32 GLAucus ; ou, 



Marsigli's notion, that the coral-polypes were its 

 flowers ; than Dr. Parsons' contemptuous denial, 

 that these complicated forms could be " the 

 operations of little, poor, helpless, jelly-like ani- 

 mals, and not the work of more sure vegetation " ; 

 than Baker the microscopist's detailed theory 

 of their being produced by the crystallization of 

 the mineral salts in the sea-water, just as he had 

 seen " the particles of mercury and copper in 

 aquafortis assume tree-like forms, or curious 

 delineations of mosses and minute shrubs on 

 slates and stones, owing to the shooting of salts 

 intermixed with mineral particles": — one smiles 

 at it now : yet these men were no less sensible 

 than we of the year 1854 ; and if we know better, 

 it is only because other men, and those few and 

 far between, have labored amid disbelief, ridicule, 

 and error ; needing again and again to retrace 

 their steps, and to unlearn more than they learnt, 

 seeming to go backwards when they were really 

 progressing most ; and now we have entei-ed into 

 their labors, and find them, as I have just said, 

 more wondrous than all the poetic dreams of a 

 Bonnet or a Darwin. For who, after all, to take a 

 few broad instances, (not to enlarge on the great 

 root-wonder of a number of distinct individuals 



