70 INTRODUCTIOX. 



been serving some good purpose already, were it only by 

 sweetening tlie repast and adding to the happiness of the mul- 

 titude of God^s creatures that live on Sea-weeds in the deep. 

 He who by a word clothed the rocks and channel of the 

 sea with so much riches and beauty, and who said respecting 

 the miraculous supply of food in the wilderness, " Gather 

 up tlie fragments that remain, that nothing be lost,^^ allows 

 not even the fr^igments of Sea-weed to be lost. ]\Ian has 

 learned the wisdom of gathering up those that are within 

 his reach, but a kind Providence allows not to be lost the 

 immense masses that are buried at the bottom of the 

 sea. He who in prima3val ages stored up the remains of 

 ancient forests, converting them into coal for the succeeding 

 generations of the children of men, to give light and heat 

 in their habitations ; at the same time stored up the wreck of 

 marine matter in the form of stone of which the palace and 

 the cottage might be built. AVe cannot examine a limestone 

 quarry without seeing that it must have been consolidated 

 in the depths of the sea. Our marble jambs are a mixed 

 mass of marine organic remains. Though Sea. weeds, being 

 more perishable than the shelly coats of animals, are less 

 frequently observed in marble or limestone, yet they are 

 occasionally seen, and about a year ago in a limestone 



