X INTRODUCTION. 



"The lute was first devised 

 In imitation of a tortoise' back, 

 Whose sineM-s parclied by Apollo's beams, 

 Echoed about the concave of the shell; 

 And seeino: the shortest and smallest gave shrillest sound; 

 They found out frets, whose sweet diversity 

 Well touched by the skilful learned fingers, 

 Roused so strange a multitude of chords. 

 And the opinion many do confirm. 

 Because testudo signifies a lute," 



And now we are among the myths and fables of antiquity, we 

 may just mention another application of the shell to musical 

 purposes. Neptune, who, according to the Grecian mythology, 

 was the god of the sea, is frequently represented as going forth 

 in his car in great state and pomp, with a body-guard of Tritons; 

 some of whom go before witli twisted conch shells as trumpets, 

 with which we are to suppose they make delightful harmony. Venus, 

 too, the goddess of beauty, rode on the ocean foam in a testaceous 

 car. Thus Dryden says, that Albion — our native land, so called 

 on account of its chalky cliffs, from the Latin alba — white: — 



"Was to Neptune recommended; 

 Peace and plenty spread the sails; 

 Venus in her shell before him. 

 From the sands in safety bore him." 



But without believing all these fables, more poetical than true, 

 we may soon convince ourselves tliat in the hollow chambers of 

 a shell, there does seem to dwell, like an imprisoned spirit, a 

 low sad kind of music. An English poet, named Walter Savage 

 Lander, has well described this in these lines — 



"Of pearly hue 

 Within, and they that lustre have imbibed 

 In the sun's palace porch, where, when unyoked, 

 Ilis chariot wheel stands midway in the wave; 

 Shake one, and it awakens; then apply 

 Its polished lips to your attentive ear. 

 And it remembers its august abodes. 

 And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." 



Wordsworth, too, gives a beautiful description of a child applying 

 one of these pearly musical-boxes to his ear, 



Many other uses of shells might be mentioned, to show that 

 they perform an important part in the operations of nature, as 

 the means and modes by and in which God sees fit to order the 

 affairs of this world are frequently called; and also promote the 

 ends of science, and the arts of every-day life. By the decom- 

 position of the shells, of which they are partly composed, solid 

 rocks frequently crumble to pieces, and spreading over a considerable 



