Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852

There are upward of seven hundred species of Infusoria known and described. These are of all shapes and forms, some even assuming a variety in themselves; many possess eyes, others have none; some move so rapidly that the eye can not follow them, and others are attached to various substances; some have very many stomachs, or internal sacs, and others have only one; others, again, form a compound mass, that is, many individuals live in the same transparent case, and some are so minute, that by the aid of the best microscopes they can not be clearly discerned. Many people are disgusted after viewing water through a microscope, and suppose that all water abounds in living creatures, and that, consequently, we drink them in myriads. This is an error: there are none, or very few, in spring water, and, as no one would think of drinking from a ditch or stagnant pool where plants abound, there is little to fear. If necessitated to partake of water abounding in life, the person is either ignorant of its state, or the want is so urgent that the thought does not occur; and even should it arise, these delicate transparent little atoms would not be perceived by the taste – this fear or disgust may therefore be dismissed. Many waters abound in the larvæ of gnats and other insects, and minute creatures of the crustaceous order, but these can generally be seen by the naked eye.

In all parts of the world, and in most waters where aquatic plants in a healthy state abound, these invisible creatures may be met with, and not only in stagnant pools, but in running streams and the broad ocean. Among water-plants these little beings find shelter and food; therefore, when water is brought from these localities, some of the vegetation peculiar to the pool or stream should be procured at the same time. They swarm among duckweed. Many are found also in clear shallow pools, particularly in the spring. When a pond is observed to have a stratum of dust on the surface, or a thin film, it will generally be found almost entirely composed of living creatures. This dust-like appearance consists nearly exclusively of species of the most beautiful colors, such as Pandorina, Gonium, &c. A shining film of various colors is also occasionally seen on standing water: this is composed of Infusoria; a red appearance being often given to water by some species, and by others a yellowish hue. Sheets of water often assume an intense green, from the presence of many of these minute bodies. Lakes have been known to change their color very mysteriously, and to have caused some alarm in the superstitious; but it is now known to arise from Infusoria, as they are attracted to the surface by the sun in the middle of the day, and descend as that luminary declines – thus the lake will be clear, morning and evening, and turbid, or of different colors, in the course of the day. If stalks of flowers are steeped for a few days in water, it will be found to swarm with life; even a few dead leaves, or a bit of dry hay, will produce the same effect. At first monads will appear; these will be succeeded by specimens of the genera Paramecium, Amoeba, and those of the class Rotatoria. I have tried these experiments, and always with success. If the infusion be kept a few weeks (particularly that formed with leaves), one peculiar kind of animalcule will swarm to a most astonishing degree, so that a drop will contain hundreds, so close together that they form quite a crowd, and yet all are in a state of activity, and feeding from the vegetable matter disengaged from the decaying leaves. They are not even confined to these localities, for lakes and rivers, the fluids found in animals and vegetables, strong acids, and also the briny ocean, are full of these interesting creatures. One kind of phosphorescence (an appearance which is so often observed by the seaside and at sea) is occasioned by some species; and, when we remember that this luminosity often extends for miles, we are lost in astonishment at the immensity of their numbers.

And here I may mention the evident use of these wonderful beings. They appear wherever decaying animal or vegetable substances are found in water, and are extremely useful in destroying what would otherwise taint the air with noxious gasses and smells. Minute algæ also assist in preserving the purity of the water in which they live; they serve as food, also, to animals higher in the scale of creation than themselves. Captain Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic Voyage, speaking of a small fish found by him in the South Seas, and stating by what means it and many others are fed, says, "All are eventually nourished and sustained by the minute infusorial animalcules, which we find filling the ocean with an inconceivable multitude of the minutest forms of organic life." We may infer from this, the immense importance of the Infusoria in the scale of existence, for although only remotely supporting the higher animals, yet the want of them would be greatly felt. Ehrenberg states, that a single drop of water may hold five hundred millions of the smallest animalcules. What, then, can be the population of a lake or of the ocean?

I have watched specimens of the genera Floscularia, Vorticella, and Stentor, for hours at a time, and they have never ceased to feed on minute portions of animal and vegetable substances, brought to them by the current they are enabled to make in the water; others eagerly pursue their prey, or feed on the decaying vegetable matter floating about: indeed, the appetite of these little creatures seems insatiable. Many genera have a strong chewing apparatus, like a mouth armed with teeth. All seem employed in the same way, though using different methods. Much decaying matter must thus be taken away by this insatiable, though miniature army, provided for the purpose. They, in their turn, afford sustenance to aquatic insects, which are again preyed on by fishes; and thus food is prepared for more highly organized animals, and lastly for man.

