THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 277 



singing muscles, which chant a sweet and plaintive 

 melody from the coast." Athen^um, 1848, No. 1089. 

 If we complete this panorama by a picture of the 

 watery world of plants, where there is neither leaf 

 nor calyx, nor corollas, and of the animals dwelling 

 there, rich in colors like flowers and shining like stars ; 

 if we consider the ever-changing mutability of the 

 bottom of the sea, which by turn overflows and again 

 abandons the continents of the world, we shall be 

 able to form some idea of the power, the importance 

 and the wealth of this element, which the eloquent 

 poetry of the East has apostrophized as the first and 

 eternal source of all things. 



