172 TROF. T. E. JOiXES — MINTTTE THIjSTGS OF LIFE. 



sea. The armies of locusts and caterpillars, fearful in their 

 devastating powers, have been called forth to destroy. Here we 

 have legions of minute creatures called into being for the purpose 

 of building up, flake by flake, layer by layer, bed after bed, massive 

 and hard foundations of islands and continents, nay, the stony floor 

 of a great part of the existing world. Long ago the sands and ooze 

 of primeval seas were full of the pretty shells of Foraminifera ; 

 long, long ago the warm ocean of the Carboniferous Period swarmed 

 with them — they lived on in endless varieties of shape — and to-day 

 still witnesses many of the same forms and many of the same species. 

 For in every climate, on every shore, and at every depth of sea, 

 these simply- constructed animalcules had but little difficulty in 

 adapting themselves to the varying conditions of the sea — as the 

 land rose here or sank there, as the sea-bed filled up with mud or 

 was overspread with sand. Whether the sea-bed shallowed, or sank 

 under many-fathomed waters, — whether it became the home of the 

 tropical coral, or was grated and furrowed by the travelling iceberg, 

 — still in it were Foraminifera existing, which could live on under 

 the new circumstances. They continued the work of separating 

 lime from the water, and converting it into shelly matter, which 

 was to be in time a marble or a chalk, a nummulitic, or some other 

 kind of limestone. Wonderful as is this process, wonderful as has 

 been the work confided to these animalcules, wonderful as is the 

 widespread and thickly-massed accumulation of their minute shells, 

 massive enough for Man to build of them his tombs, his palaces, 

 his temples — nay, even grandly great enough for Earth to build her 

 mountains of, yet there stops our wonder ; it is taken up by other 

 parts of God's creation. If the tiny atom leaves a more enduring 

 monument on earth than Man leaves of himself, if the Foraminifera 

 have a grander sepulchre, if they have added more to this earth's 

 crust than the human family has, there ends their grandeur ! They 

 have done their work, and piled up their mausoleum ; but Man's 

 life is not wholly material, his work is not buried in his tomb — 

 his destiny has a higher goal ! 



