JUNE IX.

Multitude of Animals.

NATURALISTS have calculated that the number of animals upon our globe amounts to about four hundred thousand species. It is supposed that in the known parts of the earth there are more than four hundred and fifty species of land animals; of birds, six hundred; of fish with scales, two thousand; of shell-fish, three thousand; and of insects dis tinguishable by the naked eye, upwards of twenty thousand species; besides those which belong to different kinds of animals, amounting to near one hundred thousand species. And there are immense tribes of insects entirely unknown to us, the number of which may be estimated at two hundred thousand. We must also take account of those which live upon plants; and eighteen thousand varieties of plants having already been described, if we only allow each to contain four species of insects, the number of these will amount to seventy-two thousand.

This estimate of the number of animals living on our globe, will doubtless appear prodigious; but if we believe with some naturalists that the whole kingdom of nature is every where animated, and filled with living beings, we shall not find it too great. Some physicians have maintained that the diseases which are accompanied with eruptions and pustules, as well as some species of fever, are occasioned by little insects; and it is probable that the atmosphere is sometimes peopled with insects, though their extreme minuteness renders it impossible to detect their presence. If we examine any flower, as a rose, or a daisy, we shall discover a multitude of insects, and the smallest portion of the earth teems with life; animals are even contained in each other. The air, the juices of plants and animals, putrid substances, excrementitious matter, smoke, dry wood, and even the hardest stones, serve as habitations for living creatures.

The sea also seems to be an element composed of animals. The light which is sometimes observed upon it in a summer

night, is owing to a multitude of small luminous worms, the particles of which, detached from the body and become putrid float on the water, and continue to shine as when the animal was alive. Innumerable animalculæ sport in the rays of the sun; and all these little beings are infinitely diversified in their figure, organs, and motions. Such is the number and variety of the beings which inhabit this globe. Let us attempt to name all these animals, to enumerate only the individuals of a single species; or endeavour to calculate the number of herrings, flies, worms, birds, &c. and we shall find ourselves utterly unable to perform what it would be impossible to express by numbers.

Here we have abundant cause to admire the infinite power of the Creator, who alone has produced all these creatures. and who still continues to support and preserve them. Consider the food these various tribes of animals require; if they only lived by destroying one another, nature would every where present scenes of cruelty and slaughter. But fortunately, the number of carnivorous animals is few, and these are useful in devouring the carcases that, lying about and becoming putrid, would infect the air. The vegetable kingdom, however, is more properly designed for the nourishment of animals; and almost every species has some particular kind of plant which it makes choice of: and that every species of animals may have food proportionate to their nature, they are distributed in different countries of the earth. And how beautiful is the arrangement of nature! One tree is larger than many thousand plants, and yet it occupies only the space of a few feet in the earth; and many animals, birds, and insects find in it their abode and nutriment.

How merciful are the cares of Providence for animals, in surrounding them with a fluid suited to their respective natures! And will the atheist dare to say that there is no God? Senseless man! 'Go and ask of the beasts, and they will teach thee; of the fowls of the air, and they will tell thee: speak to the reptiles of the earth, and they will inform thee; unto the fishes of the sea, and they will declare unto thee

the ways of the everlasting God. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

JUNE X.

Immensity of the Firmament.

APPROACH, O man! and contemplate the firmament: regard those vast bodies which nightly illumine the heavens; endeavour to count them, and thy sight will be confused, whilst thine eyes survey the infinite multitude of stars. Call to thy assistance the powers of the telescope, and millions of new worlds will present themselves to thy view. Continue thy observations, and attempt to number these luminaries; thy ideas will be confounded, and thou wilt be convinced that no known numbers can express the multitude of all the stars which bespangle the firmament.

It is true, that at a very early period men began to turn their attention to the stars, and to ascertain their numbers; but since the invention of telescopes new discoveries have proved the imperfection of former calculations, and shewn the difficulty, if not impossibility, of our gaining a certain knowledge of this important subject. To count the stars seems to be an enterprize as impracticable as that of numbering the grains of sand on the sea-shore.

