Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.Adams, George
Science
Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.
Adams, George
Insects -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800
A clearer idea of these parts will be obtained by the short extract I
shall give of M. Lyonet’s work; which, at the same time that it displays
the wonderful organization of insects, shews how worthy it is of the
attention of a rational being; and, though this description is confined
to a particular species, it will be found to accord in general with a
great number.
Of all the modifications of which matter is susceptible, the most noble
is undoubtedly the organization thereof. In the structure of animals,
the Sovereign Wisdom is exhibited to our view in the most striking
manner. The body of an animal is a little particular system more or less
complicated, and which, like the system of the universe at large, is the
result of the combination and connection of a multitude of different
parts, which all conspire to produce one general effect, the
manifestation of the principle which we term life. So wonderful are
these combinations that we are incapable of comprehending, or even of
admiring sufficiently the astonishing apparatus of springs, levers,
counter-weights, tubes of different diameters, &c. which constitute
these organical machines. The interior parts of the insect, the most
despicable in appearance, would absorb all the powers of the most able
anatomist. He would be lost in the labyrinth as soon as he attempted to
explore all its windings. A truth that will be evident to every one who
considers only the small portion here introduced of the anatomy of the
caterpillar inhabiting the trunk of the willow-tree. This caterpillar
produces the phalæna cossus, or goat-moth. M. Lyonet in his admirable
work entitled, “Traite Anatomique de la Chenille qui ronge le Bois de
Saule,” has given an ample and minute description of this insect. In the
following concise abstract enough will appear to convince the reader of
the utility of microscopic glasses, in displaying the wonders of the
creation, and to afford additional proof that the attention of the
Almighty is not confined merely to objects of magnitude.
In a former edition of this work, I entered into a more minute detail of
the several parts contained in the figures exhibited in plate XII. This
account I have now omitted, as after all it could not convey a clear
idea of the muscles alone, much less of the different parts of the
caterpillar, without a reference to other plates of M. Lyonet’s work. I
therefore concluded it would be better to let the figures speak for
themselves, and then give a general description of the interior parts of
the caterpillar; referring the reader for full particulars to the
original.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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