406 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
dreadful cold of an eternal winter. With every thousand feet we 
rise above the level of the sea, we seem to have advanced nearer 
and nearer to the pole. 
This wonderful change of form, which decorates the various 
regions of the earth with such an endless variety of organised 
existence, alike prevails in the realms of ocean. Here we find 
every larger sea-basin nourishing its peculiar inhabitants, and 
discover at various vertical distances beneath the surface of the 
sea, changes in organic nature similar to those we observed at 
different distances above its level. 
Thousands of extinct animal and vegetable forms, which have 
successively flourished and disappeared, teach us the important 
lesson, that all created beings are made but for a season. It is 
ouly during a determined epoch of planetary life that each genus 
or species finds that combination of outward circumstances, unde 
which it is able to attain its highest perfection. But imper 
ceptibly, in the course of ages, the external world modifies its 
nature; families once flourishing in a different atmosphere 
decline and wither; they are no longer able to maintain them- 
selves against new forms of life starting up in all the vigour of 
youth, and disappear from the scene, supplanted by races which 
must one day vanish in their turn. 
Organic life is no less dependent on place than it is on time. 
Of the numberless animal and vegetable forms that people the 
earth, each finds in only one spot the scene of its greatest size 
and its greatest profusion. Some endowed with a more pliable 
or energetic nature occupy a large space upon the surface ot 
the globe; we find them in the enjoyment of healthy exist- 
ence scattered far and wide over whole hemispheres, while 
others are obliged to content themselves with the narrowest 
birthplace, and are not seldom confined to a single bay, o 
a single mountain side. 
A great part of the magic charm of nature is owing no doubt 
to this deep and mysterious connexion between the soil and its 
productions. Here all is harmony ; we feel it in our hearts; and 
our eye delights in the consonance of forms and colours, as our 
ear in the concord of sweet sounds. And where is the mortal 
artist whose paintings could rival the ever-changing panorama 
which the Master of all worlds unfolds through all zones, from 
pole to pole? His pictures constantly fade away; but they are 
