ; but the most patient investigation 
 did not enable him to detect the arrangement of the 
 tube, and the sacs appended to it, as figured and 
 described by that author. He states that he has 
 never been able to perceive, when one of the car- 
 nivorous animalcules has swallowed another, that it 
 has been conveyed, as was to be expected, into one 
 of these so-called stomachs, but that he has traced it 
 into " what seemed a cavity excavated in the general 
 parenchyma of the body." 
 
 In the next place, he states that these sacs have 
 no appearance of being attached to any tube by 
 means of penducles, or necks ; and that in parame- 
 cium aurelia, so far from appearing to be connected 
 with a central canal, as is represented by Ehrenberg, 
 
DIGESTION OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 131 
 
 they are in continual circulation, moving up one 
 side of the body and down the other, and even 
 changing their relative positions, like the coloured 
 granules visible in the gelatinous substance of the 
 hydra. And, thirdly, he affirms that in no instance 
 has he been able to detect a central tube at all, as 
 depicted by Ehrenberg, much less the branches 
 leading from it to the sacs ; and he adds, that the 
 circumstances attending the prehension of food, 
 would, in themselves, lead us to imagine a structure 
 different from that described by Ehrenberg. 
 
 He adduces, by way of confirming his views, the 
 changes of form which these animalcules undergo, 
 when devouring prey nearly equal to themselves in 
 bulk, and therefore incapable of entering into one of 
 these sacs ; the mouth dilates to engulph the victim, 
 and when this is swallowed, the whole body, as in 
 the hydra, becomes greatly distended. As an 
 
 I 
 
 THE FLASK ANIMALCULE. 
 
 example in point, professor Jones figures the flask 
 animalcule* in its ordinary state ; preparing to 
 
 * Enclielis pupa. 
 
132 INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 attack its prey ; in the act of engulphing it, and 
 with the prey wholly swallowed.* 
 
 When two highly intelligent and accurate ob- 
 servers are thus at issue, and when their respective 
 investigations conduce to results so different, we 
 must wait for further experiments. It is, however, 
 remarkable, that in the hydra, the granules already 
 referred to, which are certainly not stomachs, also 
 become tinged with the juices of the prey on which 
 the animal feeds, which juices, by some means un- 
 known at present, they absorb, and thus charged, 
 circulate through the gelatinous substance of the 
 body. 
 
 There is no part of the history of these animal- 
 cules more calculated to excite astonishment than 
 their mode of reproduction, so different from that of 
 other races of beings ; and what is still more sur- 
 prising is, that the same individual, as it would 
 appear, often reproduces in four different ways. 
 One mode of reproduction is by gemmules or 
 buds, sprouting from the outer 
 surface of the parent, as in the 
 hydra. These little buds gradu- 
 ally assume their destined form, 
 develop cilia, and become de- 
 tached and independent, and in a 
 INCREASE BY BUDS, short period afterwards attain 
 
 * For other information on this doubtful point, respecting the struc- 
 ture of the digestive apparatus of the Polygastrica, see professor Jones's 
 valuable work, entitled " A General Outline of the Animal Kingdom." 
 
INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 133 
 
 to their full growth, giving origin to buds them- 
 selves. 
 
 Another mode, which is seen in Volvox globator, 
 is by minute globular bodies, of a dark green colour, 
 
 INCREASE OF THE VOLVOX GLOBATOR. 
 
 covered like the parent with vibratile cilia, and 
 which swim about in the interior of the body of the 
 parent, where they appear to have ample space. 
 The transparency of this animalcule, which is of a 
 globular figure and of a delicate green, permits the 
 germs it encloses to be readily seen. 
 
 Professor Ehrenberg observes : " All endeavours 
 to acquire some knowledge of the organization of 
 the genus volvox have proved only successful, now 
 that observation has been, at last, directed to the 
 right depth, (1833.) Formerly, the entire globule 
 was generally regarded as a single verrucose or 
 ciliated animalcule, and its bursting considered as 
 the reproduction of single individuals. But this 
 view leads to wonders and to contradictions : it is 
 
134 INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 evidently erroneous, and the organic relations lie 
 much deeper. Each globule is a hollow monadier, 
 (monadenstock), of many hundreds, nay, thousands, 
 of minute animalcules ; to be readily seen. When 
 they have attained a proper degree of development, 
 the outer skin of the parent bursts, and they 
 emerge from their imprisonment, to undergo a like 
 destiny." 
 
 The most usual, and certainly the most extra- 
 ordinary mode, by which new animalcules are pro- 
 duced, is by the division of the animalcule itself 
 into two or more portions, each portion becoming a 
 perfect being, and again dividing in turn. In ani- 
 malcules of an elongated form, the division generally 
 takes place longitudinally, each side becoming a 
 distinct being, with all its organs complete ; but in 
 oval animalcules, the di- 
 
 ,^ O (JQ Cto (3 Q vision is transverse, first 
 beginning with a middle in- 
 
 INCREASE or THE MONAD, dentation, which increases 
 till the separation is effected. 
 
 Some animalcules increase both by gemmules and by 
 division, as the Convallaria, but chiefly by the latter. 
 This one resembles a bell-shaped flower, supported 
 upon a slender footstalk, by which it is attached to 
 fixed objects. This footstalk is highly contractile, 
 and winds round in a spiral manner when the 
 animal is alarmed, and thus withdraws it from 
 danger. The division takes place only in the bell, 
 which first increases in circumference, and begins 
 
INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 135 
 
 to divide at its margin, the fissure gradually ex- 
 tending to its base ; when the fissure is complete, 
 one half is found perfect, and is destined to continue 
 on the footstalk, and may therefore be regarded as 
 the parent of the other ; this is now attached by a 
 slight connexion to the top of the footstalk by the 
 side of the permanent bell, which is found to have 
 cilia, not only at its upper margin, but also around 
 its base. It now becomes detached, and loses the 
 marginal cilia, retaining the basal ones, and thus it 
 swims about ; but it has not yet developed its foot- 
 stalk ; this it gradually puts forth, the adult stage 
 is then acquired, and it becomes fixed to some 
 foreign body, like the parent whence it sprung. 
 
 CONVALLARIA. 
 
 While in its free condition, this animalcule assumes 
 various modifications of form, and in these states 
 has been described as so many distinct species ; and 
 it is by recent observations only that its real 
 
136 
 
 INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 INCREASE OF THE 
 GONIUM. 
 
 character has become known. The foregoing sketch 
 will illustrate the increase described, and also show 
 the new animalcule, after gaining its freedom, in 
 three different forms. 
 
 There is still another mode of reproduction by 
 division ; it occurs in animalcules which appear, as 
 the Gronium, to consist of a num- 
 ber of globules, (sixteen in one 
 species,) enclosed in a thin trans- 
 parent envelop ; the mass thus 
 compounded divides in this 
 species into four equal parts, 
 each part containing one large 
 and three smaller globules. After their separation 
 from each other, these parts swim freely about in 
 the water, and increase in the number of their con- 
 stituent globules, to undergo a fresh division. In 
 other species, the division is into still more nume- 
 rous portions. 
 
 Some animalcules, it must be further remarked, 
 increase by division, by gemmules, and by eggs or 
 spawn. In the Kolpoda cucullus, Ehrenberg de- 
 tected most satisfactorily the latter mode, and he 
 describes the eggs, when excluded, as appearing in 
 the form of a delicate mass resembling network. 
 
 No mode of reproduction, however, is more 
 astonishing than that of division, none so produc- 
 tive. It is wonderful when we consider that each 
 divided part has to assume all the organs of the 
 perfect being ; that these have therefore to become 
 
INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 137 
 
 developed, and to assume their due form and situation. 
 And as to productiveness, the Paramecium aurelia, 
 well supplied with food, has been observed to divide 
 once in twenty-four hours, so that, as professor 
 Jones observes, "in a fortnight, allowing the pro- 
 duct of each division to multiply at the same rate, 
 16,384 animalcules would be produced from the 
 same stock," and in four weeks, the astonishing 
 number of 268,435,456 new and distinct beings. 
 
 The question arises, from this astounding in- 
 creaseto what is it attributable ? Various replies 
 have been offered to it, but the only satisfactory 
 one is, " from the air," in which the germs of these 
 beings are borne hither and thither, and under 
 certain circumstances become visible. The follow- 
 ing experiments will leave the reader in no doubt 
 on this point. A very intelligent and careful ob- 
 server says, " I filled a glass flask half full of dis- 
 tilled water, in which I mixed various animal and 
 vegetable substances ; I then closed it with a good 
 cork, through which I passed two glass tubes, bent 
 at right angles, the whole being air-tight. It was 
 next placed in a sand bath, and heated until the 
 water boiled violently, and thus all parts had reached 
 a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit. While the watery 
 vapour was escaping by the glass tubes, I fastened 
 at each end an apparatus, which chemists employ for 
 collecting carbonic acid ; that to the left was filled 
 with concentrated sulphuric acid, and the other with 
 a solution of potash. By means of the boiling heat, 
 
138 INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 everything living, and all germs in the flask or in 
 the tubes were destroyed, and all access was cut off 
 by the sulphuric acid on the one side, and by the 
 potash on the other. I placed this easily moved 
 apparatus before my window, where it was exposed 
 to the action of light, and also, as I performed my 
 experiments in the summer, to that of heat. At the 
 same time, I placed near it an open vessel with the 
 same substances that had been introduced into the 
 flask, and also after having subjected them to a 
 boiling temperature. In order now to renew con- 
 stantly the air within the flask, I sucked with my 
 mouth several times a day the open end of the 
 apparatus filled with solution of potash, by which 
 process the air entered my mouth from the flask 
 through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air 
 from without entered the flask through the sulphuric 
 acid. The air was of course not altered in its com- 
 position by passing through the sulphuric acid into 
 the flask, but if sufficient time was allowed for the 
 passage, all the portions of living matter, or of 
 matter capable of becoming animated, were taken 
 up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From the 
 28th of May, until the early part of August, I con- 
 tinued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air into the 
 flask, without being able, by the aid of the micro- 
 scope, to perceive any living animal or vegetable 
 substance, although during the whole of the time 
 I made my observations almost daily on the edge of 
 the liquid ; and when at last I separated the dif- 
 
ANIMALCULES IN VEGETABLES. 139 
 
 ferent parts of the apparatus, I could not find in the 
 whole liquid the slightest trace of infusoria, of con- 
 fervce, or of mould; but all the three presented them- 
 selves in great abundance a few days after I had left 
 the flask standing open. The vessel which I placed 
 near the apparatus contained on the following day 
 vibriones and monads, to which were soon added 
 larger polygastric infusoria, and afterwards rota- 
 toria" 
 
 Like other animals, these microscopic beings obey 
 fixed laws of geographical distribution, groups and 
 species having assigned limits of habitation. They 
 do not sleep, at least they have never been observed 
 in a state which might be properly called one of 
 repose. They are capable of a torpid existence in 
 earth dried up by a summer sun; and they hibernate 
 frozen in ice. 
 
