Revelations of the Miscroscope.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1909, 1 December 1886, Page 3

Revelations of the Miscroscope.

In all creatures the eye is a striking object, bat as seen through this instrument the eyes of insects are so peculiar as to excite our highest admiration. Ou the heads of beetles, bees, common flies butterflies, and other insects may be perceived two protuberances, which contain a prodigious number of small transparent hemispheres, placed with the utmost regularity in lines crossing each other like latticework. These are a collection of eyes which, like so many mirrors, reflect the images of surrounding objects. In some insects there are many thousands of them The farina of flowers looks to the naked eye like simple dust, but when magnified it is seen to be finely constructed, and of great variety, according to the character of the plant to which it belongs. Leaves are among the most delicate and gorgeous forms in nature. The leaf of the box is supposed to contain upon its two sides as many as 344,180 pores ; and the back of a rose tree leaf looks as if diapered with silver. The crosscut slices of plants or trees exhibit the most variegated and wonderful arrangments. A piece of human skin is marvellous in its mechanism. Ten thousand of the fine threads of a spider’s web are not so thick as a human hair—a fineness this which is beyond onr conception. But we must desist, although examples might be indefinitely multi plied. A small needle, highly polished, when viewed with a high magnifying power, appears neither round nor flat, bat full of holes and scratches, and as broad and blunt as the end of a poker. On the other band, the sting of a bee, or the probosciaof a butterfly or a flea appears, when examined by the microscope, to be formed with the most surprising beauty and regularity. The sting of a bee shews a polish without the least flaw, blemish, or inequality, and ends in a point too fine be discerned. On submitting to the microscope the edge of a very keen razor, it appears as broad as the back of a very thick knife, and is rough and full of notchea. The fineat cambric or silk that hnman skill can produce, resembles ill-made twine or rope, and seems scarcely fit to be nsed as a door mat, whereas the silkworm’s web appears perfectly smooth and shining, and everywhere equal.

The British people, who wander everywhere and settle everywhere, and found nations as bees settle, we hardly know how or why, will stay nowhere under any rule but their own. Throughout earth there is no body of ten thousand Englishmen obeying any law they do not make. They settle in no part of Europe, in no division of Asia, which is uot theirs ; in no part of America where their law is not supreme. They are unattracted by the wonderful wealth of Spanish America or the endless space of the Portugese dominion ; when once, by a rare chance, a band of them found themselves in Texas, subjected to Spaniards they established, almost without trial of the native power, a Bevolutionary Republic. They glided away from Java within three years of its cession to the Dutch ; they scarcely settle in the Transvaal, because it is not English ; and if Bengal were foreign to-morrow, every planter would by 1890 have sought a career elsewhere.

An American actor named Harrison has amused himself during the last two seasons by keeping an exceedingly alert eye upon the clergy. He has a series of scrap-books in which are pasted the records of every indiscretion of of a clergyman in any part of the coun try. Whenever a minister indulges in one of the time honoured and once popular tirades against the morality of the stage, Mr Harrison takes his scrap books out from the bottom of his trunk, and answers him in a letter that is stocked wilh facts, names,dates and cutting references. The number of clergymen who are at present in gaol, and their offences, together with all the details of their crimes, usually lends such weight to the letter that it effectually silences the minister This is a peculiar kind of sport, but Mr Harrison says it is unqualifiedly entertaining. When the employees in an Indiana furniture factory, operated by a German struck for eight hours’ work a a day, he granted it, but when they wanted ten hours’pay for eight hours’ work, he caUed them up and said : “My fr’ns, may be 1 do as you like. I baf an order from Shegago for lOdoz shairs. Vbill sheep him Bdoz and bill for ten. if he doan kick on me it show me dot der rule vhorks both vhays undvevhas all right.” It is needless to add that the idea didn’t work, and that his men are receiving eight hours’ pay.

The Roman soldiers who built such wonderful roads and carried a weight of armor and luggage that would crush the average farm hand, lived on enarrebread and sour wine; they were temperate in diet and regular and constant in exercise. The Spanish peasant works every day and dances naif tbc night, yet eats only his black bread, onion and water-melon The Smyrna porter eats only a little fru t and some olives. He eats no beef, pork or mutton, yet be walks off with his load of SOOlbs. The coolie, fed on rice, is more active and can endure more than the negro fed on fat meat. The heavy work of the world is nt done by men who eat the greatest quantity. The fastest or longestwinded horse is not the bigger eater. Moderation in diet seems to be the prerequisite for endurance. ‘ Civit,’ in the Otago Daily Times, gives the following transcription of a boy’s esasy : —“ Sometimes the tiger when anted springs upon the clougbent and fastens his teeth and dors in his neck or shoulder. The latter trjt to kneel on the enie 'enemy?] ao as to crush him by the wait off greet i«|B iqd heavy bottom.”

Recently unearthed documents now show that the honest old astronomer Galileo was really sentenced to the tortures of the Inquisition at Home. In those days, to believe that the earth moved, was to be a heretic of the worst order, and deserving, not only of death, but of fire-brands, prods and spikes, and mutilation at the hands of “ the faithful.”

There lately died in Baltimore a non of the name of Agnes Gubert, who, according to Rubinstein’s testimony, possessed the richest and most wonderful voice ever known within the memorv of man. The operatic impresario Strakosch offered her in his time £IO,OOO for a six months concert tour, which she however refused, in order to take the veil and bury herself and the enormous fortune which was in her voice within the walls of a con* vent. It is even said that she was never allowed to sing in the choir, for fear she would grow vain and repent of what she had done.