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Show 94 ACORNS AND OAKS. A. Acorn germinating.. The shell ruptured at th~ , top ; an umbilical vessel from each l?~e of the nut' the germ at their union, but hard,ly VISible. h B. The young plant. The root exte-nded ; t e plumule, or future stem, barely developed.-Durable trees make roots first. What scale so fine as to measure, or what bal .. ance so delicate as to weigh, the present germes of the thousands of giant oaks. w~ich .are all to be_ produced by that little thing m Its mfant dre~s, and which are to form those future navies by whiCh th~ sea is made to rule as well as encomr;ass the land· PENSHANGER OAK. That and other of the great oaks which have justly acquired celebrity in various parts of England, as beincr both ornaments and historical records, produceb enough of acorns every fertile year to stock a LITTLE THINGS IMPORTANT. 95 forest ; and yet the germes of all their generations must have been contained in the first oak-bud that ever sprouted ; and but for the germination of that, we should never have had an oak. Nor is the oak a solitary instance ; for as we trace any thing towards J its origin, we find tha.t the limit which we approach is that "nothing" out of which Almighty Power spake and commanded "all things." It is, Uwrefore, always dangerous to slight little thing's, for little things are all heginnings; and in obtaining knowledge, and thence enjoyment, it is at the beginning only that we can begin. All those begi11nings are in nature; and those who discovered and applied the property of water which has been mentioned had uo more to do in the making of that property than lhose to whom it is altogether unknown. Anybody, too, who possesses the organ of sense necessary for the purpose, and will exercise that organ, may know those bt:ginnings ; and then comes t.he proper exercise of man. One thing is compared with another; the process is continued; the relations of these things to each other are again comparerl, those that are fit are adopted, those unfit rejected: and thus discovery is piled upon discovery, just as one little brick is piled upon another, until the observant and reflective man rears a splendid edifice, and ca1ls it an iLwention; and it adorns human nature as much as the most magnificent material palace adorns the earth. Even now t...1.ey are erecting in Westminster Abbey a monume-nt to James Watt, and, perhaps, it had been as creditable had it been done some time ago. But James Watt needs no memorial at their hands. Make the tour of these kingdoms, and you shall find Watt's monument at work at every village. Would you travel by land 1 that monument shall carry you along as fleet as the winds. Would you travel by water 1 heed nothing for wind and tide, for James Watt's monument will o\'"ercome these for you. That monument is at this |