'224 THE MONASTERY, 



great continent, or be separated only with deep channels, in which the 

 strength and velocity of the tide may obstruct the silent and unobserved 

 agency of these insignificant, but most efficacious laborers. 



A barrier reef of coral runs along the whole of the eastern coast of New 

 Holland, "among which," says Captain Flinders, " we sought fourteen 

 days, and sailed more than five hundred miles, before a passage could be 

 found through them out to sea." Captain Flinders paid some attention 

 to the structure of these reefs, on one of which he suffered shipwreck. 

 Having landed on one of these new creations, he says, " we had wheat- 

 sheaves, mushrooms, stag's-horns, cabbage leaves, and a variety of other 

 forms, glowing under water, with vivid tints of every shade betwixt 

 green, purple, brown and white." "It seems to me," he adds, " that 

 when the animalcules, which form the coral at the bottom of the ocean, 

 cease to live, their structures adhere to each other, by virtue either of 

 the glutinous remains within, or of some property in salt water; and the 

 interstices being gradually filled up with sand and broken pieces of coral 

 washed by the sea, which also adhere, a mass of rock is at length 

 formed. Future races of these animalcules erect their habitations upon 

 the rising bank, and die in their turn, to increase, but principally to 

 elevate this monument of their wonderful labors." He says, that they 

 not only work perpendicularly, but that this barrier wall is the highest 

 part, and generally exposed to the open sea, and that the infant colonies 

 find shelter within it. A bank is thus gradually formed, which is not 

 long in being visited by sea-birds; salt-plants take root upon it, and a 

 soil begins to be formed ; a cocoa-nut, or the drupe of a pandanus, is 

 thrown on shore ; land-birds visit it, and deposit the seeds of shrubs and 

 trees ; every high tide and gale of wind add something to the bank ; the 

 form of an island is gradually assumed, and, last of all, comes man to 

 take possession. 



THE MONASTERY OF THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE. 



It has been truly observed, " that there are few things finer in Europe 

 than this monastery;" it is situate in the lowest western chain of the 

 Alps, which divides France from Savoy ; it is sixteen miles from Grenoble 

 and twelve from Les Echelles in Savoy, which is on the great road from 

 France to Italy, by Mount Cenis and Turin. Proceeding from Les 

 Echelles to the Grande Chartreuse, you cross the Guiers Vif and 

 enter France immediately, for this little river here divides the two 