 An interesting vegetable production, having a 
 deceptive resemblance to white dressed glove-leather, 
 has lately been found on a meadow above the wire 
 factory at Schwartzenberg, in the Erzgebirge. A 
 green slimy substance grew on the surface of the 
 stagnant waters in the meadow ; which, the water 
 being slowly let off, deposited itself on the grass, 
 dried, became quite colourless, and might then be 
 removed in large pieces. The outside of this 
 natural production resembles soft dressed glove- 
 leather, or fine paper ; is shining, smooth to the 
 touch, and of the toughness of common unsized 
 paper. On the inner side, which was in contact 
 
140 ANIMALCULES IN VEGETABLES. 
 
 with the water, it has a lively green colour, and 
 green leaves are distinguishable which have formed 
 the leather-like pellicle. Ehrenberg has submitted 
 this meadow leather to a microscopic examination, 
 and has found it to consist most distinctly of con- 
 fervce, forming together a compact felt, bleached 
 by the sun on the upper surface, and including 
 some fallen tree leaves and some blades of grass. 
 Among these conferva lie scattered a number of 
 siliceous infusoria, including sixteen different sorts, 
 belonging to six genera ; besides three sorts of 
 infusoria with membranous shields, and dried speci- 
 mens of another kind. 
 
 Ehrenberg submitted, a few years ago, to the 
 Academy of Sciences of Berlin, a foot and a half 
 square of natural wadding or flannel, consisting of 
 infusoria and conferva, which was found to the 
 extent of several hundred square feet, near Sabor, 
 in Siberia, after an inundation. This substance is 
 analogous to the " Meadow Leather," described 
 already, but ( is far more surprising, from its oc- 
 currence in such an immense mass. The flannel is 
 chiefly formed of unramified branches of Conferva 
 rivularis, interwoven with fifteen species of infu- 
 soria. 
 
 On January 31, 1687, a great mass of paper-like 
 black substance fell with a violent snowstorm from the 
 atmosphere, near the village of Rauden, in Courland. 
 This meteoric substance, described completely and 
 figured in 1686-1688, was recently considered by 
 
ANIMALCULES IN VEGETABLES. 
 
 141 
 
 M. Von Grotthus, after a chemical analysis, to be a 
 meteoric mass ; but M. Yon Bergelius, who also ana- 
 lysed it, could not discover the nickel said to be 
 contained in it ; and Von Grotthus then revoked his 
 opinion. It is mentioned in Chladni's work on 
 Meteors, and appears as an aerophyte in Nees von 
 Esenbeck's valuable Appendix toR. Brown's "Botan. 
 Schriften? Ehrenberg has examined this substance, 
 some of which is contained in the Berlin Museum, 
 (also in Chladni's collection,) microscopically. The 
 whole has been found to consist evidently of a 
 compactly matted mass of confervce, and of about 
 twenty- nine well preserved species of infusoria, of 
 which three only are not mentioned in Ehrenberg's 
 large work, although they have since occurred living, 
 
 FOSSIL ANIMALCULES. 
 
 near Berlin. Of the twenty-nine species of infu- 
 soria, only eight have siliceous shields, the others 
 having those which are soft or membranous. These 
 infusoria have now been preserved one hundred and 
 
142 SHIELDS OF ANIMALCULES. 
 
 fifty-two years. The mass may have been raised 
 by a storm from a Courland marsh, and merely car- 
 ried away, but may also have come from a far distant 
 district. The original locality of the substance 
 appears to be neither the atmosphere, nor America ; 
 but most probably either East Eussia or Courland, 
 
 In Sweden, on the shores of the lake Lettnaggsjon, 
 near Urnea, a vast quantity of extremely fine matter 
 is found, much resembling flour in appearance, and 
 called by the natives, Mountain Meal.* It is used 
 as food, being mixed up with flour, and is nutritive. 
 This substance is ascertained, by examination with 
 a microscope, to consist of nothing else than the 
 shelly coverings of certain polygastric animalcules, 
 which coverings, as the animals perish, accumulate 
 from age to age at the bottom of the waters, and 
 form a deep stratum ; this drying on the shore, or 
 in places no longer covered by the water as formerly, 
 assumes the appearance whence it has its name, and 
 each particle is the relic of a microscopic animal. 
 
 The marvellously rapid increase of these creatures 
 gives rise to other extraordinary results. As from 
 one individual, in four days, one hundred and forty 
 millions of millions would have existed, so there 
 is a sufficiency to form two solid cubic feet of sili- 
 ceous rock. Most of the solid skeletons of polygas- 
 tric animalcules are external siliceous covers, which 
 envelop the entire body ; they long resist decay, and 
 exhibit the general form and character of the species 
 * Borgmehl. 
 
SHIELDS OF ANIMALCULES. 143 
 
 to which they belonged. To them must be traced 
 the polishing slate,* or tripoli of Bilin, so frequently 
 used in some of the arts. The size of a single one of 
 the infusoria, which forms this substance, amounts 
 on an average, and in the greater part, to one two 
 hundred and eighty-eighth of a line, which equals 
 one-sixth of the thickness of the human hair, 
 reckoning its average size at one forty-eighth of a 
 line. The globule of the human blood, considered 
 at one three hundredth, is not much smaller. The 
 blood globules of a frog are twice as large as one of 
 these animalcules. As the slate of Bilin is without 
 cavities, these animalcules lie closely compressed. 
 In round numbers, about 23,000,000 of animals 
 would make up a cubic line, and would in fact be 
 contained in it. There are 1,728 cubic lines in a 
 cubic inch ; and therefore a cubic inch would con- 
 tain, on an average, about 41,000,000,000 of these 
 animals. On weighing a cubic inch of this mass, 
 I found it, says an observer, to be about 220 grains. 
 Of the 41,000,000,000 of animals, 187,000,000 go 
 to a grain ; or the siliceous shield of each ani- 
 malcule weighs about one one hundred and eighty- 
 seven millionth part of a grain. 
 
 The white calcareous earth, so common at the 
 bottoms of bogs and morasses, has its origin in the 
 ceaseless labours of some animalcules ; and the 
 "bog-iron ore" consists of the ferruginous shields 
 of others. The chalk-beds of England are many 
 * Polirschiefer. 
 
144 SHIELDS OP ANIMALCULES. 
 
 miles in extent, and many hundred feet thick ; and 
 these are also composed of the shells of infusorial 
 animalcules. Many of the enormous beds of lime- 
 stone with which we are familiar result also from 
 the accumulation of countless millions of these 
 minute beings. Swarming as they do, in salt and 
 fresh waters, and secreting from the lime which is 
 held there in solution the necessary materials for 
 their shields and calcareous skeletons, they form in 
 process of time, by their enormous aggregation, 
 the vast piles compared with which the pyramids 
 of Egypt shrink into abject insignificance. From 
 the creature we turn again to the Creator, whose 
 power is thus marvellously displayed. With Him, 
 there is neither great nor little ; his hand formed, 
 and his eye sees, every minute animalcule, as well 
 as all other living things ; every atom of matter, as 
 well as worlds, suns, or systems. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PARASITIC ANIMALS. 
 
 THE view already taken of the wide diffusion of 
 animal existence, like a boundless prospect, almost 
 overwhelms us. But here we must not stop, for 
 not only may a single drop of water be a crowded 
 city of habitation, but every blade of grass, every 
 leaf, every flower, has its colony, and even the juices 
 of plants and the fluids of animals are thronged 
 with animalcules. Wherever life can exist, there 
 has the Almighty destined it, under some form, to 
 be. We look on with wondering admiration at 
 myriads of beings, to whom a single drop of water 
 offers " space and verge enough," but these prey on 
 others smaller than themselves, and these again on 
 others still more minute, till they cannot be detected 
 by our most elaborate microscopes, and we are con- 
 strained to exclaim, " Great are the mysteries of 
 creation ! How small a part of thy ways and thy 
 works, eternal Creator, do we know !" 
 
 While, however, we find life diffused wherever 
 organic forms can exist, and all precisely adapted to 
 the place they occupy, the destined abode of some 
 animals is in situations so peculiar, so unexpected, 
 that their presence there naturally excites the 
 greatest surprise, and the more we reflect on the 
 
146 PARASITIC ANIMALS. 
 
 fact, the more mysterious does it appear. The 
 localities thus occupied have led to many conjectures; 
 and How do they get there ? has been often asked, 
 but not often satisfactorily answered. 
 
 Certain it is, that they have been neither detected 
 in the air, nor in the water ; they are not known to 
 exist on grasses or plants, nor on the surface of the 
 ground beneath our feet ; they are found exclusively 
 in situations in which it is difficult to prove how 
 they can have been deposited, yet it is here only, as 
 far as our limited sphere of observation extends, 
 that they are met with, and in no others. To what 
 do we allude ? To those extraordinary creatures 
 which are only known as tenants of the living 
 bodies of other animals, and of which some species 
 are respectively abundant in the fluids of the system, 
 while others occupy the alimentary canal, and others 
 are imbedded in the muscles, the liver, and the 
 brain. They are parasitic animals, and have 
 received the general name of Entozoa, from two 
 Greek words, within, and an animal, from the cir- 
 cumstances connected with their existence ; but all 
 do not belong to the same division of the animal 
 kingdom. Some form part of the group* in which 
 no nervous filaments have been discovered, while 
 others are more highly organized. 
 
 The Trichina spiralis exists only in the muscular 
 structure of the human subject; the Linguatula in- 
 habits the hollows of the frontal bone, called frontal 
 * Acrita. 
 
PARASITIC ANIMALS. 
 
 147 
 
 sinuses, of quadrupeds ; certain hydatids are found 
 in the brain, other species in the liver, and, it may 
 be added, in the cellular tissues of 
 the body, in the abdominal cavity, 
 and even in the eyes themselves. 
 
 Let us take, for example, one 
 species of hydatid* which is common 
 in the brains of sheep, and produces 
 the most terrible ravages. How 
 did this parasite become developed 
 there ? And when there, suppos- 
 ing it to produce others of its kind, 
 how are they to get into the brains 
 of other sheep ? The sheep dies, 
 and the hydatid in its brain also 
 perishes ; and as this is invariably 
 the case, one might suppose that 
 with the death of every sheep thus LINGUATULA. 
 afflicted, the race of these hydatids would be extin- 
 guished, but it is not so ; for it is calculated that 
 out of every thousand sheep fifteen will die of this 
 malady the first year of their age, five in the second 
 year, two in the third, and one in the fourth, and 
 so on, generation after generation. It is supposed 
 that " nearly a million of sheep are destroyed every 
 year by this pest of the ovine race " in France only. 
 
 Many have been the theories upon which it has 
 been attempted to explain the origin of these and 
 other entozoa, and to account for their presence in 
 * Csenurus cerebralis. 
 
148 PARASITIC ANIMALS. 
 
 such unlooked-for situations ; and one of the theories 
 advocated by men of high attainments, is that of 
 " equivocal or spontaneous generation ;" in other 
 words, that life is the result of certain combinations 
 of matter a most strange supposition ; or that 
 they are developed from atoms of matter collected 
 together, which assume vitality and a definite form, 
 as the ancients believed that bees were produced 
 from the blood or flesh of slaughtered oxen, when 
 undergoing the process of decomposition,* and that 
 reptiles were formed from the mud of the river 
 Nile, by the agency of the beams of the sun. 
 
