.]

"So, view'd through crystal spheres in drops saline,
Quick-shooting salts in chemic forms combine;
Or Mucor-stems, a vegetative tribe,
Spread their fine roots, the tremulous wave imbibe.
Next to our wondering eyes the focus brings
Self-moving lines, and animated rings;
First Monas moves, an unconnected point,
Plays round the drop without a limb or joint;
Then Vibrio waves, with capillary eels,
And Vorticella whirls her living wheels; 290
While insect Proteus sports with changeful form
Through the bright tide, a globe, a cube, a worm.
Last o'er the field the Mite enormous swims,
Swells his red heart, and writhes his giant limbs.

[Footnote: _Or Mucor-stems_, l. 283. Mucor or mould in its
early state is properly a microscopic vegetable, and is
spontaneously produced on the scum of all decomposing organic
matter. The Monas is a moving speck, the Vibrio an undulating
wire, the Proteus perpetually changes its shape, and the
Vorticella has wheels about its mouth, with which it makes an
eddy, and is supposed thus to draw into its throat invisible
animalcules. These names are from Linneus and Muller; see
Appendix to Additional Note I.]

V. "ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; 300
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.

[Footnote: _Beneath the shoreless waves_, l. 295. The earth
was originally covered with water, as appears from some of
its highest mountains, consisting of shells cemented together
by a solution of part of them, as the limestone rocks of the
Alps; Ferber's Travels. It must be therefore concluded, that
animal life began beneath the sea.

Nor is this unanalogous to what still occurs, as all
quadrupeds and mankind in their embryon state are aquatic
animals; and thus may be said to resemble gnats and frogs.
The fetus in the uterus has an organ called the placenta, the
fine extremities of the vessels of which permeate the
arteries of the uterus, and the