92 hJiJA JSETTLE8. 



food or shelter ; with their destruction, the many cormorants^ 

 and other fishing birds, the otters, seals, and porpoises, would 

 soon perish also." 



How elevating is the thought that amidst all this pro- 

 digious variety and profusion, the boundless extent of which 

 no human mind can conceive, yet the minutest animated par- 

 ticle that is revealed by the microscope is governed by the 

 same laws that regulate the highest objects in creation! 



"Each moss. 

 Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank 

 Important in the scale of Him who framed 

 This scale of beings; holds a rank which, lost. 

 Would break the chain, and leave a gap behind, 

 Which Nature's self would rue." 



Very interesting is the study of those curious inhabitants 

 of the ocean, constituting what are termed by naturalists 

 Acalephce, as has been previously mentioned, but which are 

 more commonly known by such names as jelly-fish, sea-blub- 

 ber, etc., and are sometimes called sea-nettles. Most of 

 them were included in the Linnsean genus Medusa, and the 

 name Medicsce is still frequently applied to them. They 

 abound in all parts of the ocean, although some are tropical 

 and others belong to cold latitudes. Some are of a large 

 size, reaching two feet in diameter, and others are very 

 small. They are of an extremely soft jelly tissue, which ini 

 most of them, and all in the true Medusae, is unsupported 

 by any harder substance. The latter comprise various 

 species that shine with great splendor in the water. The 

 South Atlantic abounds with them, and much amusement 

 may be derived in a long sea voyage by observing these 

 beautiful organisms, for endless are the moulds in which 

 prolific Nature has cast them. Some are shaped like a 

 mushroom, others are like ribbons, or globular, flat or bell- 

 shaped; others again resemble a bunch of berries. Their 

 motions are generally slow, their sensations dull and directed 



