30 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
I can readily believe that He beholds and blesses 
every thing which He has made. 
The mention of the Lepas is further connected 
with an extraordinary fact, that occurred some years 
since, at Sidmouth. A small coasting vessel, with 
a few hands on board, sprung a leak, and went down 
within sight of several persons on the Esplanade. 
It was a melancholy circumstance, and as such 
excited much commiseration; but time passed on, 
and the occurrence was forgotten, till one morning 
the vessel gradually arose from out the water, and 
was driven by the tide upon the shore. The beach 
was soon covered with spectators, and on inspection, 
the sides, the deck, the remains of the mast, in short 
every part, was seen bristling with Barnacles. The 
meal tub, especially, was so covered with them as 
to present a beautiful and novel appearance. The 
reason of the vessel’s reappearing was now obvious ; 
the long tubes of the Barnacles, being full of air, had 
rendered the sunken vessel specifically lighter than 
the water, and she arose from off her watery bed, 
after the lapse of nearly twenty years. The 
person from whom I heard this curious incident 
was one of the spectators: he had preserved some 
remarkably fine specimens. It is a fact that may 
possibly suggest some mode of rendering vessels so 
