32 OCEAN LIFE. 



structure, perhaps the most elaborately framed of any we have 

 had occasion to allude to : a piece of workmanship so exquisite, 

 so far beyond all human art, so visibly demonstrating sovereign 

 skill and boundless wisdom, that a sense creeps over the mind 

 as we proceed with all humility to contemplate so great a miracle. 

 And here we may observe that such examples of contrivance and 

 of obvious intention as are frequently displayed in what may be 

 termed the ruder mechanism of nature, often come with greater 

 emphasis upon the heart, than all the more mysterious wonders 

 that abound in natural science. 



" The physiologist perceives at every step, proofs of design 

 which baffle human comprehension, but the ideas they raise are 

 vague and undefined, and so, of course, the application too is 

 indistinct ; but when we can, from first to last, perceive the end 

 in view, and understand the means of its accomplishment, the 

 mind is satisfied, and owns at once how great the foresight and 

 how grand the power of the Supreme Designer. 



" The crust of the Echinus, when denuded of its spines, and 

 stripped of its external coverings, would seem to be an ordinary 

 shell, having its outer surface covered over with polished tuber- 

 cles, regularly arranged. Of these the largest are disposed in 

 lines that pass from pole to pole of the round box, like lines of 

 longitude upon the globe of the geographer. 



" Intermixed among the larger tubercles are seen innumerable 

 smaller eminences of similar construction, but dispersed with less 

 precise arrangement, upon all of which, when in a living state, 

 spines were attached in corresponding number. Moreover, placed 

 at intervals between the spine-crowned tubercles are ten broad 

 bands, disposed in pairs, all pierced with countless holes ; these 

 too extend from pole to pole of the round box, and through 

 them, during life, the locomotive suckers passed, already noticed 

 as being used for climbing rocks or for attachment to some 

 foreign body. On cutting through the shell, so as to see its 

 inner surface, we perceive, to our surprise, that far from being, 

 as it appears externally, a simple shelly exudation moulded to 

 the form of the Echinus like the shells of lobsters or mollusca, 

 it is a very complex fabric built with most consummate art, con- 

 sisting of some thousand pieces varying in size, but shaped with 



