MICROSCOPICAL DISCOVERIES.
DOES the reader recollect the great discoveries announced a few months ago as having been made by the microscope ? Water, it was said, contained frisk- ing-, bouncing animals, armed with saw-teeth and pincher-claws, which. neither boiling nor freezing would kill; wood was described, not to contain little worms beautifully nestled into its most solid part, but to consist of living animals. Nay, even granite itself was seen to be all in commotion in its interior ; whence it was concluded, perhaps hastily, that the hardest of all stones was only a congeries; of living and happy animalculie. The gentle- man who made these astonishing discoveries, it is now thought, saw too far. Other observers have not detected a motion among the granitic atoms. When he saw them, they were, perhaps, like all Europe half a century ago, just breaking out into rebellion ; and since then they have relapsed into that state of absolute repose which seems now to be the condition of' the general intellect, and certainly of the scientific intellect, of Great Britaim—for that, like Hindoo society, scenes to abjure all novelties and all improvement. We have been reminded of microscopes by lately meeting with a book,* which, mingled with sonic flippant nonsense, contains an account of the present metuod of making, microscopes, with views of some most formidable-looking monsters—fortunately for us, not quite half an inch in length—xi-I:MI we run some risk of encountering every moment of our lives. We should be afraid, had we the means of transferring any of these representations to our pages, of terrifying our readers by the horrible representation. They sur- pass in hideousness all dirt the imagination of melodramatic writers has yet conceived, either to harrow up the soul inn the Freischiilz or amuse great boys and girls in the pantomime. What does the reader think of an insect shark having forceps to break hard shells, and a sword to pierce the toughest hide, which shakes its prey as a dog would a rat, and which, when it cannot suck the blood of its victims breaks it into pieces and destroys it ; t which has six legs, each armed with a claw, and seven pair of swimmers, to give it, like a number of rowers to a galley, such a rapidity of movement that rimming shall escape its ferocity ? Or can the reader conceive a tranaparent insect, not half an inch inn length, in which the motion of the heart, seated near the tail, is distinctly visible ; inn forming which, as much ingenuity has been dis- played as hi making a lion, or in making a man ; and which exists only a few hours, performing in that time all the offices destined for it to fulfil in the economy ld Nature
The reader will be equally surprised to learn, that the circulation of ;ha blood in these " insects of an hour " has been traced by the microscope. " During the infant state of the larva's existence, it is very transparent, ex- hibiting under the microscope, in a most surprising manner, the circulation of the blood along the large arteries in tine body, legs, and tail. While tra- versing the tail, the blood resembles a string of globules. The part which exhibits the more rapid circulation is the lower lip. The rapidity, too, with which it moves, is truly astonishing. Besides its six legs, it employs the six double paddles attached diagonally to the serpentine vessels on each side of its body audits tail, for the purpose of rowing arid balancing itself, and two other paddles for steering, making in all fourteen." " It possesses
* Microscopic Illustrations of a few Popular and Diverting Living Objects, with their Natural History, &c. By C. It. Goring, M.D. and A.
t The klydrophilas, or Water-lover. t, The Ephemera Marginata, also a power of leaping or springing in the water." All this is said of an insect not as long as a man's finger-nail, and which is so transparent that the movement of the blood and the peristaltic. motions are distinctly visible through its shell.
The improvements in microscopes, to which we are indebted for what is really wonderful in modern discoveries, as well as what observers have ima- gined, is owing, principally, to the substitution of diamond and sapphire lenses for those made of glass, and to Dr. WOLLASTON'S ingenious method of illuminating the object to be examined.
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