Views of the microscopic world : designed for general reading, and as a hand-book for classes in natural science / by John Brocklesby.

  • Brocklesby, John, 1811-1889.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Views of the microscopic world : designed for general reading, and as a hand-book for classes in natural science / by John Brocklesby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    26/218 (page 16)
    sorial animalcules exist in countless numbers—often swarming to such an extent, as even to color the element in which they live. One species tinges the water with a blood-red hue, another causes it to appear of an intensely vivid green ; while a bright orange hue indicates the presence of a diflferent species. They are likewise found in strong acids, and in the fluids contained in animal bodies and living plants, and have also been detected alive in moist earth, sixty feet below the surface of the soil. The broad rivers are their home, and far from shore, upon the tropic seas, the ocean swarms, for leagues, with their congregated myriads; and as the bark of the mariner nightly cuts the wave, the dazzhng track it leaves upon the waters,' and the fiery spray that flashes from its bows, tell of the presence of life enshrined within an infinity of living atoms. Nor is the bed of the ocean without its minute inhabitants ; for the mud brought up by the deep sea-lead, from the depth of sixteen hundred feet, is full of organic life. There is also every reason for believing, that the atmosphere abounds with the eggs of animalcules, as it does with the seeds of minute plants ; and that these germs, being inconceivably light, are raised by evaporation, and borne about by the winds in unseen clouds; ready to burst into life whenever a con- currence of favorable circumstances facilitates their development. Lifted at one time to the loftiest mountain tops, at another carried down to the lowest dells and deepest caverns ; they cross seas, sweep over continents, and interchange climes and seasons. In this manner are these invisible forms disseminated over every part of the world ; for wherever investigation's have been prosecuted, infu- sorial animalcules have been discovered. Through the patient and persevering labors of distinguished naturalists, no less than seven hundred and eighty-six different species of animalcules have been dis- tinctly recognised and delineated, and grouped into families and classes ; distin- guished from each other by their forms, manner of progression, habits, and modes of reproduction. One kind are beheld dwelling harmoniously together within a delicate transparent shell, which in one case assumes a spherical, and in others a quadrangular form ; the living globes with all their inhabitants, as if actuated by a single will, rolling in perfect freedom within the confines of a drop of water. And within each of these globes smaller globes are discerned, enjoy- ing their existence equally with those from which they are separated by the surrounding crystalHne sphere. Other infusoria possess the power of changing their forms at will, and in the space of a few minutes pass through a variety of curious and grotesque shapes. Another class shoot up in the form of beautiful shrubs, crowned with bell- shaped flowers, whose margins are encircled with a fringe of slender hairs ; but the flower-cups are living beings, and the mimic tree is instinct with vitality in every branch. At one moment, it is seen spreading outward and upward from the base, with all its living flowers in full expansion; and at the next, should danger threaten, every shoot suddenly contracts, and the whole group of animal- cules shrink down in spiral coils, into the smallest compass. The great variety of form possessed by these interesting objects, can only be fully conceived by ex-