202 



EECEEATH^E SCIEIS^CE, 



along the margin of the sea, below tile cliffs 

 at Margate, on which the Infirmary stands, 

 and from which cliffs we had, some months 

 ago, extricated a portion of the chalk impress 

 of a gigaiitic and beautifully -marked ammo- 

 nite. There, as we have said, were we saun- 

 tering, now and then stopping to look at a 

 crowd of sandhoppers {Talitrus), as our feet 

 disturbed them from their shelter under a 

 mass of dried sea-weed ; now, perchance, lin- 

 gering to watch a group of little wandering 

 crabs hurrying to the nearest pool, or a her- 

 mit-crab in that little sheet of water prowling 

 about intent on prey ; and then, arresting our 

 steps to listen to the hoarse grinding music 

 of the inflowing tide, and follow the advance 

 of the unnumbered pebbles, as the waves idly 

 played with them, rolling the lighter frag- 

 ments over and over, as they have done for 

 ages, wearing down (flints as they are) the 

 angularities which they originally presented ; 

 for when the chalk-slip in which they were 

 embedded fell, its lighter particles became by 

 degrees washed away, and these rigid flints 

 remained to undergo the ceaseless action of 

 the alternate tides. 



Thus, in careless mood, such as follows 

 long sickness, and thus pleasing our fancj^, 

 did we see the orbicular pebble in question 

 gently roll up the shingly beach to our very 

 feet. We stooped, and took it up. " Ball 

 of ocean, with which the wild waves are 

 playing," for so we mused, "how long is it 

 that thou hast thus served for their sport ? — 

 how long is it since, a sUicious jelly, thou 

 becamest hardened in a deep cretaceous bed, 

 and what have the waves done with thee 

 since they undermined thy native cliff?" 

 Ask of the mummy the history of the Pha- 

 raohs of old. Why, the very stones of their 

 buildings discover, to the test of the micro- 

 scope, organic forms ; nay, the sands of the 

 surrounding deserts are replete with fossil 

 infusoria. That mummy walked upon the 

 relics of a world gone by. Vague is the 

 word " antiquity ;" it applies only to man. 



Would we learn, we must ask of the great 

 globe itself. Is it silent? No; it teaches 

 by Nature's own lithoglyphs, which speak — 

 oh ! how truthfully and how impressively — 

 preaching to us our own nothingness, and the 

 mystery of time. 



Well, we held the pebble in our. hand. It 

 is difficult to say by what impulse we were 

 induced to split it. Long sickness makes 

 the mind languid, and we had no hammer 

 with us, but strike we must. We looked out 

 for a large block imbedded in the sand ; we 

 soon picked up a fragment of flint which 

 seemed serviceable, and placing the pebble 

 on the block, struck smartly. The flint ham- 



mer, although it broke, did its work well. It 

 laid open a kernel, in a neat and definite 

 little chamber, hollowed out in the imprison- 

 ing wall of silex. The fissured portion 

 showed a white and glossy surface — a sort of 

 opaque porcelain — dotted with blue (the re- 

 sult, perhaps, of some metallic oxide), and 

 its thickness proved how good a preservative 

 it had been for the delicate granular kernel, 

 with its superficial threadlets diverging from 

 the apparent fruit-stalk. 



A fruit — a kernel ? No ! Yet a kernel, 

 and that kernel a sponge. 



Yes, this kernel is evidently one of the 

 sponges of the flint. Of many of these the 



