208 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



of the country for consumption. As fast as the oysters are 

 opened the shells are used to build up new land, and with 

 them a large peninsula has been formed, stretching out for 

 more than half a mile from the low marshy shore towards 

 the oyster-beds, and furnishing room for wide streets, a 

 railroad, and a steamboat landing, in addition to the large 

 packing-houses, and the shops and dwellings for a popula- 

 tion of several thousand people. A single view of the long 

 white solid streets and docks of this singular town would 

 convey a much more vivid idea of the oyster-packing 

 industry than any number of tables of statistics. At some 

 future period this enormous accumulation of oyster-shells 

 will be considered as a kjokkenmodding." (m) 



It is a curious fact that one of the enigmas of geology 

 is supposed by some to be solved by animals still found in 

 the stomachs of living oysters. A paper on this subject 

 was read in the year 1844, before the Microscopical 

 Society, by the Rev. J. B. Read. The difficulty in ques- 

 tion he thus states : " It has been discovered, or rather 

 asserted, that there is a break in the great geological chain 

 of organised beings ; and that a link is wanting to connect 

 the cretaceous and antecedent series with a series of sub- 

 sequent formations." Accordingly, Sir Charles Lyell 

 founded on this supposition his arrangement of the sub- 

 division of the tertiary system ; his eocene period, or 

 dawn of our present animal and vegetable kingdoms, 

 being coincident with the third geological era. Dr. 

 Mantell, however, had doubts on this subject, and, adopt- 

 ing Sir Charles's arrangement as useful in the present 

 state of knowledge, he thought it might require to be 



(m) "Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of Maryland," 1880. 

 " Development of the American Oyster," by U. H. Brooks. 



