THE PAGE OF NATURE. Ill 



been preserved in a state of completeness and accuracy 

 little short of their living perfection, to be to us the un- 

 impeachable records of time, as it were, beyond time, of 

 mountains and shores, rivers and seas, that seem mythical 

 even to the geologist. 1 They were at work in the prim- 

 eval world long before man was ushered upon the scene, 

 and they are at the present day employed in altering and 

 modifying the grand features of the globe ; in producing 

 results which man is as incapable to predict as he is 

 powerless to prevent. Who is there that can gaze upon 

 these wonderful plants, which thus, as it were, " connect 

 the ages and the zones," without a dizzy sense of the 

 infinity and permanence of nature, and the power of Him 

 "whose judgments are unsearchable, and whose ways 

 are past finding out ?" 



But this is not all ! Wonderful as it may seem, the 



miraculously found in different localities, as is believed. The Imperial 

 annals of the Chinese have always religiously noticed its appearance, but 

 have never given any description of the substance. The Pen-tsao quotes, 

 under the Emperor Hiuan-Tsung of the great dynasty Tang, in the third 

 year Tain-pao (744 after Christ), a spring in Wu.jin (now Liang-tschen-fu, 

 in the province Kan-su), which ejected stones that could be prepared into 

 bread, and were gathered and consumed by the poor. (Sehott.) 



"Under the Emperor Hian-Tsung, of the same dynasty, in the ninth 

 year of the period Yuen-ho (809 after Christ), the stones became soft and 

 turned into bread. (Biot.) 



" Under the Emperor Tschin-Tsung, of the dynasty Sung, in the fifth 

 year of the period Ta-tschong-Tsiang-fu (1012 after Christ), in the fourth 

 month, there was a famine in Tsy-tschen (now Ki-tschen in Ping-yang-fu, 

 in the province Schan-si), when the mountains of Hiang-ning, a district of 

 the third rank in the same part, produced a mineral fat (Stone-fat) resem- 

 bling a dough, of which cakes could be made. (Sehott.) 



" Under Jin-Tsung, in the seventh year of the period Kia-yeu (1062), 

 stone meal was found. 



" Under Tschi-Tsung, in the third year of the period Yuen-fong (1080), 

 the stones turned into meal. All these kinds of stone-meal were collected 

 and consumed by the poor. (Biot.)" 



1 As the earliest fossil diatoms yet found; judging from the figures of 

 Ehrenberg, are identical in ever)' point with the great majority of species 

 M 



