204 ZOOPHYTA HELIANTHOIDA. 



tain date even to the present day, their amazing labours have 

 been continued, the product remaining in the extensive ranges 

 of limestone rocks which lie buried in our northern regions, as 

 well as in those islands of new formation with which they threat- 

 en to convert the equatorial seas into dry land. " They that 

 sail on the sea tell of the danger thereof ; and when we hear it 

 with our ears we marvel thereat."* 



" Millions of millions thus, from age to age, 



With simplest skill, and toil unwearyable, 



No moment and no movement unimproved, 



Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread. 



To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, 



By marvellous structure climbing tow'rd the day. 



Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought, 



Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments. 



By which a hand invisible was rearing 



A new creation in the secret deep. 



Omnipotence wi'ought in them, with them, by them ; 



Hence what Omnipotence alone could do 



Worms did. I saw the living pile ascend, 



The mausoleum of its architects. 



Still dying upwards as their labours closed : 



Slime the material, but the slime was tum'd 



To adamant, by their petrific touch ; 



Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, 



Their masonry imperishable." f 



By much the greater number of those wonder-working zoo- 

 phytes belong to this order. In former ages ihe geologist tells 

 us that they were numerous and varied in our seas, — their re- 

 mains, entombed in limestone and marble, constituting the mo- 

 dels by which he decyphers their forms and species ; but this 

 ancient host is now represented by two or three species only, 

 and these so small and rare, that it would be giving them a dis- 

 proportionate importance to make them more than the subject 

 of a passing allusion to the labours of their races. 



The British species may be arranged under the following 

 genera ; 



' Ecclesiast. chap, xliii. v. 24. 



t IMontgomery's Pelican Island, canto ii. p. 27. 



