84 GLAUCUS. 
darkness,—for them you must consult Dr. Wyville 
‘Thomson’s book, and the notices of the “Chal- 
lenger’s”” dredgings which appear from time to time 
in the columns of “Nature;” for want of space 
forbids my speaking of them here. 
But if you have no time to read “ The Depths of 
the Sea,” go at least to the British Museum, or if 
you be a northern man, to the admirable public 
museum at Liverpool; ask to be shown the deep- 
sea forms; and there feast your curiosity and. 
your sense of beauty for an hour. Look at the 
Crinoids, or stalked star-fishes, the “Lilies of living 
stone,’ which swarmed in the ancient seas, in vast 
variety, and in such numbers that whole beds of 
limestone are composed of their disjointed frag- 
ments; but which have vanished out of our modern 
seas, we know not why, till, a few years since, almost 
the only known living species was the exquisite 
and rare Pentacrinus asteria, from deep water off 
the Windward Isles of the West Indies. 
Of this you will see a specimen or two both 
at Liverpool and in the British Museum; and near 
