138 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



And in the mean while, among this animal 

 forest, grows a vegetable one of delicatest sea- 

 weeds, green and brown and crimson, whose 

 office is, by their everlasting breath, to reoxy- 

 genate the impure water, and render it fit once 

 more to be breathed by the higher animals who 

 swim or creep around. 



Mystery of mysteries ! Let us jest no more, 

 — Heaven forgive us if we have jested too much 

 on so simple a matter as that poor spider-crab, 

 taken out of the lobster-pots, and left to die at 

 the bottom of the boat, because his more aristo- 

 cratic cousins of the blue and purple armor will 

 not enter the trap while he is within. 



I am not aware whether the surmise, that 

 these tiny zoophytes help to purify the water 

 by exhaling oxygen gas, has yet been verified. 

 The infusorial animalcules do so, reversing the 

 functions of animal life, and instead of evolving 

 carbonic acid gas, as other animals do, evolve 

 pure oxygen. So, at least, says Liebig, who 

 states that he found a small piece of matchwood, 

 just extinguished, burst out again into a flame 

 on being immersed in the bubbles given out by 

 these living atomies. 



I myself should be inclined to doubt that 