 Such a theory is to cut and not untie the Gordian 
 knot ; it is unworthy of science ; it is a blot on the 
 page of truth. Great ignorance of the laws of 
 Nature may be pleaded as an excuse for the ancients, 
 but in these days, when the light of science burns 
 brightly, and old errors are effaced, it seems strange 
 that men, calling themselves philosophers, should 
 have recourse to such a system. Yet so it is. 
 Among those who advocate the spontaneous gene- 
 ration of organic beings, is to be ranked Dr. Weis- 
 senborn, of Weimar, in Germany, who has recently 
 published a paper on the spontaneous generation of 
 certain plants, peculiar to snow, which he commences 
 by observing that, " Although the recent discoveries 
 of professor Ehrenberg appear little favourable to 
 the casual production of organic beings at the pre- 
 sent period, yet they do not in the least affect the 
 * Virgil, Georg. lib. iv. line 281, et seq. 
 
PARASITIC ANIMALS. 149 
 
 theory, that their original existence is owing to a 
 purely dynamic (self-potent) process. The im- 
 portance of this subject will perhaps excuse me, if 
 I try in this place to lessen the weight of the con- 
 elusion, that animalcules and other organic bodies 
 are never the result of spontaneous generation,* by 
 some reflections on certain spontaneous generations 
 which are undoubtedly going on in our time, and 
 which, in calling the attention of the reader to the 
 traces of a nascent future creation, may serve to 
 throw some light on the conditions of the former 
 and present ones, as well as to banish the uncouth 
 idea of a ' Deus ex machind;'"^ the uncouth idea, 
 this naturalist means, of inferring the existence of 
 a God from works of consummate skill, from the 
 exquisite mechanism of organic bodies ! 
 
 But by what chain of reasoning does Dr. 
 Weissenborn prove his theory ? Positively, by no 
 arguments at all. He assumes it, but assigns no 
 reasons whatever. He finds certain plants in un- 
 expected situations that is, growing in snow and 
 he asserts that they are, therefore, to be ascribed to 
 spontaneous generation. " For proofs of this new 
 
 * Professor Ehrenberg has succeeded in establishing two great 
 natural laws : 1st. That the animal organization is perfect, in all 
 its principal systems, to the extreme limit of vision assisted by the 
 most powerful microscopes ; 2dly. That microscopic animalcules exer- 
 cise a very great and direct influence on inorganic matter. From the 
 first proposition is derived the conclusion, that no organic bodies can 
 be by possibility their own authors. 
 
 f This refers to the custom of players introducing the gods on the 
 stage of a theatre by means of a machine. 
 
150 PARASITIC ANIMALS. 
 
 creation we have to look to the poles, and the tops 
 of the Alpine mountains, where the geological 
 formation of ice and snow has already fairly begun. 
 The flora of these regions is as yet very poor, but 
 we have to consider that it is in an incipient state. 
 On the Alps grow two species, the red snow,* and 
 a very curious production, which M. Hugi found 
 only on the glacier of Unteraar, bat which is said 
 also to occur on that of Chamouni. To the snow 
 flora of the poles, consisting likewise of the red 
 snow, the expedition of the Recherche to Spitz- 
 bergen has lately added a second species of red 
 snow, and a delicate green flabelliform plant, two 
 inches in height. 
 
 " Now we have only to notice the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances under which these plants are found, in 
 order to be convinced that they are the specific and 
 spontaneous productions of a soil that is neither 
 land nor sea, and to render it probable that from 
 every new and well -established stratum there will 
 spring a new creation at any time." So that 
 because a living or organized structure appears in 
 an unaccountable place, it must, therefore, be of 
 spontaneous generation ! Now, let us see what 
 spontaneous generation involves. It supposes inert 
 matter capable of endowing itself with life, or of 
 becoming necessarily vitalized under certain con- 
 ditions ; next, it involves design in the form to be 
 assumed, choice as to what organs shall develop 
 * Protococcus, or Palmella nivalis. 
 
THEORIES EXAMINED. 151 
 
 themselves, arrangement as to the places they shall 
 occupy, contrivance as to their modification for 
 certain predetermined offices, and all proceeding 
 from a "purely dynamic process!" Such beings, as 
 Dr. Drummond well observes, " of the contrivance 
 which they display, are themselves the contrivers, of 
 the design the designers." The same able writer 
 says, it is to ignorance " that we are, I believe, to 
 attribute this theory, whether it be applied to a 
 fungus, or an animalcule, or an entozoa. We know 
 not how a mucor originates on a decaying vegetable 
 or animal matter, nor how millions of animalcules 
 appear in a vegetable infusion, nor how an entozoon 
 grows in the intestines or the brain of an animal ; 
 but because we do not in our present state of know- 
 ledge understand these things, are we to fall into 
 the error of the ancients, and attempt to explain, 
 by what seems next to an impossibility, their 
 appearance on the supposition of a spontaneous 
 generation ? - Some of these obscure animals have 
 an organization so perfect and admirable, that it 
 would seem to me almost as consonant to reason 
 and sense to attribute the formation and economy 
 of an elephant, or, I might say, man himself, to 
 equivocal generation as theirs." 
 
 The thing contrived, we may add, can never be 
 its own contriver ; that which is not, cannot be, but 
 by a pre-existing power, exerting wisdom and skill. 
 The laws of life, and the continuance of species, 
 are fixed and pre-appointed ; nothing vital in the 
 
152 HTDATIDS. 
 
 present state of our globe exists which has not a 
 parent. The first parent did not come forth into life 
 by any spontaneous or casual process, whereby inert 
 matter became the designer of its own design ; but 
 was formed by the God of heaven and earth, whose 
 wisdom and goodness are manifest in every struc- 
 tural part, in every action, in every instinct of 
 every organized body, from man to the microscopic 
 animalcule, from the cedar or the oak to the red 
 snow plant of the polar regions. To attribute the 
 existence, then, of the cerebral hydatid to sponta- 
 neous ' generation, is worse than folly ; or rather, is 
 the folly?of the man who says in his heart, " There 
 is no God." 
 
 Let us now proceed to the examination of these 
 strange entozoa, and then endeavour to show how 
 they may be, (we do not say, how they are,) 
 deposited in the parts of the frame which they 
 occupy. 
 
 The cerebral hydatid* appears like a globular 
 membranous bag or cyst, filled with gelatinous 
 fluid, and varies in size from that of a pea to that of 
 a hen's egg. The membrane composing the cyst 
 is transparent and delicately thin, but consists of 
 two or three layers, of which one at least appears 
 to be muscular, regular interlacing fibres being dis- 
 cernible in its structure, by means of a powerful 
 microscope ; and the hydatid, when removed and 
 put into warm water, or when stimuli are applied, 
 * Csenurus cerebralis. 
 
HYDATIDS. 
 
 153 
 
 exhibits vibratory or contractile movements. This 
 membranous cyst may be regarded as the body of 
 the animal, and it is studded thickly but irregularly 
 with numerous heads, or rather perhaps slightly 
 elevated mouths, each being margined around with 
 minute arms, and being also furnished with suckers, 
 
 COMMON HYDATID. A. MAGNIFIED HEAD, B. 
 
 calculated for attaching the mouths to the tissues of 
 the part in which they are seated, and from which 
 they imbibe their nourishment. 
 
154 
 
 HYDATIDS. 
 
 The following is a sketch of the cerebral hydatid, 
 of the natural size, and is accompanied by a magni- 
 fied representation of one of the heads. The common 
 
 CEREBRAL HYDATID, A. ONE OF THE HEADS MAGNIFIED, B. 
 
 hydatid,* which is found in the liver, the abdominal 
 cavity, and in the cellular tissues of animals, agrees 
 generally in its characters with the preceding ; but 
 it has only one head terminating a portion of the 
 cyst, which appears as if drawn out like the neck of 
 a Florence flask. It is furnished with suckers, and 
 the oval orifice is surrounded with arms. 
 
 The reproduction of these curious animals is 
 
 * Cisticurcus tenuicollis. 
 
HYDATIDS. 155 
 
 apparently by minute internal buds or gemmules, 
 which grow on the membranous walls of the sac ; 
 on attaining to a certain size, they become detached, 
 and may be seen by means of a lens, floating in 
 the gelatinous fluid with which the sac is filled. 
 According to the observations of Mr. Youatt, in 
 allusion more particularly to the cerebral Irydatid, 
 when the fluid contained in the cyst is clear, the 
 internal membrane will appear, if examined with 
 a lens, to be covered with a countless multitude of 
 little grain-like bodies, disposed in regular lines, 
 and adhering by filmy particles. These he calls 
 eggs. None, however, are discoverable in the fluid 
 itself. But when the fluid is turbid, it will be found 
 full of apparently fibrous particles, which when 
 viewed through a microscope are resolved into 
 minute worms, many eggs being also intermingled; 
 but when a still more turbid and opaque state of 
 the fluid prevails, it is owing to an immense quantity 
 of these worms, while all the eggs or granules have 
 disappeared. " These worms," he says, " are about 
 half a line in length; the head is in the form of 
 a tetragon, (or four-sided figure,) with a circle of 
 rays at its summit, and a mouth on each of the 
 four sides ; the neck is short, and the body covered 
 with rings or wrinkles. They appear to swim with 
 great velocity and to be possessed of much activity. 
 They have also the peculiar property of issuing at 
 pleasure from and of returning to the cyst which 
 they inhabit. If the cyst be removed from the 
 
156 HYDATIBS. 
 
 brain, hundreds of them may be forced through the 
 numerous heads of the hydatid by the slightest 
 pressure ; and at other times, when the cyst is 
 examined, numbers of them will be found in or 
 protruding from its various oval apertures." 
 
 Another curious fact may here be noticed. One 
 of these hydatids is very often found to have its 
 cyst filled with multitudes of perfect but small 
 hydatids, of various sizes, to the amount of scores. 
 Instances of this kind have frequently been ob- 
 served ; and Mr. Youatt gives one in which a hyda- 
 tid larger than the egg of a goose, found in the 
 abdominal cavity of a monkey, contained more 
 than ten thousand minute but perfect cysts, toge- 
 ther with a countless number of granules, which 
 lined the membranous cyst of the parent hydatid, 
 and which may be regarded as the germs of a 
 future race. 
 
 Here, then, three questions present themselves : 
 First, is it from these minute multitudinous granules 
 that the worms in question spring ? Secondly, are 
 these worms hydatids in a larva or imperfect state ? 
 or, thirdly, are they themselves parasites of a para- 
 site, and, in fact, not the germs or larvae of hy- 
 datids ? We have not the means of positively 
 answering these queries. They involve difficulties 
 which future naturalists may perhaps be enabled to 
 clear up. The constancy, however, of the presence 
 of the worms, and their numbers, in the turbid fluid, 
 when the granules are either less numerous than 
 
HYDATIDS. 157 
 
 when the fluid is clear, or have altogether disap- 
 peared, lead us to infer that they spring from those 
 egg-like bodies ; and when we find thousands of 
 perfect, but small hydatids, these worms being 
 absent, we are induced to conclude that these are 
 probably the worms in a stage of perfect develop- 
 ment, structurally considered, and which, by their 
 growth, would ultimately burst the parent cyst, and 
 so escape. Let us, then, assume all this, (it is at 
 least probable, if not proved,) and then endeavour, 
 without having recourse to the unphilosophical 
 theory of equivocal generation, to account for the 
 presence of hydatids in the brain of the sheep or 
 ox, or in any other enclosed portion of the animal 
 system. 
 
