ollet and Lavoisier. So rapidly in this case has the tree of Art blossomed from the root of Science; upon so gigantic a scale have the truths of Science been embodied in the domain of Art.

Again, there is another remark which we may make in comparing the First Class, Minerals, with the Third Class, or rather with the Fourth, Vegetable and Animal Substances used in manufactures, or as implements or ornaments. And I wish to speak especially of vegetable substances. In the class of Minerals, all the great members of the class are still what they were in ancient times. No doubt a number of new metals and mineral substances have been discovered; and these have their use; and of these the Exhibition presented fine examples. But still, their use is upon a small scale. Gold and iron, at the present day, as in ancient times, are the rulers of the world; and the great events in the world of mineral art are not the discovery of new substances, but of new and rich localities of old ones,-the opening of the treasures of the earth in Mexico and Peru in the sixteenth century, in California and Australia in our own day. But in the vegetable world the case is different; there, we have not only a constant accumulation and reproduction, but also a constantly growing variety of objects, fitted to the needs and uses of man. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, cotton, have made man's life, and the arts which sustain it, very different from what they were in ancient times. And no one, I think, can have looked at the vegetable treasures of the Crystal Palace without seeing that the various wealth of the vegetable world is far from yet exhausted. The Liverpool Local Committee have enabled us to take a startingpoint for such a survey, by sending to the Exhibition a noble collection of specimens of every kind of import of that great emporium; among which, as might be expected, the varieties of vegetable produce are the most numerous. But that objects should be reckoned among imports, implies that already they are extensively used. If we look at the multiplied collections of objects of the same kind, some from various countries, not as wares to a known market, but as specimens and suggestions of unexplored wealth, we can have no doubt

that the list of imports will hereafter, with great advantage be enlarged. Who knows what beautiful materials for the makers of furniture are to be found in the collections of woods from the various forests of the Indian Archipelago, or of Australia, or of Tasmania, or of New Zealand? Who knows what we may hereafter discover to have been collected of fruits and oils, and medicines and dyes; of threads and cordage, as we had here from New Zealand and from China examples of such novelties; of gums and vegetable substances, which may, in some unforeseen manner, promote and facilitate the processes of art? How recent is the application of caoutchouc to general purposes! Yet we know now-and on this occasion America would have taught us if we had not known— that there is scarcely any use to which it may not be applied with advantage. If a teacher in our time were to construct maxims like those of the son of Sirach in the ancient Jewish times-like him who says (Ecclus. xxxix., 26) " The principal things for the whole use of man's life are water, fire, iron, and salt, flour of wheat, honey, milk, and the blood of the grape, oil, and clothing"-he could hardly fail to make additions to the list, and these would be from the vegetable world. Again, how recent is the discovery of the uses of gutta percha! In the great collection were some of the original specimens sent by Dr Montgomery to the India House, whence specimens were distributed to various experimentalists.* Yet how various and peculiar are now its uses, such as no other substance could replace! And is it not to be expected that our contemporaries, joining the insight of science to the instinct of art, shall discover, among the various sources of vegetable wealth which the Great Exhibition has disclosed to them, substances as peculiar and precious, in the manner of their utility, as those aids thus recently obtained for the uses of life?

And before we quit this subject, let us reflect, as it is impossible, I think, not to reflect, when viewing thus the constantly enlarging sphere of the utility which man draws from the vegetable world, what a view this also gives us of the

* "illustrated Catalogue," p. 876.

bounty of Providence to man, thus bringing out of the earth, in every varying clime, endless forms of vegetable life, of which so many, and so many more than we yet can tell, are adapted to sustain, to cheer, to benefit, to delight man, in ways ever kind, ever large, ever new, and of which the novelty itself is a new source of delighted contemplation.

I might go on to make other reflections upon the peculiar characters of the various classes of the Great Exhibition, but the time does not allow me, nor is it needful, since all that I aspired to do was to offer to you specimens of such reflections. Several of the classes will, no doubt, suggest appropriate reflections to those who have to deliver lectures to you on special subjects. In the meantime, though I must now hasten to a conclusion, I cannot but perceive how imperfectly I have discharged even the limited task which I ventured to undertake. For I have as yet said nothing of the effect which must be produced upon art and science by this gathering of so many of the artists and scientists (if I may use the word) of the world together; by their joint study of the productions of art from every land, by their endeavours to appreciate and estimate the merits of productions, and instruments of production; of works of thought, skill, and beauty.

