Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-01-03

%trochilus Of old did for the crocodilc; whether To
sung nun, as n wasp does q terrier dog who un.
carthS MS nest; whether to prey on parasites that
iniest MN, as gulls are said to feed on the balani
oil tne whale; whether to lay eggs on or in him,
as the bat-hy does on the horses coat and the
ichncumon.hy in the caterpillar's skin;-I know
not, ana dOn't know who does. Certain il "a
mat these unexplained relations have existed he.
tween water feas and waeelers for these hundred
years past; On looking a. my cylops, | saw in
MS stomaeh an undiyested wheeler which he had
not long devoured; Tor it vas still alive, The one
uncaught continued his @ rseeutions je,rlesslv
until tbe water began to fail. As the drop eyap-
GRATED into thirsty air, little rotifer tucked him.
self under cyclop's body, as the dampest spot
he could select, leaving the tip ofhis tail outside
TO ascertain the prospect Of moister weather, ex-
actly as you stretch your hand out of doors to
feel whether it is beginning to rain or not
Coulu you have done better than the animalcule
under the same circumstances7 Does it not read
IKE a man crouching under q dying camel in a
%Saharan wilderness, and sustaining life to the
animal?
As to the size of our minims, living or dead,
Leuwenhoek measured them by grains of sand
selected of such an equal size that a hdndred of
them placed in q row should extend an inch in
length. Observing an animalcrle winning or
running past his standard grain, be estimated by
comparison the magnitude of the for.
mer. Natpral objects whose size is known and
which do not vary, have since been employed as
micrometric measures the sporules of the puff
ball fungus have q diameter the eight thousand
five hundredth of an inch, while those of the
lycopodium are the nine hundred and fortieth of
an inch across, Fixed artificial standards are
now generally substituted for natural ones. DIR.
Wollaston has obtained a platinum wire only the
thirty thousandth of an inch in thickness; but
minute scales are engraved on glass, with a
diamond point, are now most commonly employed.
Suppose, for example, q line, the twentieth Of an
inch in length, traced across the centre of a glass
disc. Let this line be divided into a hundred
equal parts, every fifth division being distinguished
by a longer line, and every tenth by q still longer
one. Each of these divisions will be the two
thousandth, the intervals between the fifth divis-
ions will be the four-bundredth, and those be.
tween the tenth divisions the two-hundredth part
of an inch.
This microscopic scale will seem magnifed with
the microscope and any microscopic object laid
upon it will be equally magnitied, SO that its d.
mansions car be ascertained by merely counting
the divisions of the scale included between those
which mark its limits when placed in different po-
sitions on The scale. But in truth, inches and
their fractions ought to be utterly discarde ed from
measurements which are independent of popular
prejudice. Here, at least, we may employ a deci-
NAL scale founded on the metre, fearless Of resist.
ance from the vested interests of ellis, pence, bot
ties, p~ennyweights, and other influential members
of the Weightsan and Measures Corporation. In the
scales delivered with French instruments, a mil.
limetre (abont the twenty-ffth of an inch is divid-
ed into one hundred parts. The microscopic can
apply to his science n reform which as yet is re-
fused to our everyday affairs, and will measure his
minims by the decimal fraction of the earths me-
ridian from equator to pole.