 Let us conceive of an animal dying from the 
 mischief caused by a hydatid in the brain, which 
 hydatid is laden internally with myriads of granules, 
 the presumed germs of perfect creatures. Now, it 
 is granted that the parent entozoon perishes, but it 
 ' does not follow that the granules or eggs which it 
 contains also lose their vitality. In an animal so 
 low in the scale of being, organically lower than 
 even plants in general, and which is destitute not 
 only of a distinguishable nervous system, but also 
 of vessels of circulation, it is by no means going 
 too far to consider the microscopic eggs as still 
 retaining their vitality. But how long will they 
 do so ? Probably for many years. The seeds of 
 plants have been known to retain their vitality for 
 
158 PRODUCTS OF DISEASE. 
 
 many hundreds of years, and even more, and then 
 to germinate under favourable circumstances, and 
 so also may these granular germs of entozoa. After 
 the death of their parent they may mingle with the 
 atmosphere, or with the earth of the fields ; they 
 may be absorbed by plants, and contained in their 
 sap vessels, and during a thousand changes of situ- 
 ation remain torpid ; but suppose them to be taken 
 into the system of an animal an animal weakly or 
 inclined to disease, (for in such animals only do 
 they become developed,) and what is the result ? 
 The absorbed egg, taken perhaps into the system 
 with the food, is carried through the blood ves- 
 sels, threading their tortuous mazes, their minutest 
 capillaries, till at length it reaches a situation in 
 which its development shall begin. Its development 
 commencing, it remains stationary, it increases yet 
 more and more, reproduces in its turn myriads of 
 granules, and perishes. Thus, then, may the presence 
 of hydatids be accounted for. Animal bodies, be it 
 remembered, are not solid ; they are not like iron, 
 they are bundles of tubes ; they are porous, the air 
 permeates them, and they are ever changing their 
 constituents. 
 
 It may here be objected, that if this be admitted, 
 hydatids ought to be at least very common in 
 healthy bodies. Not so ; the vigorous circulation 
 of the fluids in health, the rapid change of the con- 
 stituent particles of the body, the oxygenation of 
 the blood, may tend to prevent their development, 
 
PRODUCTS OF DISEASE. 159 
 
 while those ill understood conditions, which pri- 
 marily constitute an unhealthy or debilitated system, 
 that languid or feverish circulation, that loss of 
 tone in the nervous and muscular systems, that 
 depressed condition in the organs of absorption and 
 excretion, may favour their development. 
 
 Still, it may be said, what becomes of the myriads 
 of eggs which never find such a favourable resi- 
 dence, and which never develop ? do these perish ? 
 And if so, is not there an immense creation of 
 vitality for no end ? Is not the provision for life, 
 as it respects these low beings, of which so few 
 comparatively become matured, thrown, as it were, 
 away ? And may we not here, as in other depart- 
 ments of the animal kingdom, expect that the nu- 
 merical ratio, the loss, and the reproduction of 
 beings will be in accordance with each other ? If 
 it pleases the Creator thus to secure from annihila- 
 tion these entozoa, why not ? Who knows to what 
 extent of destruction these granular ova are liable ? 
 
 The plan may be, and we say is, one of perfect 
 wisdom, and until we know every circumstance, we 
 cannot in fairness ask such a question. Besides, we 
 see the very same law as it respects the continuance 
 of plants. The thistle perishes, but not until it has 
 scattered thousands of its seeds around it, and given 
 them to every breeze. Of these seeds all do not 
 germinate ; numbers are destroyed : they form the 
 food of birds and various creatures, and it is in the 
 multiplicity of them that the continuance of the 
 
160 PERFECTIONS OF GOD. 
 
 plant as a species is secured. But it may be, that 
 the egg of the hydatid, when not developed in an 
 animal body, becomes so under other circumstances, 
 and presents such a modification of form and gene- 
 ral appearance, as not to be then recognised; its 
 growth and characters as a hydatid may depend 
 entirely upon the supply of animalized food within 
 its power of absorption ; in the water it may be 
 one of the myriads of strange animalcules of which 
 we only know that " little is known." We do not 
 say that this is the case, we merely suggest a pos- 
 sibility, perhaps even a probability ; for the more 
 we become acquainted with the lower orders of the 
 animal creation, the more are we convinced that the 
 laws applicable to the vertebrate classes, mammalia, 
 birds, reptiles, and fishes, do not apply to them. Who 
 would expect to find the gemmules of a sponge 
 active locomotive beings, or to see the young of a 
 barnacle swimming about ? Let not the philo- 
 sophic mind be startled, then, because difficulties 
 are around us ; nor run into theories bordering both 
 on the absurd and the impious, because links in a 
 chain of causes and effects are not obvious to our 
 researches. 
 
 It has been asked, What objects are these hydatids 
 accomplishing in their strange abode ? We cannot 
 tell ; but we know that the same question is appli- 
 cable to a great extent of animated nature. What 
 object is accomplished by the existence of the ani- 
 malcules revelling by thousands in a drop of water? 
 
PERFECTIONS OF GOD. 161 
 
 What, by the multitudes of living things which the 
 great sea contains ? It is enough for us to know 
 that they exist, and that in wisdom they were 
 created ; and let us never forget that the counsel of 
 God is beyond our finite comprehension. " Behold, 
 thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy 
 great power and stretched-out arm, and there is 
 nothing too hard for thee." So said one who had 
 well considered the ways of God ; but he who 
 talks of matter spontaneously assuming vitality and 
 definite organs, a specific form and texture, though 
 he may by subterfuge ingeniously endeavour to extri- 
 cate himself from the dilemma, virtually denies the 
 necessity of a great, eternal, all-powerful Creator, 
 by whom and in whom all things exist, and without 
 whom " was not any thing made that was made." 
 
 If, in these observations, we have demonstrated 
 something of the power of God, as displayed in the 
 existence of beings little considered by persons in 
 general, and involving much both wonderful and 
 interesting ; and if we have said anything, which, 
 while it throws light, though but obscure, on the 
 circumstances in which they present themselves to 
 our notice, tends to convince the reader that the theory 
 of equivocal or spontaneous generation is a base- 
 less fabric, notwithstanding some philosophers are 
 labouring to establish it, our object is accomplished. 
 
 There is a kindred theory, revived in a recent 
 work, which has had a large circulation a theory 
 to which it will be well now to advert. It is 
 
162 THEORIES. 
 
 thus stated : " The idea which I form of the pro- 
 gress of organic life upon our earth, and the hypo- 
 thesis is applicable to all similar theatres of vital 
 being, is, that the simplest and most primitive 
 type, under a law to which that of like productions 
 is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above 
 it ; that this organ produced the next higher, and 
 so on to the very highest, the stages of advance 
 being in all cases very small, namely, from one 
 species only to another ; so that the phenomenon 
 has always been of a simple and modest character." 
 
 This theory assumes that the monad we have 
 already considered, the simplest form of animal 
 life, was first created ; that it gave birth to the 
 next species of animalcules, and that onward this 
 development proceeded, till the animalcule was lost 
 in the mollusk, and the mollusk in the monkey, and 
 the monkey in the man ! 
 
 Now it ought to have been enough for the 
 holders of this theory to have set themselves to 
 answer the question, if such a power of develop- 
 ment were possessed by cells, how has it become 
 extinct ? Innumerable facts attest that the monad 
 produces only monads, and that throughout organic 
 nature the germ is precisely like its parent. No 
 species trespasses on the boundary line of another 
 species. In its development, the Divine voice may 
 be heard, saying : " Hitherto shalt thou come, but 
 no further." And the declaration may not only be 
 substantiated by the observations of every passing 
 
THEORIES. 163 
 
 hour, but by an appeal to the testimony of every 
 naturalist, from the earliest times to our own. 
 
 It has been judiciously said by Dr. Mantell, a 
 diligent and persevering observer in an extensive 
 field of organic nature, and one of the first philo- 
 sophers who exposed the fallacy of this vaunted 
 theory : 
 
 "Although it is now a received physiological 
 axiom, that cells are the elementary basis, the ulti- 
 mate limit, of all animal and vegetable structures ; 
 and that the varied functions, in which organic life 
 essentially consists, are performed by the agency of 
 cells, which are not distinguishable from each other 
 by any well-marked characters ; there is not any 
 ground for assuming any identity between the 
 primary cells, even of the simplest species of 
 animals or vegetables, much less between those of 
 more complicated organization. The single cell 
 which embodies vitality in the monad, or the yeast 
 fungus, is governed by the same immutable organic 
 laws which preside over the complicated machinery 
 of man, and the other vertebrata ; and the single 
 cell which is the embryotic condition of the mam- 
 mal has no more relation to the single cell which is 
 the permanent condition of the monad, than has the 
 perfect animal into which the mammalian cell be- 
 comes ultimately developed. The cell that forms 
 the germ of each species or organism is endowed 
 with special properties, which can result in nothing 
 but the fabrication of that particular species. The 
 serious error which pervades the theory advanced 
 
164 ANALOGY NOT IDENTITY. 
 
 in the work entitled * The Vestiges of the Natural 
 History of the Creation/ has arisen from its author 
 having, in many instances, assumed analogy to be 
 a proof of identity. There is an analogy between 
 the human embryo and the monad of the volvox, 
 in that each consists of simple cells ; but there is 
 no more identity between the human and the poly- 
 gastrian cells than between the perfect man and the 
 mature animalcule." 
 
 Nor is this all ; the notion of " the stages of ad- 
 vance being in all cases very small," is as obviously 
 false as every other part of the theory. The differ- 
 ence between the organization of reptiles and birds, 
 and again of birds and mammals, is manifestly 
 great ; nor are there any other intermediate classes of 
 organized beings to diminish, much less fill up, the 
 vast hiatus. Incontrovertible facts declare, there- 
 fore, the utter fallacy of the pretence of a gradual 
 development, and that the power does not exist, nor 
 ever yet did, in which it has been supposed to 
 begin. 
 
 x " Proud, scornful man ! thy soaring wing 
 
 Would hurry towards Infinity : 
 And yet the vilest, meanest thing 
 
 Is too sublime, too deep for thee ; 
 And all thy vain imagining 
 
 Lost in the smallest speck we see. 
 It must be so : for He, even He 
 
 Who worlds created, form'd the worm : 
 He pours the dew, who fill'd the sea ; 
 
 Breathes from the flower, who rules the storm : 
 Him we may worship, not conceive ; 
 
 See not and hear not, but adore." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SEA NETTLES. 
 
 THE Medusa, or jelly-fish, so often observed on 
 the sea- shore, is one of the Acalephs,* a name de- 
 rived from the Greek word signifying a nettle, a 
 class of beings placed by naturalists in the next 
 rank to those which have j ust been considered. One 
 is provided with long filaments, as represented in 
 the engraving. Another crea- 
 ture has a central pedicle, de- 
 scending from the lower sur- 
 face, which hangs quite loose 
 among the waves. Its surface 
 is covered with pores, each one 
 being the commencement of a 
 fine canal, joining others, till 
 at length large trunks are 
 found, through which, what- 
 ever is imbibed by the root-like 
 stem is poured into the central or digestive cavity. 
 Other canals diverge from thence, run to the mar- 
 gin of the disc, and become a network of fine 
 vessels, conveying nutriment throughout the body. 
 It might be supposed that such a creature a living 
 jelly, was ill fitted to prey on other animals. But, 
 * Acalephee. 
 
