192 ANTHOZOA HELIANTHOIDA. 



No moment and no movement unimproved, 



Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, 



To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, 



By marvellous structure climbing tow'rd the day. 



Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought, 



Unconscious, not unworthy instruments, 



By which a hand invisible was rearing 



A new creation in the secret deep. 



Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them ; 



Hence what Omnipotence alone could do 



Worms did. I saw the living pile ascend, 



The mausoleum of its architects, 



Still dying upwards as their labours closed : 



Slime the material, but the slime was turn'd 



To adamant, by their petrific touch ; 



Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, 



Their masonry imperishable."* 



By much the greater number of those wonder-working zoo- 

 phytes belong to this order. In former ages the geologist 

 tells us that they were numerous and varied in our seas, 

 their remains, entombed in limestone and marble, constituting 

 the models by which he decyphers their forms and species ; 

 but this ancient host is now represented by two or three 

 species only, and these so small and rare, that it would be 

 giving them a disproportionate importance to make them 

 more than the subject of a passing allusion to the labours of 

 their races. 



* Montgomery's Pelican Island, canto ii. p. 27. 



" The turflooks green where the breakers rolled, 

 O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold, 

 The sea-snatch'd isle is the home of men, 

 And mountains exult where the wave hath been." 



On the formation of coral islands, see Darwin's Journal, iii. p. 547 569. Pro- 

 fessor Owen has given a summary of Darwin's observations and views in his Lec- 

 tures, p. 89 93. 



Fig. 40. 