Animalcules have never been observed to rest, or at least to sleep; but this may be partly owing to the light necessarily used in viewing them, which forms an artificial sunlight, exciting their powers of motion: they may rest during darkness, when they can not be seen by us. Many are only attracted to the surface of the water by the light of the sun, and are difficult to be obtained on a dull day; they are, however, not much affected by cold or heat, for they are procurable in winter as in summer, though not in such profusion: they are found even under thick ice, and I have frequently broken, in severe frost, the frozen surface of a pond, and, inserting a bottle, have obtained some most interesting kinds. Many of the Polygastrica will bear a great degree of cold, even more so than those of the class Rotatoria, whose organization is of a higher order.

It has, I believe, been generally observed, that the more simple the organization of animals, the more retentive is the creature of life, and this is the case with these minute beings. The Rotifer vulgaris will even bear revivification several times. Dr. Carpenter relates that he tried the experiment six times with twelve specimens, and each time some were perfectly restored to animation. By allowing the drop of water which held them to evaporate, and at the end of twenty-four hours giving them a fresh supply, he succeeded six times in restoring some of them: at last two only were left, and these unfortunately he lost. Ehrenberg affirms, that if thoroughly desiccated they can not revive, but that they may remain in a lethargic condition if deprived of water for a certain time only. The same naturalist observes that when an animalcule is frozen with the water, it is surrounded by an exceedingly small portion which is unfrozen, occasioned probably by the animal heat of its body; but, should the cold be so great as to freeze this, the creature dies. Animal heat in such an atom! how marvelous! Yet they will bear a great degree of heat also. The same naturalist says, that the Polygastrica, will bear the temperature gradually raised to 120° of Fahrenheit, and some even to 200°, but if raised suddenly they die at 140°. Now, if we consider that water raised to 212° is boiling, we shall be as much astonished at their powers of enduring heat as cold. Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic Expedition, found upward of seventy species of Polygastrica with loricæ, or silicious shells, in fragments of ice.

It will, therefore, be seen, that animalcules are obtainable at all seasons, and in every place where there are ponds or pools of water; or they may be procured from water-butts, or by placing leaves, hay, or almost any vegetable substance in a little water, which has been previously found to have nothing living in it.

EDWARD DRYSDALE

A LEAF FROM THE DIARY OF A LAW-CLERK

About the year 1798, James Bradshaw and William Drysdale, both invalided masters of the Royal Navy, cast anchor for the remainder of their lives at about twelve miles' distance from Exeter, on the London road. Bradshaw named his domicile, an old-fashioned straggling building, "Rodney Place," in honor of the Admiral in whose great victory he had fought. Drysdale's smaller and snugger dwelling, about half a mile away from "Rodney Place," was called "Poplar Cottage," and about midway between them stood the "Hunter's Inn," a road-side public-house, kept by one Thomas Burnham, a stout-hearted, jolly-bellied individual, the comeliness of whose rubicund figure-head was considerably damaged by the loss of an eye, of which, however, it is right to say, the extinguished light appeared to have been transferred in undiminished intensity to its fiery, piercing fellow. The retired masters, who had long known each other, were intimate as brothers, notwithstanding that Bradshaw was much the richest of the two, having contrived to pick up a considerable amount of prize-money, in addition to a rather large sum inherited from his father. Neither did the difference of circumstances oppose, in Bradshaw's opinion, the slightest obstacle to the union of his niece and heiress, Rachel Elford, with Edward Drysdale, his fellow-veteran's only surviving offspring. The precedent condition, however, was, that Edward should attain permanent rank in the Royal Navy, and with this view, a midshipman's warrant was obtained in '99 for the young man, then in his eighteenth year, and he was dispatched to sea.

