" The universality of life is so profusely distributed
throughout the whole of nature, that the smaller Infusoria live as parasites
on the larger, and are themselves inhabited by others, s. 194, 211, and 512.
The minutest of the Infusoria, the Monadidae, have a diameter which does not
exceed 1/3000th of a line, and yet these silicious-shelled organisms form in
humid districts subterranean strata of many fathoms in depth.
The strong and beneficial influence exercised on the feelings of mankind by
the consideration of the diffusion of life, throughout the realms of nature
is common to every zone, but the impression thus produced is most powerful
in the equatorial regions, in the land of palms, bamboos, and arborescent
ferns, where the ground rises from the shore of seas rich in mollusca and
corals to the limits of perpetual snow. The local distribution of plants
embraces almost all heights and all depths. Organic forms not only descend
into the interior of the earth, where the industry of the miner has laid
open extensive excavations and sprung deep shafts, but I have also found
snow-white stalactiitic columns encircled by the delicate web of an Usnea,
in caves where meteoric water could alone penetrate through fissures.
Podurellae penetrate into the icy crevices of the glaciers on Mount Rosa,
the Grindelwald, and the Upper Aar; the Chionaea nivalis (formerly known as
Protococcus), exist in the polar snow as well as in that of our high
mountains.
Pages:
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718