314 VARIETIES OF SHELLS. 



it is capable of producing; the Volute, or Mitre-shell, includ- 

 ing the fine polished spiral shells, without lips or perforation, 

 which are often exhibited on chimney-pieces as ornaments, 

 sometimes embellished with dots and with colored bands. 

 The Strombus comprise larger shells, spiral like the volute, 

 but with a large expanding lip, spreading into a groove on 

 the left side, and often still farther projecting into lobes or 

 claws, the back frequently covered with large excrescences,, 

 in some species called Cormorant's foot. 



And now for a few observations on the use and value of 

 shells. Even as mere objects of attraction they tend to 

 raise the thoughts to that great and glorious Being, 



"Our God, omnific, sole original, 

 Wise, wonder-working wielder of the whole: 

 Infinite, inconceivable, immense." 



who has shaped and adapted them to the wants of number- 

 less creatures, of which science at the most can have but a 

 feeble comprehension. Beautiful, since more exquisite sam- 

 ples of elegance of form and brilliancy of color cannot be 

 found through the wide range of natural objects, whether 

 organized or unorganized ; surprising, when we consider that 

 all these durable relics were constructed by soft and fragile 

 animals, among the most perishable of living creatures. 

 Still more surprising is an assemblage of shells, when we re- 

 ject upon the endless variation of pattern and sculpture 

 which it displays; for there are known to naturalists more 

 than fifteen thousand perfectly distinct kinds of shells. 

 Every one of these kinds has a rule of its own, a law which 

 every individual of each kind, through all its generations, 

 implicitly obeys. 



The formation of the shell itself is but an example of a 

 process at work equally in the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms. A shell, whether simple or complicated in the con* 

 tour or color, is tiie aggreixate result of the function opera- 



