182 GLAUCUS; OR, 
species, like a little heather-bush of whitest ivory; 
and every needle leaf a polype cell—let us stop 
before the imagination grows dizzy with the con- 
templation of those myriads of beautiful atomies. 
And what is their use? Each living flower, each 
polype mouth is feeding fast, sweeping into itself, by 
the perpetual currents caused by the delicate fringes 
upon its rays (so minute these last, that their motion 
only betrays their presence), each tiniest atom of 
decaying matter in the surrounding water, to convert 
it, by some wondrous alchemy, into fresh cells and 
buds, and either build up a fresh branch in their 
thousand-tenanted tree, or form an egg-cell, from 
whence when ripe may issue, not a fixed zoophyte, 
but a free swimming animal. 
And in the meanwhile, among this animal forest 
grows a vegetable one of delicatest sea-weeds, green 
and brown and crimson, whose office is, by their 
_ everlasting breath, to reoxygenate the impure water, 
and render it fit once more to be breathed by the 
higher animals who swim or creep around. 
1 Crisidia Eburnea. 
