84 Traces of Unity tn 



Oolite and pea-stone are composed of spherical granules, 

 and, as Sir Charles Lyell points out, "in some masses 

 of decomposing green -stone, basalt, and other trap-rocks, 

 the globular appearance is so conspicuous, that the rock 

 has the appearance of cannon balls." Rounded nodules 

 of flint stone are common. The mammillated or 

 botryoidal masses of certain ores of manganese, copper, 

 silver, and occasionally of chalcedony, exhibit curved 

 outlines, and lastly to compare small things with great 

 satellites and planets and suns and stars are inorganic 

 bodies of which the chief distinguishing feature is 

 rotundity. 



Of the substances mentioned, as having curved out- 

 lines, it may also be observed that some are important 

 ingredients in organization. Carbon, the matter of 

 which the diamond is formed, is a principal element in 

 the constitution of living fabrics. Water, in itself, or in 

 its separate elements, is not less indispensable : and lime 

 and silex and iron are all necessary for the same 

 purposes. It cannot be other than a significant fact, 

 therefore, that these substances, when left to themselves, 

 present crystalline forms which are partly devoid of 

 angles. And this, too, may be noted, that the parts of 

 the organism in which curved outlines are most con- 

 spicuous are those which, if not fluid, are soft, or in a 

 condition intermediate, as it were, between fluidity and 

 solidity. The curved shape, moreover, appertains 

 equally to inorganic bodies when in such a state. The 

 drops of dew and rain are rounded, and so are the drops 

 of quicksilver and of melted metals and earth. Round- 

 ness in these cases is a consequence of the state, and it 

 may be that the form of the cell, instead of being special 

 and peculiar, has to do necessarily with the condition 

 in which the. material is found. Hence, in the matter 