The naval profession proved to be, unfortunately, one for which Edward Drysdale was altogether unfitted by temperament and bent of mind, and sad consequences followed. He had been at sea about eighteen months, when news reached England of a desperate, but successful cutting-out affair by the boats of the frigate to which he belonged. His name was not mentioned in the official report – but that could hardly have been hoped for – neither was it in the list of killed and wounded. A map of the coast where the fight took place was procured; the battle was fought over and over again by the two veterans, and they were still indulging in those pleasures of the imagination in the parlor of the "Hunter's Inn," when the landlord entered with a Plymouth paper in his hand, upon one paragraph in which his single orb of vision glared with fiery indignation. It was an extract from a letter written by one of the frigate's officers, plainly intimating that midshipman Drysdale had shown the white feather in the late brush with the enemy, and would be sent home by the first opportunity. The stroke of a dagger could have been nothing compared with the sharp agony which such an announcement inflicted on the young man's father, and Bradshaw was for a few moments equally thunder-stricken. But he quickly rallied. William Drysdale's son a coward! Pooh! The thing was out of nature – impossible; and very hearty were his maledictions, savagely echoed by Burnham, with whom young Drysdale was a great favorite, of the lying lubber that wrote the letter, and the newspaper rascals that printed it.

Alas! it was but too true! On the third evening after the appearance of the alarming paragraph the two mariners were sitting in the porch of Poplar Cottage, separated only by a flower-garden from the main-road, conversing upon the sad, and constantly-recurring topic, when the coach from London came in sight. A youthful figure in naval uniform on the box-seat instantly riveted their attention, as it did that of Rachel Elford, who was standing in the little garden, apparently absorbed till that moment by the shrubs and flowers. The coach rapidly drew near, stopped, and Edward Drysdale alighted from it. The two seamen, instead of waiting for his approach, hastily arose from their seats and went into the cottage, as much perhaps to avoid the humiliating, though compassionate glances of the outside passengers, as from any other motive. The young man was deadly pale, and seemed to have hardly sufficient strength to move back the light wicket-gate which admitted to the garden. He held by it till the coach had passed on, and then turned with a beseeching, half-reproachful look toward Rachel. She, poor girl, was as much agitated as himself, and appeared to be eagerly scanning his countenance, as if hopeful of reading there a contradiction of the dishonoring rumor that had got abroad. In answer to his mute appeal, she stepped quickly toward him, clasped his proffered hand in both hers, and with a faint and trembling voice ejaculated – "Dear, dear Edward! It is not true – I am sure it is not, that you – that you – "

"That I, Rachel, have been dismissed the naval service, as unfit to serve his majesty, is quite true," rejoined Edward Drysdale, slowly, and with partially-recovered calm – "quite true!"

The young woman shrank indignantly from him – fire glanced in her suffused eyes, and her light, elegant figure appeared to grow and dilate with irrepressible scorn, as this avowal fell upon her ear. "A coward!" she vehemently exclaimed; "you that – but no," she added, giving way again to grief and tenderness, as she looked upon the fine, intelligent countenance of her lover, "it can not be; there must be some error – some mistake. It is impossible!"

"There is error and mistake, Rachel; but the world will never, I fear, admit so much. But, come, let us in: you will go with me?"

We will not follow them till the first outburst of angry excitement is past; till the father's passionate, heart-broken reproaches have subsided to a more patient, subdued, faintly-hopeful sorrow, and Rachel's wavering faith in the manhood of her betrothed has regained something of its old firmness. Entering then, we shall find that only Mr. Bradshaw has remained obstinately and contemptuously deaf to what the young man has falteringly urged in vindication of his behavior in the unhappy affair which led to his dismissal from the service. He had, it appeared, suddenly fainted at the sight of the hideous carnage in which, for the first time in his life, he found himself involved.

"You have a letter, you say, from Captain Otway," said Mr. Drysdale, partially raising his head from his hands, in which it had been buried while his son was speaking. "Where is it? Give it to Rachel – I can not see the words."

The note was directed to Mr. Drysdale, whom Captain Otway personally knew, and was no doubt kindly intended to soften the blow, the return of his son under such circumstances must inflict. Although deciding that Edward Drysdale was unfit for the naval profession, he did not think that the failure of the young man's physical nerve in one of the most murderous encounters that had occurred during the war, was attributable to deficiency of true courage, and as a proof that it was not, Captain Otway mentioned that the young man had jumped overboard during half a gale of wind, and when night was falling, and saved, at much peril to himself, a seaman's life. This was the substance of the note. As soon as Rachel ceased reading, Mr. Drysdale looked deprecatingly in his friend's face and murmured, "You hear?"

