36 FROM THE SANDWICH ISLANDS 



which is produced only in a long series of years 

 by the falling off and rotting of the old leaves. 



The spot on which I stood filled me with aston- 

 ishment, and I adored in silent admiration the 

 omnipotence of God, who had given even to these 

 minute animals the power to construct such a 

 work. My thoughts were confounded when I 

 consider the immense series of years that must 

 elapse, before such an island can rise from the 

 fathomless abyss of the ocean, and become visible 

 on the surface. At a future period they will 

 assume another shape ; all the islands will join and 

 form a circular slip of earth, with a pond or lake 

 in the circle ; and this form will again change, 

 as these animals continue building, till they reach 

 the surface, and then the water will one day 

 vanish, and only one great island be visible. It is 

 a strange feeling to walk about on a living island, 

 where all below is actively at work. And to what 

 corner of the earth can we penetrate, where human 

 beings ai'e not already to be found ? In the re- 

 motest regions of the north, amidst mountains of 

 ice, under the burning sun of the equator, nay, 

 even in the middle of the ocean, on islands whicli 

 have been formed by animals, they are met with ! 



I visited also the sixth island, to which, at the 

 ebb, I could pass without wetting my feet, and 

 found it exactly like the fifth. On the shores, which 

 are exposed to the open sea, the breakers rage in 

 a dreadful manner, the foaming spray dashes many 



