128 GLAUCUS; OR, | 
“lower” forms, and the simplest and, as it were, 
easiest forms of life. Conceive a Crystal Palace, 
(for mere difference in size, as both the naturalist 
and the metaphysician know, has nothing to do 
with the wonder,) whereof each separate joist, girder, 
and pane grows continually without altering the 
shape of the whole; and you have conceived only 
one of the miracles embodied in that little sea-egg, 
which the Creator has, as it were, to justify to man 
His own immutability, furnished with a shell 
capable of enduring fossil for countless ages, that 
we may confess Him to have been as great when 
first His Spirit brooded on the deep, as He is now 
and will be through all worlds to come. 
But we must make haste; for the tide is rising 
fast, and our stone will be restored to its eleven 
hours’ bath, long before we have talked over half 
the wonders which it holds. Look though, ere you 
retreat, at one or two more. 
What is that little brown thing whom you have 
just taken off the rock to which it adhered so 
stoutly by his sucking-foot? A limpet? Not at 
