90 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cap. VI. 
base of the great Victoria barrier itself—a perpendicular 
Sa se a. 
wall of ice, from one to two hundred feet above the sea © 
level—were tinged brown from this cause, as if the waters — 
were charged with oxide of iron. The majority- of these 
plants consist of simple vegetable cells enclosed in inde- 
structible silex ; and it is obvious that the death of such 
multitudes must form sedimentary deposits of immense 
extent. 
“ The universal existence of such an invisible vegetation 
as that of the Antarctic Ocean is a truly wonderful fact, and 
the more so from its being unaccompanied by plants of a 
high order, This ocean swarms with mollusca, and ento- 
mostracous crustaceans, small whales, and porpoises; and 
the sea with penguins and seals, and the air with birds; 
the animal kingdom is everywhere present, the larger crea- 
tures preying on the smaller, and these again on those more 
minute ; all living nature seems to be carnivorous. This 
microscopic vegetation is the sole nutrition of the herbi- 
vorous animals; and it may likewise serve to purify the 
atmosphere, and thus execute in the Antarctic latitudes the 
office of the trees and grasses of the temperate regions, and 
the broad foliage of the palms of the tropics.” 
Dr. Hooker also remarks that the siliceous envelopes of 
the same kinds of diatomaceze now living in the waters 
of the South Polar Ocean, have contributed in past ages to 
the formation of European strata: for the tripoli and the 
phonolite stones of the Rhine, contain the siliceous envelopes 
of identical species. 
Such are the comments of one of our most distinguished 
botanists, on the phenomena under review. The reader will 
perhaps ask, what then are the essential characters which 
separate the animal from the vegetable kingdom? To this 
question it is impossible to give a satisfactory reply: perhaps 
the only distinction that will be generally admitted by 
zoologists and botanists is the following :—animals require 
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