The invention of telescopes has enabled us to obtain much more information than we otherwise could have done; but the most exact observations made through their means tend to convince us that our powers are too limited to discover all the heavenly bodies. One of the most ancient astronomers enumerated only one thousand and twenty-six stars, and his catalogue was afterward increased to one thousand and eighty-eight. The number is now considerably augmented by means of instruments, we learn that the long and luminous tract seen in the heavens, and called the Milky-Way, is composed of innumerable stars; and we also

know that where but a single star was formerly seen, by the assistance of a telescope we now discover many, and two constellations alone display more stars than were before observed in the whole heavens.

Such considerations as these enlarge our ideas of the universe. And if our admiration of the immensity of the divine power be increased by these discoveries, how much greater will it be, when we consider the magnitude of those stars, which notwithstanding their prodigious distance, are perceptible by the naked eye. The most exact and indubitable calculations inform us, that a cannon-ball, shot off from the nearest fixed star, would fly seven hundred thousand years before it reached our globe.*

Some of these globes, being nearer to us, appear larger than the rest, and are on that account called stars of the first magnitude; the next to these are called stars of the second magnitude, because, being at a greater distance, their magnitude appears less. The next to them in lustre are of the third magnitude, and so on to the sixth, the smallest visible to the naked eye.

Creator of heaven and sovereign ruler of worlds! Father of angels and of men! how my soul loves to stretch forth her pinions, and wing her imaginary flight beyond the confines of mortality, unto the regions of day; where for a space forgetting the cares and vexations of an anxious existence, she contemplates with rapture Thee, the Author of light, and wishes that her faculties were vast as the extent of heaven, and unlimited as the regions of space, that she might comprehend Thy sublimity, and raise her thoughts from those innumerable worlds, the offspring of Thy power, unto Thee, the sanctuary of grace and the source of glory! But whilst we are travelling through life's uncertain path, such desires cannot be realized; we cannot comprehend Infinity; and these aspirations of a noble and exalted soul are obliged to yield to our imperfect nature: but they strongly evince the

The distance from us to the nearest fixed star is computed at 32,000, 000,000,000 of miles, being farther than a cannon-ball would fly in seven millions of years.-----.

soul's ethereal essence, and lead us to expect the joyful moment when, delivered from her present bondage, all her faculties will expand, and she will in one instant know what the united intellect of centuries could never discover.

JUNE XI.

Peculiarities in the Vegetable Kingdom.

THE difference between animals and vegetables is so great, that on a superficial view we do not perceive any resemblance between them. Some animals only live in water; others on the earth, or in the air; and some are amphibious, or capable of living either on land or in water. And this is literally the case with vegetables: some of them only grow upon land, others in the water; some can scarce bear any moisture; others either live in earth or water; and some even are found that exist in the air. There is a tree in the island of Japan, which, contrary to the nature of all other trees, to which moisture is necessary, cannot bear wet. As soon as it is watered it perishes; the only way to preserve it in such a case, is to cut it off by the root, which is to be dried in the sun, and afterward planted in a dry and sandy soil. A peculiar species of mushroom, some mosses, and other small plants float in the air; but what is still more extraordinary, a bunch of rosemary, which, as is the custom of some countries, was put in the hand of a corpse, sprouted out to the right and left so vigorously, that after a lapse of some years the grave being opened, the face of the defunct was overshaded with rosemary leaves.

The vegetation of the truffle is still more singular: this extraordinary tubercle has neither roots, stem, leaves, flowers, nor seeds; it derives its nourishment through the pores of of its bark. But it may be asked, how is it produced? Why is there commonly no kind of herb in the places where this species of mushroom grows? and why is the land there dry and full of crevices? These things have never been explained. No plant so much resembles animals, as that species of