"Yes, William Drysdale, I do. I never doubted that your son was a good swimmer, no more than I do that coward means coward, and that all the letters in the alphabet can not spell it to mean any thing else. Come, Rachel," added the grim, unreasoning, iron-tempered veteran, "let us be gone. And God bless, and if it be possible, comfort you, old friend! Good-by! No, thank-ye, young sir!" he continued, with renewed fierceness, as Edward Drysdale snatched at his hand. "That hand was once grasped by Rodney in some such another business as the letter speaks of, when its owner did not faint! It must not be touched by you!"

The elder Drysdale took, not long afterward, to his bed. He had been ailing for some time; but no question that mortification at his son's failure in the profession to which he had with so much pride devoted him, helped to weaken the springs of life and accelerate his end, which took place about six months after Edward's return home. The father and son had become entirely reconciled with each other, and almost the last accents which faltered from the lips of the dying seaman, were a prayer to Bradshaw to forget and forgive what had past, and renew his sanction to the marriage of Edward and his niece. The stern man was inexorable; and his pitiless reply was, that he would a thousand times rather follow Rachel to her grave.

The constancy of the young people was not, however, to be subdued, and something more than a year after Mr. Drysdale's death, they married; their present resources, the rents – about one hundred and twenty pounds per annum – of a number of small tenements at Exeter. They removed to within three miles of that city, and dwelt there in sufficiency and peace for about five years, when the exigencies of a fast-increasing family induced them to dispose, not very advantageously, of their cottage property, and embark the proceeds in a showy speculation promising, of course, immense results, and really ending in the brief space of six months in their utter ruin. Edward Drysdale found himself, in lieu of his golden hopes, worth about two hundred pounds less than nothing. The usual consequences followed. An undefended suit at law speedily reached the stage at which execution might be issued, and unless a considerable sum of money could be instantly raised, his furniture would be seized under a fi. fa., and sacrificed to no purpose.

One only possible expedient remained – that of once more endeavoring to soften the obduracy of Mr. Bradshaw. This it was finally determined to attempt, and Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale set off by a London morning coach upon the well-nigh hopeless speculation. They alighted at the "Hunter's Inn," where Drysdale remained, while his wife proceeded alone to Rodney Place. Thomas Burnham was friendly and good-natured as ever. The old mariner, he told Drysdale, was visibly failing, and his chief amusement seemed to be scraping together and hoarding up money. James Berry, a broken-down tailor, and a chap, according to Burnham, who knew how many beans made five as well as any man in Devonshire, had been for some time valet, gardener, and general factotum at Rodney Place, and appeared to exercise great influence over Mr. Bradshaw. The only other person in the establishment was the old cook, Margery Deans, who, never otherwise, since he had known her, than desperately hard of hearing, was now become deaf as a stone. Drysdale, it was afterward remembered, listened to all this with eager attention, and was especially inquisitive and talkative respecting Mr. Bradshaw's hoarding propensities, and the solitary, unprotected state in which he lived.

Mrs. Drysdale was long gone; but the tremulous hopes which her protracted stay called feebly forth, vanished at the sight of her pale, tearful, yet resolved aspect. "It is useless, Edward," she murmured, with her arms cast lovingly about her husband's neck, and looking in his face with far more lavish expression of affection than when, with orange blossoms in her hair, she stood a newly-consecrated wife beside him. "It is useless to expect relief from my uncle, save upon the heartless, impossible condition you know of. But let us home. God's heaven is still above our heads, though clouds and darkness rest between. We will trust in Him, Edward, and fear not!"

So brave a woman should have been matched with a stout-hearted man; but this, unhappily, was not the case. Edward Drysdale was utterly despondent, and he listened, as his wife was afterward fain to admit to myself and others, with impatient reluctance to all she said as they journeyed homeward, save when the condition of help spoken of, namely, that she should abandon her husband, and take up her abode with her children at Rodney Place, was discussed – by her indignantly. Once also, when she mentioned that the old will in her favor was not yet destroyed, but would be, her uncle threatened, if she did not soon return, a bright, almost fiery expression seemed to leap from his usually mild, reflective eyes, and partially dissipate the thick gloom which mantled his features.