 CUVIERIA CABIOSCHROMA. 
 
166 THE MEDUSA. 
 
 in common with the class to which it belongs, God 
 has endowed it with a stinging power, which is 
 equal to all its necessities. No sooner does a fish 
 come in contact with this apparently helpless crea- 
 ture, than the medusa emits a fluid so pungent that 
 the victim is paralyzed and motionless, and becomes 
 an easy prey. 
 
 The medusa may be seen to depress the margin 
 of its body, and to flap with its fringed membrane, 
 somewhat like the opening and shutting of a para- 
 sol, thus exerting its power of locomotion. The 
 movement referred to is performed about fifteen 
 times a minute, very regularly ; and by the reaction 
 of the water, the medusa is sustained at the surface. 
 It descends in the water by simply contracting its 
 substance in all directions ; and sometimes, to sink 
 more quickly, it turns itself over, so that the con- 
 vex part is uppermost. 
 
 In some species, the young may be observed, at a 
 certain period, transferred from the ovaries on the 
 lower surface of the body. After changing in size, 
 colour, and form, they are clothed with cilia, and 
 then swim freely about. On one of them adhering 
 to some object covered with cilia, arms appear 
 about the mouth, and actively seek the needed 
 food. It now freely swims about till winter comes, 
 when it continues in quietude. At the approach of 
 spring, transverse lines appear on the surface ; these 
 deepen into furrows, dividing the body into several 
 portions, which, for a time, remain in contact, but 
 
THE CYDIPPE. 167 
 
 subsequently each part swims about, until the last 
 change takes place, and mature medusae appear. 
 
 " We see," says professor Owen, " that a medusa 
 may actually be generated three successive times, 
 and by as many distinct modes of generation by 
 fertile ova, by gemmation, and by spontaneous 
 fission before attaining its mature condition." 
 
 And yet what is the actual substance of a creature 
 endowed with all these powers ? Were the reader, 
 on his next visit to the coast, to take with him one 
 weighing five or six pounds, in a vessel, and to set 
 it aside, what would he discover when a few hours 
 had elapsed ? The animal he deposited in the vessel ? 
 Certainly not. All the solid matter left is a mem- 
 branous cellular film, weighing only a few grains, 
 and the fluid drained away is not to be distin- 
 guished, by the most accomplished chemist, from 
 common sea-water. And yet, when these were com- 
 bined, and instinct with the mysterious power of life, 
 there was the medusa, bearing its simple but con- 
 clusive testimony to the perfections of the Infinite ! 
 Other creatures may be described as trans- 
 parent bodies, differing in size, but, in general, 
 about as large as a boy's marble. Externally they 
 exhibit ridges like those of a melon, and are in form 
 not unlike an orange or an apple, from which cir- 
 cumstance they take their specific name.* They 
 move by means of vibratile cilia, which extend 
 from the upper to the lower extremity of the body. 
 
 * Cydippe pomiformis. 
 
168 
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS. 
 
 They can rise or fall at pleasure, executing, as 
 they move up and down, with rapidity and ease, a 
 marvellous series of evolutions. 
 
 THE CYDIPPE, OR BEROE. 
 
 Greatly differing in external appearance from the 
 animal last described, though allied to it in certain 
 respects, is the girdle of Venus. This creature, an 
 
 THE GIRDLE OP VENUS. CESTUM VENERIS. 
 
 inhabitant of the Mediterranean, appears, at first, 
 to be a long flat riband of translucent glass ; its 
 length is sometimes six or seven feet, its breadth 
 
THE PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR. 169 
 
 only three or four inches, and its substance ex- 
 tremely delicate. The countless cilia, placed on the 
 margins of its body, are its oars, which move it in 
 graceful undulations through the tranquil waters. 
 They serve also to bring food to the mouth a small 
 orifice placed on the upper margin, near the middle 
 of the body; and the digested nutriment is conveyed 
 through long canals to the remotest parts of the 
 animal. 
 
 Far more frequently is the 
 Physalus found, called by 
 seamen the Portuguese man- 
 of-war. Its body consists of 
 a large pear-shaped vesicle, 
 containing air, which floats 
 upon the water ; and from 
 the lower portion descend a 
 variety of organs to hold prey, 
 to suck nutriment, and to 
 bear eggs. From the upper 
 part rises a beautiful purple 
 sail, which bears the physa- 
 lus onwards alone, or in 
 company with a fleet of its 
 kind. Wishing to sink be- PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR. 
 
 ., , THE PHYSALUS. 
 
 neath the waves, or sensible 
 
 of danger, it forces the air through orifices pro- 
 vided for its escape, and again, at its pleasure, 
 becomes full of this fluid, that it may float on the 
 bosom of the sea. 
 
170 COLOURS OF THE SEA. 
 
 Some hues of the ocean are traceable to animal- 
 cules. Dr. Poppig, in his " Voyage to Chili," says, 
 " From the topmast the sea appeared, as far as the 
 eye could reach, of a dark red colour, and this in a 
 streak the breadth of which was estimated at six 
 English miles. As we sailed slowly along, we found 
 that the colour changed into brilliant purple, so that 
 even the foam, which is seen at the stern of a ship 
 under sail, was of a rose colour. The sight was 
 very striking, because this purple streak was marked 
 by a very distinct line from the blue waters of the 
 sea, a circumstance which we the more easily ob- 
 served, because our course lay directly through the 
 midst of this streak, which extended from south- 
 east to north-west. The water, taken up in a 
 bucket, appeared indeed quite transparent, but a 
 faint purple tinge was perceptible when a few drops 
 were placed upon a piece of white china, and moved 
 rapidly backwards and forwards in the sunshine. A 
 moderate magnifying glass showed these little red 
 dots, which only with great attention could be dis- 
 cerned with the naked eye, consisting of infusoria, 
 which were of a spherical form, entirely destitute of 
 
 all external organs of motion We sailed for 
 
 four hours at a mean rate of six English miles an 
 hour, through this streak, which was seven miles 
 broad, before we reached the end of it ; and its super- 
 ficies must therefore have been about a hundred 
 and sixty-eight English square miles. If we add 
 that these animals may have been equally dis- 
 
PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. 171 
 
 tributed in the upper stratum of water, to the depth 
 of six feet, we must confess that their numbers 
 infinitely surpassed the conception of the human 
 understanding." 
 
 Another remarkable fact in connexion with the 
 ocean has been thus referred to by Coleridge : 
 
 " Beyond the shadow of the ship, 
 
 I watch'd the water- snakes : 
 They moved in tracks of shining white, 
 And when they rear'd, the elfish light 
 
 Fell off in hoary flakes. 
 
 " Within the shadow of the ship 
 
 I watch'd their rich attire : 
 Blue, glossy green, and velvet black ; 
 They coil'd and swam, and every track 
 Was a flash of golden fire. 
 
 " O happy living things ! no tongue 
 
 Their beauty might declare : 
 A spring of love gush'd from my heart 
 And I bless'd them unaware." 
 
 The phosphorescence of the sea exhibits the 
 greatest brilliancy between the tropics. Sometimes 
 the vessel, while ploughing her way through the 
 billows, appears to mark out a furrow of fire ; each 
 stroke of the oar gives rise to sparks of light, some- 
 times brilliant and dazzling, at others tranquil and 
 pearly. These movable lights, too, are grouped in 
 endless varieties ; and their thousands of luminous 
 points, like little stars, appear floating on the sur- 
 face ; and then, crowding together, form one vast 
 sheet of light. Then the scene becomes more 
 
172 THE PYROSOMA. 
 
 tumultuous ; the bright waves heave up, roll, and 
 break in shining foam. At other times, large 
 sparkling bodies, resembling the forms of fishes, 
 pursue each other, disappearing and bursting forth 
 anew. 
 
 In some cases, thej luminosity of the ocean is 
 owing to the sea-nettles, which are scarcely per- 
 ceptible without the assistance of a microscope. 
 All, however, are not equally minute ; the cydip- 
 pes, in which the cilia would seem to be most 
 vividly phosphorescent, are of considerable size ; 
 the girdle of Venus, as it glides rapidly along, has 
 the appearance of an undulating riband of flame, 
 several feet in length ; and many larger crea- 
 tures shine with such dazzling brightness, that they 
 have been described by navigators as resembling 
 " white hot shot, visible at some depth beneath the 
 surface." 
 
 Among luminous beings the Pyrosoma holds a 
 prominent place. Mr. Bennett, in one of his voyages, 
 observed the sea presenting one mass of phosphoric 
 light, extending to a considerable distance around 
 the vessel. So powerful was it as to illuminate the 
 sails, and to permit a book of small print to be read 
 with facility near the windows of the stern cabins. 
 Above this bright field, numerous sea-fowl were 
 hovering in search of their prey. The light ap- 
 peared to be entirely owing to the Pyrosomata. 
 Specimens taken from the sea and placed in a vessel 
 containing sea-water, ceased altogether to emit light, 
 
THE PYROSOMA. 1*73 
 
 or emitted it but sparingly while they remained at 
 rest. On the water, however, being agitated, or 
 when one of the masses of animals was taken into 
 the hand, the whole became instantly illuminated by 
 
 THE PYROSOMA. 
 
 myriads of bright dots, much resembling in hue 
 the points on the elytra of a diamond beetle.* 
 
 The mass of these animals, of the usual cylin- 
 drical form and gelatinous substance, was about 
 four inches in length and one and a half in circum- 
 ference. Each tube is described as being open at 
 both ends ; the orifice at the broader extremity 
 being much better defined in its circular form, 
 larger, and more distinct than that of the opposite 
 end. The surface of the mass appeared to be 
 studded with numerous prominent, rigid, and pearly 
 tubercles, intermingled with small specks of brown 
 
 * Circulio imperialis, Fab. 
 
174 BENEVOLENT DESIGNS. 
 
 or red colour. In these latter, the power of emit- 
 ting light appeared chiefly to be seated ; these 
 being frequently bright, while the remainder of 
 the body exhibited only its naturla white or yel- 
 lowish white hue ; a hue which changed after death 
 into a red tinge. The brown specks, when re- 
 moved from the body, did not emit light. 
 
 But what, it might be asked, is the great design 
 of this phosphorescence ? And assuredly, much 
 might be said in reply to this question, beyond our 
 present limits. Let it however be observed, that 
 light diminishes rapidly in passing through water, 
 and that absolute darkness reigns in the depths of 
 the sea. And yet it teems with active and rapacious 
 beings : often social, performing various functions, 
 moving hither and thither with the celerity of 
 birds, and above all, provided in countless instances 
 with visual organs. How then are they to see in a 
 world of gloom ? 
 
 Infinite Wisdom has solved the problem, by 
 establishing an independent source of light beneath 
 the ocean, and so precisely disposing it, as effectually 
 to answer the intended purpose. That the animal 
 may be seen in utter darkness, it is rendered 
 luminous ; and this provision was necessary for the 
 pursuit of food. But for this, the deep-residing 
 fishes could not have found the means of subsistence, 
 and the night-preying ones would have been utterly 
 helpless. Now, there is an abundant and accessible 
 provision for all. 
 
