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

scenes. shift the glass slide n little bis, and fall
upon n shower Of shooting stars. Thoy flash
across the field in all directions. They are white.
clear and roundish that is all | can see, for they
are excessively quick and extremely small. Blu,
extreme rapidity perplcxes, deliberate move.
nents are sometimes ludicrous. There's a droll
creature that gives you time to look ut him. lie
walks into the circus thus: he makes a bow till
he touches the floor with his head. lie then stands
on his head and makes another bow in the same
till he touches the floor with his foot or
feet; for his figure is altogether that of Il worthy
peasant ready'dressed to run a race in a sack. His
march, is that of a recruit cautiously practising
to the sober measure of the Dead March in Saul,
But is he only hoaxing us, after all ?-masking
his real character This certainly must be his
brother, who creeps in hurriedly on his belly,
never leaving hold Of the ground with his tail
during the whole of his course. What versatility 2
| begin to suspect he is only the great slug in an.
other disguise and yet, no, it cannot be possible 2
But let us not be in too great a hurry about what
is possible How hungry he is. He has seized
some unfortunate victim and shakes it as q terrier
does a rat. Now he is tn tying away at some
microscopic oyster, which will not be torn from its
rock. A globular creature rolls before him he
opens wide his mouth, or the top of his sack the
bolus is somewhat of the biggest, but down it
goes. He gives q gulp or two, shrugs his shoulders
to make all right, and you can see the new morsel
descend to its digestive apparatus. Now he hunts
the ground for more, like a staunch hound upon q
doubtful scent; and now he pecks about, tossing
his head, like a turkey %gobbling mast in a beech
and.oak.trce wood. Perhaps, when he has at last
got his fill, he too will take to bowling, in evidence
of his amiable disposition. Who and what is he
Blank Rotifer, Esquire, | guess. But do you think
| know, even by sight, every creature | have Cir
cumvented in my drop? Of the rotifers alone there
are Heaven only knows how many species.
Besides the stars of the company, there are
olentv of second and thirl-rntN nercnrmnrs who
glide in and out modestly enough, kecpina up the
by-play of the scene; while others, standing stock
still, make up parts Of the fixed tableau. Amongst
the former are those little things, of various size,
with a general resemblance 10 a weaver's shuttle,
some with q single hole in the middle,
Others with two holes, one at each end; and others
with three perforations visible, which slide slowly
backwards and forwards without any evident
object, sometimes knocking against each other,
as if they were playing at blindman's buff with
every one of the party blinded. There are
d~iatomace@, navicule, what-nots; some say they
are animals, while the dons will have it they are
only plants. should like to plead for the animal
ity of that neat little canoe-like fellow, who feels
his way before him like q long sharp flexible
bristle as he sails along. All this is in the water:
but, by n touch at the fine ad justment,s so as to shift
the focus of a shade, we catch the surface of
the drop, and on it behold a floating emerald with
a circlet of blistling rays surrounding it. You have
just time to look at it steadily, and 10! it skips
from side to side. Its radiating fringe is a set of
agile feet and legs, with which it cuts capers on
its briny spring-board.
But the quantity of saline liquid in our little
reservoir is sensibly diminished by evaporation it
is low-water here, independent of the moons age.
| could easily create humping spiring-tide by a
supply introduced on the tip of a quill tooth pick
but we will leave things to take their course. The
plot thickens all our characters crowd Che stage
together in alarm at the scantiness of their native
element. Excitement gains ground it is a water
riot it is the last scene OF Gustavus the Third it
is the market chorus of Masaniello, minus the mu-
sic, as far as we can hear. BY the way, there re-
ally exists music unheard by the ears, as there are
sights unseen 10y the eyes, of humanity. Who will
take up the science of micracoustics practically,
so as to furnish US with a magnifying ear-trumpet
which shall render the conversation Of lady-birds
audible? But the catastrophe of our drama APP
proaches fast our grand pantomime attains the
acme of its interest. The indefatigable clowns,
demons, pautaloons, and %columbines, are stranded
Nn shoals, which gradually grow shallower and
shallower, till dry land appears; they flourish their
ella, wave their bristles, contract and dllate their
bag-like bodies for n moment and then all is dry
and still in death. Fancy a multitudinous cara
van of men, horses, camcls, and negro-slaves, all
scorched up and withered in the Great Desert by
the burning breath of an arid simeon. The
tragedy is no more than what We have just
witnessed. The monads, the wheelers, the volvox-
es, and the creepy-crawlies lie, fattened husks
some of them burst and emptied by the final strug-
gle, like fire balloons torn through a thicket OF
thorns. The drought also makes manifest to sight
what was before unpereieved minute crystals OF
salt, in pyramids, crosses, lozenges, rbombs and
other sharp-poi1ted angular shapes, rapidly APP
appear on the field of battle, sometimes thrusting
their spear-heads into the bodies of the slain, or
entUmbing them beueath a translucent mausolem.
The graveyard of the department animalcules is
profusely strewn with glitterirg gems. Here,
lies our gallant Noteus, the dashing cavalry officer
with a sparkling rosette of brilliants for his head
stone there, reposes poor little ensign Whriligig,
with a shining cross at his side; further on, the
remains of general Slug are fairly crushed by a
great Egyptian pyramid built OF hundreds OF lay
ers of thousands of CLASSY bricks.
And these are amongst the Common Things so
much sought after now.o'-days, as if they were
distant or hard to find. The clue to them lies in
your own quicksightedness and activity of mind
therefore it is that ninety-nine out of every hun
dred men and women quit the world without haV-
ing once beheld them. Do you wonder, now that
| have spent more than halfan-hour in watching
the contents of this single drop of water with
which q bit of w~indow-glass has been smeared
The CRYSTALS alone, without the animals, are a re-
markable spectacle they are the rapid MARSHALL
ing, in perfect Discipline, of hitherto struggling AND
mutinous atoms. A hundred years ago, when
minute crystalline forms were q recent discovery
IL iOui thuu liz pilu"ht wv Va 'H
and vinegar especially, was owing to the multi
tude of floating, oblong, quadrangular salts, each
of which, tapering from its middle, has two ex
q~uisitely sharp ends. The theory then held was
that saline particles, striking upon the nerves Of
animals, excite the sensations of taste and smell
and as their forms and degrees of impulse are
almost infinitely diversified, the sensibility Of
pain or pleasure arising therefrom must be varied
almost infinitely, according to the greater or les;
delicacy of the organs they strike on. Are you
judicious reader, able to confirm or refute the by
pothesis' Or do you hold that the savourness OF
salt is the result of a delicate galvanic action on
the surface of the tongue? Unfortunately the
question is a poser for my own poor noddle.
Minute portions of what we call the larger crea.
lures are not less interesting than minute crea-
lures themselves in their integrity. Thus; not to
risk a more precise definition, the popular notion
of a hair, or of hairs. is a something long, cylin-
drical, and wire-like as to proportion, and single,
simple, or undivided as to shape; unquestiCnably
smooth in respect to surface. But hairs are sub
ject to all sorts of freaks and caprices; they start