Here is a particle of matter. It may be amber, or a ruby, or a stone. Whence came the electrical properties of the one, the lurid brilliancy of the other, or the density of the stone? These qualities are wonders and miracles through all time. Science finds them marvels and leaves them mysteries. The philosopher is no more provided with a solution than the peasant. Indeed, the wonder of the philosopher has a deeper intensity. He sweeps with his eye, and bends his ear over a wider field of nature, and no sign rewards his scrutiny, no response repays his attention. Look at this humble, secure, and commonplace stone! We neglect it with the eye, we spurn it with the foot--it is not worth raising from the shore. Yet no book was ever written, no message was ever delivered, no romance ever depicted, no epic ever sung, containing such wondrous interest as the story of this stone, could any man tell it. What thronging conjectures! what unbidden and tumultuous memories rise as we contemplate its possible mutations of existence! History was unwritten when it first slept in the earth. What generations of men have lived and struggled, and died since it was first broken from the rock! Great battles, changing the fate of dynasties, and involving the servitude of races, have been fought over its calm resting place. Possibly thousands of years ago the mastodon trod upon it, and the ichthyosaurus paddled it into the sea. Ancient waves may have washed it into the ocean, before the first ship was launched by the first mariner. In the silent and wondrous caverns of the great deep, which no plummet has fathomed and no eye has ever seen, it has lain in regal rest. What monsters have glared at it! what tempests have raged, what tornadoes have broken over it! what earthquakes may have tossed it up from its hiding place. On what shore did it reappear? Did some Assyrian lover watch the wave which washed it up? Did some young Pharaoh play with it? Has it been imbedded in the walls of Troy? Did Achilles plant his spear by it? Did it lie on the plains of Marathon on the morning of the memorable battle? Has it been dyed by the blood of Caesar in the streets of Rome? Have Chaldean shepherds picked it up as the orient morning sun broke over their silent plains?