This occurred on a winter's day in early March, and the evening up to seven o'clock had passed gloomily away with the Drysdales, when all at once the husband, starting from a profound reverie, said he would take a walk as far as Exeter, see the attorney in the suit against him, and, if possible, gain a little time for the arrangement of the debt. His wife acquiesced, though with small hope of any favorable result, and the strangely-abstracted man left the house.

Ten o'clock, the hour by which Edward Drysdale had promised to return, chimed from a dial on the mantle-piece. Mrs. Drysdale trimmed the fire, lit the candles, which, for economy's sake, she had extinguished, and had their frugal supper laid. He came not. Eleven o'clock! What could be detaining him so late? Twelve! – half-past twelve! Rachel Drysdale was just about to bid the servant-maid, who was sitting up in the kitchen, go to bed, when the sound of carriage-wheels going toward Exeter stopped at the door. It was a return post-chaise, and brought Edward Drysdale. He staggered, as if intoxicated, into the kitchen, reached down a half-bottle of brandy from a cupboard, and took it to the post-boy, who immediately drove off. Anne Moody, the servant-girl, was greatly startled by her master's appearance: he looked, she afterward stated, more the color of a whited wall, than of flesh and blood, and shook and "cowered," as if he had the ague. Mrs. Drysdale came into the kitchen, and stood gazing at her husband in a white, dumb kind of way (I am transcribing literally from the girl's statement), till the outer door was fastened, when they both went up-stairs into a front sitting-room. Curiosity induced Anne Moody to follow, and she heard, just as the door closed upon them, Mrs. Moody say, "You have not been to Exeter, I am sure?" This was said in a nervous, shaking, voice, and her master replied in the same tone, "No; I changed my mind," or words to that effect. Then there was a quick whispering for a minute or two, interrupted by a half-stifled cry or scream from Mrs. Drysdale. A sort of hubbub of words followed, which the girl – a very intelligent person of her class, by-the-by – could not hear, or at least not make out, till Mr. Drysdale said in a louder, slower way, "You, Rachel – the children are provided for; but, O God! at what a dreadful price!" Anne Moody, fearful of detection, did not wait to hear more, but crept stealthily up-stairs to bed, as her mistress had ordered her to do when she left the kitchen. On the following morning the girl found her master and mistress both up, the kitchen and parlor fires lit, and breakfast nearly over. Mr. Drysdale said he was in a hurry to get to Exeter, and they had not thought it worth while to call her at unseasonable hours. Both husband and wife looked wild and haggard, and this, Moody, when she looked into their bed-chamber, was not at all surprised at, as it was clear that neither of them had retired to rest. One thing and the other, especially kissing and fondling the children over and over again, detained Mr. Drysdale till half-past eight o'clock, and then, just as he was leaving the house, three men confronted him! A constable of the name of Parsons, James Berry, Mr. Bradshaw's servant, and Burnham, the landlord of the Hunter's Inn. They came to arrest him on a charge of burglary and murder! Mr. Bradshaw had been found early in the morning cruelly stabbed to death beside his plundered strong-box!

I must pass lightly over the harrowing scenes which followed – the tumultuous agony of the wife, and the despairing asseverations of the husband, impossible to be implicitly believed in even by that wife, for the criminating evidence was overwhelming. Drysdale had been seen skulking about Rodney Place till very late by both Burnham and Berry. In the room through which he must have passed in going and returning from the scene of his frightful crime, his hat had been found, and it was now discovered that he, Drysdale, had taken away and worn home one of Berry's – no doubt from hurry and inadvertence. In addition to all this, a considerable sum of money in gold and silver, inclosed in a canvas-bag, well known to have belonged to the deceased, was found upon his person! It appeared probable that the aim of the assassin had been only robbery in the first instance, for the corpse of the unfortunate victim was found clothed only in a night-dress. The fair inference, therefore, seemed to be that the robber, disturbed at his plunder by the wakeful old seaman, had been compelled, perhaps reluctantly, to add the dreadful crime of murder to that which he had originally contemplated. The outcry through the county was terrific, and as Edward Drysdale, by the advice of Mr. Sims, the attorney, who subsequently instructed Mr. Prince, reserved his defense, there appeared to be nothing of a feather's weight to oppose against the tremendous mass of circumstance arrayed against the prisoner.