70 THE UNIVERSE. 



remarkably extensive banks ; ancient Germany and its 

 sombre forests rest on a vast cemetery of corals and madre- 

 pores. 



If the Polypi, being so extremely small as they are, as- 

 tonish us by the mighty fortresses with which they fetter 

 the ocean, we must admit that they are equally worthy of 

 our admiration when we look upon the task intrusted to 

 them in the midst of their watery solitudes. Their nourish- 

 ment only consists of the imperceptible debris of animals 

 scattered on every side in the waves, and hence, as Buck- 

 land says, they have an important mission to fulfil in the 

 harmony of nature. It is to them that she has confided the 

 office of cleansing the waters of the sea, and purging them 

 of all those very slight impurities which escape the vora- 

 cious fish. Here, then, we find another reason for hum- 

 bling ourselves before the wisdom of Providence ! 



Ellis, when he completed his history of the Polypi, over- 

 whelmed with astonishment at all the magnificence which 

 had been unrolled before his eyes during his long and in- 

 cessant labors, laid down his pen, and, humbling himself 

 profoundly, addressed a hymn to the glory of Him who 

 created so many marvels. 1 



1 After having sacrificed many long years to the very difficult study of the 

 Polypi, Ellis, when laying down his pen, could not refrain, as we have said, from 

 addressing a hymn to the Creator of so many marvels. " In the researches 

 to which I devoted myself," says the English naturalist, " scenes altogether new 

 were unrolled before my eyes, arousing in me a feeling of admiration and as- 

 tonishment at the diversity and extent of life scattered through the universe. 

 If, then, such sentiments were excited in me by the facts which I have related, and 

 by these marvels of animated nature where its existence was not even suspected, 

 then, without doubt, minds more learned, and endowed with a greater power of 

 penetration, will find, at some future day, new facts to be recognized, and new 