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS. 175 
 
 It is also worthy of remark, that while the light 
 of living marine animals is commonly confined to a 
 certain portion or organ, the whole body shortly 
 after death becomes luminous, emitting a pale 
 uniform light. The luminous matter may now be 
 detached and diffused through water a fact familiar 
 in our larders, while there can be no such separation 
 of the living light. Not, as is commonly supposed, 
 that the luminous appearance of fish is a result of 
 putrefaction ; it commences long before this process, 
 and ceases when it is established. The design of 
 this arrangement is as obvious as that just mentioned: 
 the dead creature is still food ; by putrefaction it 
 would be wasted, and might be injurious; but it 
 becomes an object of attraction under this new 
 expedient, as it had ceased to be, in losing with its 
 vitality its former power of producing light. 
 
 Such arrangements are not limited to marine 
 animals having eyes. These organs are now known 
 to exist in multitudes which were long supposed 
 to have no such power. The microscope has placed 
 the fact beyond all doubt. But even where they 
 are assuredly wanting, as in the medusae and the 
 beroes, there is a perfect sense of a luminous object 
 when present : they will pursue a moving candle 
 with the accuracy of a fish, and eagerly crowd 
 round the single opening for the admission of light 
 which has been left in a darkened vessel. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 
 
 WE have now to consider another class of ani- 
 malcules. The Rotifera, or wheel-bearers, are 
 proved, by the recent discoveries of the microscope, 
 to be distinguished from the potygastrica by many 
 important differences of organization. They belong 
 to that division of the animal kingdom, termed, by 
 professor Owen, Nematoneura, from two Greek 
 words, meaning a thread and a nerve, from the 
 circumstance that it is here that the first traces of 
 distinct nerves, in the form of fine threads, begin to 
 make their appearance, and in some instances, 
 ganglia, or rudimentary nervous centres. In addition 
 to this character, distinct muscular fibres are per- 
 ceptible, arranged in bundles ; and, though there is 
 no heart or great receptacle for the circulating 
 fluid, there is a system of vessels for its due 
 distribution through the frame. The digestive 
 apparatus also assumes a more perfect state, and 
 instead of consisting of mere cavities in the sub- 
 stance of the body itself, it presents a true stomach 
 and intestinal canal, with various appendages. The 
 mode of reproduction is no longer by the division of 
 the parent or adult into new beings, but by eggs, 
 containing the vitalized germ of the future animals. 
 
WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 177 
 
 But though the first traces of distinct nerves are 
 manifest, it is to be observed, that these nerves are 
 not always capable of being demonstrated. In some 
 groups they elude our research, perhaps from their 
 extreme delicacy ; in other groups, as the rotifera, 
 the minuteness of the animals themselves renders 
 the detection of such organs almost hopeless. And, 
 although Ehrenberg considers that he has succeeded 
 in discovering, not only nervous filaments, but even 
 nervous ganglia, there is, perhaps, reason to suspect 
 that he may have been misled by appearances. We 
 do not mean to say that nerves do not exist in these 
 animalcules, for many things render it most pro- 
 bable ; but merely, that it yet remains to be demon- 
 strated that the filaments described by him are nerves. 
 
 The wheel-bearing animalcules are so termed, 
 from the appearance of certain wheels near the 
 mouth, described by the earlier microscopic observers, 
 who seeing them rotate with great velocity, were 
 completely at a loss how to account for their pre- 
 sence and motion, or to conceive of the nature of 
 their organic union with the body of the animal 
 itself. But this rotation is an optical illusion ; it is 
 now proved that there are really no wheels at all, 
 and that the appearance of them arises from cir- 
 clets of minute cilia, while the apparently rotatory 
 motion in question is produced by a series of pro- 
 gressive undulations, in consequence of the alternate 
 and orderly extension and contraction of each 
 separate fibril. 
 
178 WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 
 
 According to the observations of Dr. A. Farre, 
 the cilia, under a microscope of high powers, present 
 an appearance of waves rolling round and round in 
 a circle ; each wave is produced by a number of 
 cilia, those forming the highest point being at full 
 stretch ; the others folded down upon themselves 
 in an increasing ratio to the middle of the interval 
 between two waves, where they are most completely 
 lowered : these, however, become in turn the most 
 elevated, and those which were the highest, the 
 most lowered, and so on in alternate succession, and 
 with great rapidity, the waves appearing to roll 
 onwards. 
 
 The cilia are certainly endowed with voluntary 
 motion ; they are regulated in their actions by the 
 will of the animal ; they can be urged into move- 
 ments of extreme rapidity, put into gentle and 
 tranquil action, or stopped in an instant. Some- 1 
 times, a portion only of the circlet of cilia is in 
 action, while the other portion is quiescent ; and 
 sometimes a few cilia alone are seen slowly bending, 
 and then stretching themselves ; when all at once 
 the whole begin to work with the utmost energy, 
 wave succeeding wave with wonderful velocity. 
 It is by the action of these cilia, that the animalcule 
 rows itself through the water, and traverses the 
 tiny ocean in which it revels, full of animation. 
 They are not, however, exclusively organs of loco- 
 motion ; they serve for the acquisition of food. 
 Fixing itself by means of a pair of forceps, ter- 
 
WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 1 79 
 
 minating the body, to some stationary object, (as, 
 for example, an aquatic plant,) the animalcule sets 
 its cilia in action, and thereby produces a rapid 
 current in the contiguous water, converging to the 
 creature's mouth, and hurrying thither such minute 
 particles, either of an animal or vegetable nature, 
 as are drawn into the mimic Charybdis. It appears 
 that the cilia of these animalcules, whatever their 
 own structure may be, are governed by a muscular 
 apparatus, which is very conspicuous, and which 
 retracts them, when not in use, within a kind of 
 sheath, where they are safely lodged till their action 
 is required. 
 
 The rotifer a may be described as shell-covered 
 animalcules, their body being enclosed in a mode- 
 rately firm or horny investment, but of extreme 
 delicacy and very transparent, so that the internal 
 viscera may be perceived through it. The upper, 
 or free margin of this shell, is often indented, or 
 ornamented with regular projections, and is con- 
 tinued by means of a fine membrane to the bases of 
 certain elevations around the mouth, termed lobes, 
 from which arise the cilia already described. This 
 membranous continuation of the shell does not con- 
 fine the ciliary apparatus, but permits it to be 
 retracted at pleasure within the shell. 
 
 These creatures present great variations of form 
 and colour ; but all have at the posterior extremity 
 of the body a pair of forceps or pincers, instruments 
 of prehension, by which they attach themselves at 
 
180 WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 
 
 will to stationary objects: in some, these pincers 
 terminate a long muscular tail-like appendage; but 
 in others, the pincers terminate a 
 mere projection. The mouth leads 
 into a gullet, which varies remark- 
 ably in size in different species : in 
 some it is very capacious ; but in 
 others it is a narrow canal. The 
 gullet leads to a gizzard, or pre- 
 PINCEHS or AN paratory receptacle, in which, by 
 LE ' means of a curious apparatus, the 
 food is either ground to pulp, or cut into fragments. 
 This apparatus is described by Ehrenberg as 
 consisting of three teeth, 
 which, by the action of the 
 gizzard and of certain muscles 
 belonging to them, work 
 vigorously on each other, and 
 so mince to pieces whatever 
 is subjected to their operation. 
 GIZZARD OF AN ANIMAL- These teeth are three in num- 
 ber, as in the sketch, and 
 
 consist of one central and two lateral or superior 
 ones : the central tooth is apparently fixed, and has 
 two flattened facets on its upper surface, one for 
 each superior tooth to work upon. Each of these 
 superior teeth consists of two portions, namely, a 
 basal portion, fixed to the walls of the gizzard, and 
 serving for the attachment of muscular fibres ; and 
 a free movable portion, which may be regarded as 
 
WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 181 
 
 the real tooth, while the other serves as a jaw. 
 These three portions work with their inner edge 
 upon the facets of the central piece, and this edge 
 appears to be jagged or serrated, the better to tear 
 the substances on which it acts. Minute as are 
 these curious organs, the transparency of the 
 rotifera permits them to be distinctly seen, under 
 a powerful microscope, which also demonstrates 
 their effects upon the bodies of the smaller animal- 
 cules on which the various species prey ; for, as 
 with fishes, they are the food of each other, and 
 the warfare is perpetually carried on. The hard- 
 ness of these teeth is not a little surprising ; they 
 may be detached from the body of the animalcule in 
 a perfect condition, and be submitted by themselves 
 to examination beneath a microscope ; they vary 
 in minor particulars, as form and size, in every 
 species ; but their essential characters appear to be 
 the same in all. 
 
 From this teeth -furnished gizzard, or preparatory 
 receptacle, a passage, varying in length in different 
 animalcules, leads to the true stomach, or digesting 
 cavity, to which the food, after being subdivided, 
 is conveyed. The form and the relative capacity 
 of the stomach, like those of the gizzard, are very 
 variable ; but in all these rotiferous animalcules 
 this part is furnished with certain appendages, 
 which are regarded as being of a glandular struc- 
 ture, and destined to secrete a fluid essential to 
 the performance of digestion. 
 
182 WHEEL-BEARING ANIMALCULES. 
 
 The rotifera are oviparous ; they produce eggs, 
 from which the young are excluded, sometimes 
 while yet within the body of the parent. The eggs 
 of some of these animalcules, appearing like minute 
 transparent globules, are calculated to be, when 
 first deposited, only the twelve thousandth part of 
 an inch in diameter ; but they increase in magni- 
 tude, and then constitute most interesting objects of 
 microscopic examination. In an egg of about the 
 one thousand and seven hundredth part of an inch in 
 diameter, the included animalcule may be distinctly 
 perceived, even the actions of the cilia may be dis- 
 tinguished, producing the wheel-like rotatory ap- 
 pearance previously described. At certain times, 
 the eggs may be easily recognised before being 
 deposited by the animalcule, lodged in a long float- 
 ing sac, in the cavity of the body ; for the trans- 
 parency of the creature is such as to permit the 
 minutest parts of its internal structure to be seen ; 
 but it often happens that the sac is empty. 
 
 Such, then, is the general outline of what we 
 know of the structure of the rotifera. They are 
 active and vivacious creatures, and by the celerity 
 and address of their movements, give delight to 
 those who observe them. To see a shoal of them 
 in a drop of water, avoiding each other in their 
 mazy courses, and performing a thousand mingled 
 evolutions, is perhaps one of the most interesting 
 spectacles which the reflective can contemplate ; 
 but this delight gives way to astonishment, or 
 
OXYGEN YIELDED BY ANIMALCULES. 183 
 
 rather to meditation, when he perceives that these 
 creatures are elaborately constructed ; that they are 
 organized with an express relationship to their 
 destined mode of life ; and that they enjoy their 
 existence like the fishes of the sea, the birds of 
 the air, or the wild beasts of the desert. 
 
