Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1871-08-02
Very Little Fellows.

The keenest eye sees but little of the
haudiwork of God. Every drop Of water
teens with life. You cannot quench your
thirst, even with the purest water, without
swallowing scores Of puny lives The ocean
is stirred by the huge leyiathan, who maketh
it to boil like a pot. And therein, also in
myriad varieties, are the lesser forms Of life,
running down to the animalcule, so small that
one hundred and fifty millions Of them weigh
less than a grain
The atmosphere is full Of life, and the dry
land swarms with animals Of unwrtten names
and unknown orders, crawling. burrowing
creeping, boring, leaping, running, hopping
and flying creatures Out Of sight and be-
yond the hearing of men are innumerable
living things They inhabit the air we breathe,
the water we drink the food We eat. They
move and have their being in sweets and sours
in the toughest flint as well in the mellow
pulp Of the peach-in blossoms and fruits, il
buds aud leaves, in roots and branches, in the
| bodies of auimals--yerily, in our own human
| bodies are tiny tenants--populous colonies OF
little inhabitants dwelling and moving in our
flesh, all too minute to be seen or compre-
hended.
Life is everywhere Little lives are envel-
oped within large lives. Other little lives are
free and isolated Independence. We recent
ly looked through microscope in the office oi
Sanford c. Hill, Esq, the almanac maker oi
East Liverpool, Ohio, and examined droI
Of rain water In that single drop we count
ed near hundred playful little creatures
apparently as large as a common house fly
frolicking and frlsking about as merrily a
minnows in a meadow brook
Then we reached book from the shelf anC
detected speck of a white insect hurryinl
off at double-quick to hide behind a grail
of dust for we had opened on him by sur
prise. The little fellow was retreating rapid
ly; the shaking Of book leaf, or even for a
much of leaf to trembe as would hold
single letter was to him a commotion equa
to thousand earthquakes. But we pursue
him, excited as he was, until We chased hin
on bar of polished brass, and, by a gran,
stratagem, drove him into an entrenchmen
on the bar.
He was smaller than the dot of an il
your pocket Bible. But we pressed him int
our service, prisoner in his house of bras
and snugly covered him by glass slide, unit
we reviewed him beneath the microscope
His prison was less roomy than the eye of
fine cambric needle, yet under the microscope
his liberties, as well as his body, were great
enlarged. That creature, to the naked ey
! so small was now apparently as large as
bee, and white as snow, with limbs of perfec
symmetry and proportion. We were affecte
by his efforts to be free. He hurried froI
side to side of his prison.house and tried t
force the walls apart Through his clea
transparent flesh could be seen the beating
of his heart and the purple veins of his bloot
His movements were restless and pitiiul q
those of newly Gagged bird. If we coul
4 by some magnifer of sound, have heard h
voice and understood his language doub
I less it would have been plaintiye cry for III
erty.
How wonderful are the works of the A
e mighty Hand In wisdom he hath mac
= them all. How vast the lessons brought
e our minds by the telescope, from worlds afa
and by the microscope, from marvels SO nea
o that to the naked eye they are all unseen
4 Journal Of Microscopy.