60 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



dragon-fly. No traces of feet or swimmers have 

 been found, and it has therefore been supposed 

 that these organs must have been of a soft and 

 perishable nature. Trilobites occur in great mul- 

 titudes in the Dudley limestone. They seem to 

 have varied greatly in form and magnitude. Some 

 of them were of very minute size, others twenty or 

 twenty-four inches in length ; some possessed the 

 power of coiling themselves into a ball like the 

 Oniscus or wood-louse ; in others this was impos- 

 sible, the central segments alone being moveable ; 

 in some the body was elongated, so as to form a 

 tail of greater or less dimensions, in others it was 

 truncated, without any appearance of a caudal 

 appendage. These remarkable creatures, of which 

 about 250 varieties have been discovered, formed 

 the great mass of the population of the Palaeozoic 

 seas. It is impossible not to regard their forms 

 with great interest, inscribed as they are, and with 

 such marvellous accuracy, in the solid rock ; for 

 they are the typical hieroglyphics of an epoch, 

 compared with the antiquity of which the re- 

 motest period of Egyptian history is as nothing, 

 and they refer us to one of the most august 

 periods in the history of our planet, when the 

 all-creating Spirit first peopled the primitive 

 waters with living forms. 



We have already mentioned that the eyes of the 

 Trilobite were similar in structure to those of 

 certain insects and crustaceans at present existing. 

 The discovery of this fact, and some deductions 

 consequent upon it, are among the most marvellous 

 things unfolded to us by geology. The micro- 