 It has already been stated, that oxygen is the 
 great supporter of animal life, and consequently 
 every living creature is incessantly engaged in con- 
 verting it into carbonic acid by the process of respi- 
 ration. It is estimated that one man daily changes 
 no fewer than 18,000 cubic inches of the oxygen of 
 the air into carbonic acid, by the carbon discharged 
 from the lungs, and consequently, the amount 
 changed by the whole animated population of the 
 globe must be enormous. Other demands are made 
 on this essential element of life, as the oxygen of 
 the atmosphere is indispensable to combustion. It 
 has been calculated that the small town of Giessen, 
 in Germany, with a population of 7,000 inhabitants, 
 yearly changes more than 1,000,000,000 cubic feet 
 of oxygen into carbonic acid, by the combustion of 
 wood as fuel ; and Dr. Carpenter says, in an 
 English manufacturing town, where the proportion 
 of coal used is far greater, the amount would be at 
 least twice as much in proportion to its size. Now, 
 empty jars buried in the city of Pompeii, when 
 it suffered this catastrophe from an eruption of 
 Vesuvius 1,800 years ago, demonstrate that no 
 change has taken place in the proportion of the 
 
184 OXYGEN YIELDED BY ANIMALCULES. 
 
 gases which constitute the atmosphere. We find 
 them in fact always and everywhere the same. 
 Infinite Wisdom has provided, therefore, that as 
 there is an enormous demand on one of its elements, 
 so of this there should be as ample a supply. 
 
 In a very interesting memoir by Messrs. August 
 and Morren, contained in the Transactions of the 
 Academy of Brussels for 1841, it is shown that 
 water with organic substances evolves a gas which 
 contains sixty-one per cent, of oxygen ; and they 
 conclude their treatise by saying : "It follows from 
 the preceding remarks, that the phenomenon of the 
 evolution of oxygen gas is due to the Chlamido- 
 nomas pulvisculus, Ehrenberg, and to several green 
 animals still lower in the scale." 
 
 In Liebig's Chemistry, this statement is quoted, 
 and that eminent man then proceeds to remark: "The 
 author took the opportunity of convincing himself 
 of the accuracy of this long -observed fact, by means 
 of some water out of a trough in his garden, the 
 water being coloured strongly green by different 
 kinds of infusoria. This water was freed, by means 
 of a sieve, from all particles of vegetable matter, 
 and being placed in a jar inverted in a porcelain 
 vessel containing the same water, was exposed for 
 several weeks to the action of solar light. During 
 this time a continued accumulation of gas took 
 place in the upper part of this jar. After fourteen 
 days, one-third of the water in the jar had been 
 pressed out of it, and the gas which had taken its 
 
THE TELESCOPE AND THE MICROSCOPE. 185 
 
 place ignited a glowing mass of wood, and in all 
 respects behaved like pure oxygen gas." 
 
 Here, then, we pause in our study of organic 
 beings, multitudes of whom are far too minute for 
 the observation of the unassisted eye, and on whose 
 structure and habits so much light has been thrown 
 by the use of the microscope. Well was it said by 
 Dr. Chalmers, as he viewed the telescope in com- 
 parison with that instrument : " The one led me to 
 see a system in .every star ; the other leads me to 
 see a world in every atom. The one taught me 
 that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of 
 its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand 
 on the high field of immensity. The other teaches 
 me, that every grain of sand may harbour within it 
 the tribes and the families of a busy population. 
 The one told me of the insignificance of the world 
 I tread upon. The other redeems it from all its 
 insignificance ; for it tells me that in the leaves of 
 every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, 
 and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds 
 teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories 
 of the firmament. The one has suggested to me 
 that, beyond and above all that is visible to man, 
 there may lie fields of creation which sweep im- 
 measurably along, and carry the impress of the 
 Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the uni- 
 verse. The other suggests to me that, within and 
 beyond all that minuteness which the aided eye of 
 man has been able to explore, there may be a region 
 
 N 
 
186 THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE REVELATION. 
 
 of invisibles ; and that, could we draw aside the 
 mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, 
 we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as 
 astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the 
 compass of a point so small, as to elude all the 
 powers of the microscope, but where the wonder- 
 working God finds room for the exercise of all his 
 attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of 
 worlds, and fill and animate them all with the 
 evidences of his glory." 
 
 Still, whatever additions may yet be made to 
 human knowledge, and we will hail them all with 
 gratitude and delight, the voice of nature can never 
 relieve the solicitude of man, conscious of guilt and 
 that he is endowed with endless life. Divine reve- 
 lation alone reveals the only ground of acceptance 
 before God, in the mediation of his only-begotten 
 and well-beloved Son ; the only means of accept- 
 ance, in faith in his equality with the Father, his 
 atoning blood, and perfect righteousness ; and the 
 only evidence of acceptance, in holiness of heart 
 and life. 
 
 We would have all diligent and persevering 
 students, according to their means and opportu- 
 nities, of the natural world. But it is possible to 
 connect the Supreme with his works, without re- 
 ceiving the truth that " God was in Christ, recon- 
 ciling the world unto himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses unto them," and consequently without 
 obeying the charge, "Be ye reconciled to God." 
 
PHILOSOPHY COMBINED WITH RELIGION. 187 
 
 Compared with embracing " the faithful saying," 
 which is "worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
 Jesus came into the world to save sinners," all 
 other knowledge is passing and worthless. For 
 the knowledge that is " life eternal," all other 
 attainments should be accounted " dross." 
 
 Happily both have been and are still combined. 
 To take only one example : Did the religion of 
 Dr. Turner* impede his exertions in the field of 
 philosophy ; or in any way depreciate their value ? 
 The testimony of his friend, the rev. T. Dale, should 
 be inscribed upon the heart of every man of science. 
 " He received the Bible with implicit deference, * not 
 as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word 
 of God.' Blameless, excellent as he was, to outward 
 appearance, in every relation of life, he knew that 
 he could not abide the scrutiny of One who looked 
 upon the heart ; and he joyfully took refuge in the 
 comfortable doctrine of an Almighty Saviour, one 
 ' able to save them to the uttermost that come unto 
 God by him.' 
 
 " When Dr. Turner knew that death was near, 
 he adverted to the perfect calmness of his pulse, 
 and asked, < What can make it so at such an hour ? 
 What but the power of religion ? who but the 
 Spirit of God ? I could not have believed,' (he 
 said,) 'that I could be happy on my death-bed. 
 I am content my career should close.' The 
 
 * The laborious Secretary of the Geological Society. 
 
188 SAFETY FOR ETERNITY. 
 
 question was put to him by an anxious relative, * Is 
 not Christ as good as his word ? ' Yes,' he faltered, 
 ' quite.' And when he had said these words, he 
 fell asleep." 
 
 " Here let my faith unshaken dwell. 
 Immovable the promise stands : 
 Nor all the powers of earth or hell 
 Can e'er dissolve the sacred bands. 
 
 " Here, my soul, thy trust repose. 
 If Jesus is for ever mine, 
 Not death itself, that last of foes, 
 Shall break a union so Divine." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ACADEMY of Sciences at Paris, 63. 
 
 Acalephs, 165. 
 
 Achromatic lens, the, 18; meaning of 
 the word (Note), ib. 
 
 Acrita, 44, et seq. 146. 
 
 Actinia, the, 83, et seq. ; voracity of, 
 85, et seq.; structure of, 86, et 
 seq.; section of, 87; reproductive 
 powers of, 88, et seq. ; wide dif- 
 fusion of, 91, 
 
 Actinia gemmacea, 86. 
 
 Albert, archduke of Austria, 14. 
 
 Alcyonium with polyps, 114. 
 
 Alps, the, 150. 
 
 Amoeba, 125. 
 
 Analogy not identity, 164. 
 
 Animalcules, 121, et seq.; shell-less, 
 125; organs of locomotion, 126, et 
 seq. ; mouths of, 128 ; digestion of, 
 129, et seq.; increase of, 132, et 
 seq. ; limits of habitation, 139 ; fos- 
 sil, 141 ; shields of, 142, et seq. ; 
 wheelbearing, 176, et seq.; pin- 
 cers and gizzard of an animalcule, 
 180, et seq.; oxygen yielded by, 
 183, et seq. 
 
 Animal and vegetable tissues, 41, 
 et seq. 
 
 Animal life, 37, et seq. ; tissues, 41, 
 et seq. 
 
 Animals, lowest group of, 44, et seq. 
 
 Antenularia ramosa, 74 ; vesicles 
 of, 76. 
 
 Aristotle, on the sponge, 46. 
 
 Astrsea, the, genus, 111. 
 
 Astraea viridis, the polyps of, 111. 
 
 August, Mr. 184. 
 
 BAKER, quoted, 60. 
 Baxter, quoted, 10. 
 Beneden, Van, 79, et seq. 
 Bennett, Mr. " Wanderings" of, 
 
 quoted, 85, etseq. 1 72. 
 Bergelius, M. Von, 141. 
 Beroe, the, 168. 
 
 Bilin, slate ortripoli of, 143. 
 Biot, M. assertion of, noticed, 17. 
 Bog-iron ore, the, 143. 
 Boreel, Wm., letter from, noticed, 
 
 14. 
 Boswell, Mr. his specimen of dyna- 
 
 mena operculata, 69, et seq. 
 Bowerbankia densa, the, 99. 
 Brewster, sir David, quoted, 15, 
 
 et seq. 
 Brown's "Botan. Schriften" noticed, 
 
 141. 
 
 Brussels, Academy of, 184. 
 Bryozoa, 91. 
 
 CJENURUS CEREBRALIS, 147, 152, et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Campanularia volubilis, 72. 
 Carpenter, Dr. quoted, 183. 
 Carus, Dr. quoted, 43. 
 Cellaria avencularia, polyps of, 98, 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Cellular tissues, 24, et seq. 
 Cells, 22, et seq. 
 
 Cerebral hydatid, the, 152, et seq. 
 Cestum Veneris, 168. 
 Chalk-beds, 143. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr. quoted, 185, et seq. 
 Chamouni, glacier of, 150. 
 Chemical differences between ani- 
 
 mals and plants, 40, et seq. 
 Chladni's work on Meteors, 141. 
 Chlamidonomas pulvisculus, the, 
 
 184. 
 Cilia, 54; of coralline, 77, et seq. 
 
 93. 
 
 Cisticurcus tenuicollis, 154. 
 Coleridge quoted, 171. 
 Colours of the sea, 170. 
 Common hydatid, the, 154. 
 Conferva rivularis, 140. 
 Confervas, 42, 140, et seq. 
 Convallaria, the, 134, et seq. 
 Copley medal, the, 47. 
 Coral islands, 121. 
 
190 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Coral field, the growing, 104. 
 
 Coral reefs, 117, et seq. 
 
 Coral, the red, 107. 
 
 Corallines, 62, et seq. ; examples of, 
 
 65, et seq. ; vesicles of, 75, et seq. 
 Courland, 142. 
 Crab, antennae of, infested with 
 
 Campanularia volubilis, 73. 
 Crabbe, quoted, 62. 
 Creator and Lord of the universe, 
 
 the, 12. 
 
 Curculio imperialis, 41, 173. 
 Cuvier, quoted, 31 ; noticed, 116. 
 Cuvieria Carioschroma, 165. 
 Cyclades, sponge diving at the, 49. 
 Cydippe, the, 167, et seq. 172. 
 Cydippe pomiformis, 167. 
 Cydonium, polyp of the, 115. 
 
 DALE, rev. T. testimony of to Dr. 
 
