104 THE HARMONIES OP NATUKE. 



prodigious numbers in the limestone of the Egyptian pyramids, 

 and whose flattened coin-like forms attain the comparative 

 colossal diameter of from two to three inches. All the Foramini- 

 fera are aquatic. Some are found in sweet water, others attached 

 to sea-weeds or zoophytes, but by far the larger number in the 

 sand or mud dredged up from the bottom of the sea. Here 

 they frequently occur in such incalculable myriads as to form 

 no less than half the bulk of the sand with which they are 

 mixed. Thus, along the whole Atlantic coast of the United 

 States, the plummet constantly brings up masses of foraminife- 

 rous shells, so that this vast extent of ocean-bottom, which itself 

 forms but a small part of the domains they occupy, is literally 

 covered with their living legions or their tenantless exuviae. 

 And as the present ocean contains them in countless multi- 

 tudes, thus have they swarmed in the waters of the primeval 

 seas from the first dawn of creation, and piled up the monu- 

 ments of their existence in vast strata of limestone. A great 

 part of the rocky belt from Riigen to the Danish isles, the 

 white chalk cliffs, which, beginning in England, extend 

 through France as far as southern Spain ; the limestone for- 

 mations of Greece and Turkey, whose importance, as natural 

 features of the country, is by some supposed to be indicated by 

 the names of Greta and Albania, are chiefly formed of the 

 shells of Foraminifera ; and a zone of Nummulite limestone, 

 frequently a thousand miles broad, and in many places of a 

 prodigious depth, may be traced from the Atlantic shores of 

 Europe and Africa, through Western Asia, up to North India 

 and China. So important is the part which these beings, in- 

 dividually so minute, have performed and still perform in the 

 geological annals of the globe. 



The phosphorescence of the sea is one of the most charming 

 phenomena that Nature in all her wide range of beauty offers 

 to our admiring gaze. Who that has sojourned on the coast, 

 or traversed the fields of ocean and witnessed it in its full 

 splendour, can ever forget the deep impression made upon his 

 mind when he first saw the dark waves curl over in flashing 

 crests of light when his vessel's bows ploughed up the waters 

 in silvery furrows, or the rising flood broke in sheets of flame, 

 or spangles of diamond brilliancy, on the glowing beach ! Well 

 may we be lost in wonder at so marvellous, so fairy-like a 



