writes: "Not only in the polar regions is there an uninterrupted
development of active microscopic life, where larger animals cannot
exist, but we find that those minute beings collected in the Antarctic
expedition of Captain James Ross exhibit a remarkable abundance of
unknown, and often most beautiful forms."

Even the interior of animal bodies is inhabited by animalcules. They
have been found in the blood of the frog and the salmon, and in the
optic fluid of fishes. Organic beings are found in the interior of the
earth, into which the industry of the miner has made extensive
excavations, sunk deep shafts, and thus revealed their forms; likewise,
the smallest fossil organisms form subterranean strata many fathoms
deep. Not only do lakes and inland seas abound with life, but also, from
unknown depths, in volcanic districts, arise thermal springs which
contain living insects. Were we endowed with a microscopic eye, we might
see myriads of ethereal voyagers wafted by on every breeze, as we now
behold drifting clouds of aqueous vapor. While the continents of earth
furnishes evidences of the universality of organic beings, recent
observations prove that "animal life predominates amid the eternal night
of the depths of the liquid ocean."


THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.


The ancients, rude in many of their ideas, referred the origin of life
to divine determination. The thought was crudely expressed, but well
represented, in the following verse:

"Then God smites his hands together,