 Turner, 187. 
 
 Dalyell, sir J. G. quoted, 73, 80. 
 Dana, Mr. J. D. specimen of ser- 
 
 tularia pluma, 67. 
 Death, 32, et seq. 
 Decay, 31. 
 
 Diamond beetle, elytra of, 173. 
 Dionsea muscipula, 36, et seq. 
 Disease, products of, 158, etseq. 
 Divine revelation, necessity of, 186. 
 D'Orbigny, 91. 
 Drebell, Cornelius, 14. 
 Drummond, Dr. quoted, 151. 
 Du Bartas, quoted, 103. 
 Dutrochet, experiment of, 27. 
 Dynamena operculata, 70; vesicles 
 
 of, 76. 
 
 EHRENBERG, 91 ; remark of, on be- 
 holding the corals in the Red 
 sea, 104; noticed, 127; 129, etseq.; 
 quoted, 133, etseq.; noticed, 140, 
 et seq. ; two great natural laws 
 established by, 149; noticed, 177. 
 
 Ellis, John, and the sponge, 47 ; on 
 corallines, 64, et seq. 
 
 Enchelis pupa, 131. 
 
 Endosmose, 27, et seq. 
 
 Entozoa, 146 ; examination of, 152. 
 
 Erzgebirge, the, 139. 
 
 Esenbeck, Nees Von, noticed, 141. 
 
 Euplcea charon, 126. 
 
 Exosmose, 27. 
 
 FARRE, Dr. 95, 99; observations 
 of, 178. 
 
 Fenelon, quoted, 101, etseq. 
 Ferrante Imperato, 63. 
 Flask animalcule, the, 132. 
 Flaxen flustra, 93, et seq. ; polyps 
 
 of, 97. 
 
 Fleming, Dr. 81. 
 Flustra carbacea, 93, et seq. ; polyp 
 
 of, 94, 96. 
 
 Flustra foliacea, 94, etseq. 98. 
 Flustra truncata, 96. 
 Fontana, microscope of, 14. 
 Fossil animalcules, 141. 
 Fucus seratus, with sertularia upon 
 
 it, 82. 
 
 Fucus vesiculosus, 99. 
 Fungia actiniformis, 105. 
 
 GERVAIS, M. 56, et seq. 
 
 Giessen, small town of, noticed, 183. 
 
 Girdle of Venus, the, 168, etseq. 
 
 Gleicher, noticed, 128. 
 
 God seen in his works, 11, etseq.; 
 
 perfections of, 160, et seq. 
 Gonia, 124. 
 
 Gonium, the, 125 ; increase of, 136. 
 Gorgonia pustulosa, 107. 
 Goring, Dr. noticed, 18. 
 Grant, Dr., 47 ; experiment of, 52, 
 
 et seq. ; case described by, 77 ; 
 
 noticed, 96, et seq. 
 Grotthus, M. Von, noticed, 141. 
 
 HALL, captain Basil, quoted, 103, 
 et seq. 
 
 Harvey, quoted, 79. 
 
 Hassell, Mr. his figure of the Valke- 
 ria, 99, et seq. 
 
 Homer, quoted, 46. 
 
 Hooke, Micographia of, quoted, 96. 
 
 Hughes, quoted, 88, et seq. 
 
 Hugi, M. 150. 
 
 Humility becomes us, 33, et seq. 
 
 Hydatids, 147; 152, et seq.; diffi- 
 culties concerning, 156, et seq. 
 
 Hydra fusca, 56. 
 
 Hydra, the, 55, et seq. ; the green, 
 57 ; the long-armed, 58, et seq. ; 
 mode of catching its prey, ib. ; 
 multiplication of, 59, et seq. 
 
 INFINITE WISDOM, exquisite ar- 
 rangements of, 81. 
 Infusoria, 123, 139, et seq. 
 Inorganic matter, 21, 32. 
 Irritability, 29, et seq. 
 Isis hippuris, 108. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 191 
 
 JANSEN, reputed contriver of the 
 telescope, 14. 
 
 Johnstone, pluma described by, 67; 
 quoted, 73, 81, et seg., 96. 
 
 Jones, professor, quoted, 42 ; no- 
 ticed, 130; on the increase of 
 animalcules, 131. 
 
 Jukes, Mr. quoted, 117, et seq. 
 
 KOLPODA CUCULLUS, the, 136. 
 
 LACTEALS, 38. 
 
 Laomedia gelatinosa, 80, el seq. 
 
 Liebig, quoted, 184, et seq. 
 
 Lens, a, structure of, 14 ; magnify- 
 ing power of, 16, et seq. ; achro- 
 matic, 18. 
 
 Lettnaggsjon, the lake, 142. 
 
 Life, phenomena of, 20, et seq. 
 
 Linguatula, 146, et seq. 
 
 Linnaeus, 47. 
 
 Lister, curious fact of, in reference 
 to sertuiaria pluma, 68, 81. 
 
 Living beings, diffusion of, 19. 
 
 Locomotion, power of, 39, etseq. 
 
 Lorica, a, 124. 
 
 Lucretius, quoted, 94. 
 
 MADREPORE, species of, 106 ; frag- 
 ment of, 109; cell of, ib.; sec- 
 tion of, 110 ; blocks of, 117, etseq. 
 
 Madrepores, 107, et seq. 
 
 Mantell, Dr., quoted, 163, etseq. 
 
 Maurice, prince, 14. 
 
 Meadow leather, 140. 
 
 Medusa, the, 165, etseq. 
 
 Medusae, the, 40, et seq. 
 
 Metamorphoses, wonderful, 78, et 
 seq. 
 
 Microscope, the, its meaning, 13; in- 
 vention of, 14 ; in comparison with 
 the telescope, 185, etseq. 
 
 Microscopical Society of London, 
 the, 19. 
 
 Minute objects, interest of, 10. 
 
 Monads, 124, et seq.; increase of, 
 134. 
 
 Morren, Mr. 184.' 
 
 Moss corals, 91, et seq. 
 
 Mountain Meal, 142. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY, interest of the 
 science of, 9 ; cause of objections 
 to its study, ib. 
 
 Nematoneura, its meaning, 176. 
 Nicocastrus, an JElian, 10. 
 Nutrition, 26. 
 
 OCEAN, the, objects of interest and 
 beauty of, 103; depths of the, 104. 
 
 Organic bodies, 21, 28; division of, 
 35, et seq. ; theory of spontaneous 
 generation of, 148, et seq. 
 
 Organic kingdom, original, 43. 
 
 Owen, professor, quoted, 167; no- 
 ticed, 176. 
 
 Oxygen yielded by animalcules, 
 1 83, et seq. 
 
 PALLAS, 96. 
 Palmella nivalis, 150. 
 Paramecium aurelia, 127, et seq. 
 130, et seq ; productiveness of, 137. 
 Parasitic animals, 144. 
 Pavonia lactuca, the, 110, et seq. 
 Pecten maxirnus. 86. 
 Pennatula, 116. 
 Pfeyronnet, 63, et seq. 
 Philosophy combined with religion, 
 
 187, et seq. 
 
 Phosphorescence of the sea, the, 
 171, etseq.; benevolent designs in 
 the, 174, et seq. 
 Phosphorescent zoophytes, 81, et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Physalus, the, 169. 
 Plant-like animals, 62, et seq. 
 Pliny, his notice of sponge, 46. 
 Plumaria falcata, 69; vesicles of, 
 
 75, et .seq. 
 
 Polygastrica, 123, et seq. 142. 
 Polyps, 63, et seq , 79, et seq. ; pro- 
 duction of, 80, et seq., 93, 109, 
 et seq. 
 
 Pompeii, the city of, noticed, 183. 
 Poppig, Dr. on the colours of the 
 
 sea, 171, et seq. 
 
 Portuguese man-of-war, the, 169. 
 Protococcus, 150. 
 Proteus, the, 125, et seq. 
 Purchas, Samuel, quoted, 10. 
 Pyrosoma, the, 172, et seq. 
 
 RAUDKN, village of, 140. 
 Ray, 47. 
 
 Recherche the, 150. 
 Red coral, the, 107. 
 Rotatoria, 139. 
 Rotifera, the, 176, etseq. 
 Royal Society, the, 64. 
 
192 INDEX. 
 
 SCHWARTZENBERG, meadow near Tulley, Mr. lens of, 18. 
 
 the wire factory at, 139. Turner, Dr. religion of, 187, etseq. 
 Sea anemone, the, 83, et seq. 
 Sea mushroom, the, W5,_et seq. 
 
 Sea nettles, the, 165, et seq. UNTERAAR, glacier of, 150. 
 Sea pen, the, polyps of a barb of, 
 
 116, etseq. 
 
 Seneca noticed, 13. VALKERIA IMBRIOATA, 99 ; polyp 
 
 Sertularia abietina, 66 ; vesicles of, of, 100 ; cell of, 101. 
 
 75. Vegetable life, 35, et seq.; tissues, 
 Sertularia lendigera, 65. 41, et seq. 
 
 Sertularia pluma, 67; vesicles of, 76. Vegetables, animalcules in, 139, et 
 
 Sertularia polyzoma, 76. seq. 
 
 Sertularia primata, vesicles of, 75. Venus' Fly-trap, 36, et seq. 
 
 Sertularia tamarisca, 76. Vesicles, 22, et seq.; of corallines, 
 
 Sickle coralline, 72. 75, et seq. 
 
 Southey quoted, 103. Vesuvius, eruption of, 1800 years 
 
 Spitzbergen, 150. ago, 183. 
 
 Sponge, derivation of the name, 45 ; Vital forces, 22, 25, 27. 
 
 used by the ancients, 46; fisheries, Volvox globator, the, increase of, 
 
 history of, 46, et seq.; crumb of 133. 
 
 bread, 47; marine sponges, 48; Vorticella, cilia in the, 127, etseq. 
 
 sponge diving, 49 ; structure of, 
 
 50, et seq.; common, 50; living 
 
 sponge, canals and pores of, 49, WATER) tenan ts of a drop of, 123. 
 
 52, et seq. ; increase of, 54. Weissenborn, Dr. on spontaneous 
 
 Spontaneous generation, theory of, generation, 148. 
 
 148; theories examined, 150, et Wellsted, lieutenant, quoted, 104. 
 
 **? . What is life ? 28. 
 
 Spongia fluviatilis, 47. Wheelbearing animalcules, 176, et 
 
 Stagyrite, the, 46. . dlia of 1 77? et seq , 
 
 Stomach, the, 38. Wollaston, Dr. assertion of, noticed 
 
 17. 
 
 TELESCOPE, the, in comparison 
 
 with the microscope, 185, et seq. 
 
 Theories examined, 161, et seq. YEAST * ANT ' the > 2 . 3 ' 
 
 Trembley, M. observations on the Youatt, Mr. observations of, 155, et 
 
 hydra, 55, 129. 8e Q- 
 Trichina spiralis, 146. 
 Tubipora musica, the, 112, et seq.; 
 
 polyp of a, 113, et seq. ZOANTHUS, 91. 
 
 Tubularia indivisa, 71 ; vesicles of, Zoophytes, 62, et seq. ; phosphc- 
 
 76, 79. rescent, 81, et seq. 
 
 THE KEJLIGIOUS 1KACT 3OCII