318 GEOLOGY. 



" And how the nuns of Whitby told 

 How, of countless snakes, each one 

 Was changed into a coil of stone 

 When holy Hilda prayed. 

 Themselves within their sacred bound, 

 Their stony folds had often found." 



So lately was this superstition current, that the author 

 of a modern scientific work relates that a sharp dealer, 

 who was requested by his customers to supply them 

 with some of the creatures that had escaped that part 

 of St. Hilda's prayer which de- 

 stroyed their heads, affixed to 

 the fossils some heads of plaster 

 of Paris suitably colored. He 

 had a thriving trade till it was 

 upset by some officious geolo- 

 gist. But even now the fossils 

 are sold in Whitby with the ex- 

 tremity of the last whorl filed 

 into the shape of a snake's head, 

 Fi - 181 - as represented in Fig. 181. 



430. Use of Geology to the Poet and the Painter. Ge- 

 ology is of service to the poet in adding largely to his 

 fund of facts such as are eminently fitted to awaken the 

 sublimest thoughts and feelings, and to give a wide range 

 to the flights of his imagination. It is of use to the paint- 

 er of scenery as anatomy is to the painter of the human 

 form, for it gives us, as we may say, the anatomy of the 

 earth. Besides, it supplies him with many valuable and 

 interesting hints as to the objects upon the earth's surface. 



431. Plan in Earth-development. You have seen, in 

 the course of your study in this book, that the Creator 

 worked from the beginning after a plan, in developing 

 the continents on the crust of the earth, and if we could 

 go down into the depths of the ocean, and examine the 

 irregularities of its floor, we should undoubtedly see the 

 same thing there. What the geologist has shown us in 



