BEAUTY OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 35 



procession, as far as the eye can reach on either side, 

 .until they burst upon these reefs, in miles of snow-white 

 breakers, whose thunder is often audible during the 

 deathlike stillness of the tropical night at a distance 

 of many miles. 



Thus as we have endeavoured to show, in things 

 that are infinitely small such as the microscopic shells 

 which are building up white chalk in the abyssal depths, 

 .as also in those soft gelatinous zoophytes, the little 

 architects of the great coral reefs the Creator shows 

 Himself quite as wonderful as when dealing with that 

 which is infinitely great. 



For as one of the ancient fathers of the early Chris- 

 tian Church has said : " Deus ita, artifex magnus, in 

 magnis, ut minor non sit, in parvis. " * 



It would probably be difficult to find words more 

 .suitable in which to describe these wonders of the sea. 



There is no more noble study than that of " The 

 Ocean and the Inhabitants of the Mighty Deep;" for 

 though man, except as a passenger rocked to and 

 fro upon its restless waters, has never exercised any 

 dominion there, it is the region of all others upon the 

 surface of the terrestrial globe, which is most prolific 

 in the infinite variety and abundance of its different 

 forms of life ; and which, unchangeable amid the ages, 

 is at once the greatest, the most majestic, and yet the 

 least known, of all the works of Nature here on 

 earth. 



Now as regards life at sea, it is often asserted that 

 long voyages, as a passenger, across wide stretches 



* St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xi 22. 