In speculating concerning universities, we are accustomed to think that, without underrating the effect of lectures and tasks, of professors and teachers, still that among the most precious results of such institutions is the effect produced upon those who resort thither by their intercourse with, and influence upon, each other. We know that by such intercourse there is generated a community of view, a mutual respect, and a general sympathy, with regard to the elements. of a liberal education, and the business of national, social, and individual life, which clings to men ever after, and tends to raise all to the level of the best. And some such effect as this would, we may suppose, be produced upon the students of the useful and the beautiful arts by their resort to any university in common. To any university, I have said; but to what a university have they been resorting during the past term? To a University of which the Colleges are all the great workshops and workyards, the schools and societies of arts, manu

factures, and commerce, of mining and building, of inventing and executing in every land-Colleges in which great chemists, great mechanics, great naturalists, great inventors, are already working, in a professional manner, to aid and develope all that capital, skill, and enterprise can do. Coming from such Colleges to the central University, may we not well look upon it as a great epoch in the life of the Material Arts, that they have thus begun their university careerthat they have had the advantage of such academical arrangements as there have been found, and still more, as I have said, that they have had the greater advantage of intercourse with each other? May we not expect that from this time the eminent producers and manufacturers, artizans and artists, in every department of art, and in every land, will entertain for each other an increased share of regard and good-will, of sympathy in the great objects which man's office as producer and manufacturer, artizan and artist, places before him-of respect for each other's characters, and for the common opinion of their body, all increased by their being able to say, "We were students together at the Great University in 1851."

On the Infusoria and other Microscopic Forms in Dust-showers and Blood-rain. By Dr C. G. EHRENBERG.

The infusorial character of the dust occasionally transported by winds, is one of the most interesting of Ehrenberg's discoveries. His investigations have been reported from time to time in the Berlin Memoirs and elsewhere, and notices of some of his results have appeared in this journal. A memoir in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy contains the details of his various researches, with full pictorial illustrations. The plates contain, not only figures of all the forms observed in each case, but a sketch of a portion of the dust as it lay under the field of his microscope, exhibiting to the eye the relative prevalence of different forms, and the colours

* Vide Passatstaub und Staubregen. Grosses organisches unsichtbares Wirken und Leben in der Atmosphäre. Von Hrn. Ehrenberg. Abhandlungen der Academie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1847.

they presented. The showers, whose microscopic organisms are here reported, are as follows:

I. In the Atlantic, latitude 17° 43′ N., and longitude 26° W., about 500 miles from the coast of Africa.-The dust was collected by Mr Darwin, from the ship in which he was at the time. The direction of the wind was from the African coast. The dust resembled volcanic ashes, although evidently not of this origin, and about a sixth part of it was silicious shells of fresh water and land infusoria, and silicious phytolites,eighteen species of the former, and as many of the latter. The most of the forms are European, and none exclusively African. Among them there is the South American species Himantidium papilio, which occurs at Cayenne, and also a Surirella, probably from the same continent. The conclusion follows, as Ehrenberg observes, that either the dust came in part from South America, in the upper regions of the atmosphere, or these two species are yet to be discovered elsewhere. II. Other Dust-showers in the Atlantic, from the Collections of Mr Darwin.-These collections were made between the years 1834 and 1838, in latitudes 15°, 17°, 19°, and 21°, part at San Jago (Cape Verds), and part within 250 miles of the land, in the open sea, between longitudes 22° and 26°. They afford thirty new forms to those of the shower above noticed, and include also the same South American forms, Himantidium papilio, and Surirella Peruviana. In addition, there are three species of Eunotia, which have been found only in Senegambia and Guiana, together with the Amphidiscus obtusus, also South American. Besides the others, there was one Polythalamium, making in all 67 organic forms. The only new species was the Eunotia longicornis, which is very similar to a Hungarian fossil species. No species peculiarly African was found in the dust. One, the Lithostylidium Rajula, occurs at the Isle of France.

III. Dust which fell at Malta, 15th of May 1830.-This dust was obtained by Mr Darwin from purser R. G. Didham, of the ship Revenge. The wind at the time was east-southeast, and a similar fall of dust took place at the time, in the bay of Palmas, in Sardinia. The number of species afforded was 43, of which 15 were Infusorial, 21 Phytolitharia, and 7 Polythalamia.

Some of the species occur in Africa, yet