14 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
St. Pierre, with his accustomed elegance of 
thought, conjectures that Nature has veiled the beauty 
of these singular productions, in order to preserve it 
for the admiration of her sons: that she has placed 
them among the shallows of the sea-shore, where the 
agitated element purifies them by the continued 
motion of its waves, in order to throw them within 
their reach ; and that, as if to excite the astonishment 
of even the most untutored men, she places shells of 
unrivalled lustre in regions exposed to the fury of 
the elements, while at the same time she presents 
the poor Patagonians with spoons and cups, the 
lustre of which surpasses the richest plate of polished 
nations. 
But why, illustrious naturalist, did your obser- 
vations extend no further? Saw you nothing in 
these darkly-coated and brilliantly-tinted shells, but 
an arrangement of bright colours to please the eye 
of taste, or cups and spoons for the rude inhabitants 
of savage districts? Saw you not, that the Almighty 
Creator of the universe, without whose permission 
a single hair does not fall from our heads, nor a 
sparrow from heaven to the ground, nor a shell, nor 
a pebble, is tossed with the billows on the shore, 
by investing them in these simple colours, and 
causing the waves to cast them on the most uncul- 
tivated and sterile regions, provides against their 
