70 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



they descend, sometimes so gradually as to look like 

 storied beehives piled up one on the other. In others, 

 the globes or bells dilate greatly, and rapidly, towards 

 the base, till the lowermost exceed in width the most 

 outrageous crinoline ! Then there are single round 

 balls pierced through and through, with spikes 

 sticking out in all directions, but ever pointing from 

 the centre. Again, to compare small things with 

 great, there are shapes of the Egyptian pyramids, 

 and others stretched out and narrowed into obelisks. 

 Different from all these are very numerous flattened 

 disks, which appear to grow in concentric circles, 

 some becoming bordered, others spiked round the 

 edges, and many having very extraordinary radiating 

 arms in endless variety." 



" A very remarkable feature in the Polycystins are 

 their exuberant outgrowths. Sometimes they are 

 merely spines, projecting in a tolerably regular and 

 always radiating manner ; but sometimes these spines 

 -or projections branch out and subdivide in the most 

 whimsical arborescent forms, so as to assume the 

 shapes of stag's antlers, or even the more complicated 

 delicate branchings of the once famous bedeguar of 

 the rose. Apparently these spines, whether simple 

 or compound, always are to a certain extent hollow, 1 



1 " The appearance of tubularity is an optical illusion, engen- 

 dered by the longitudinal ribs, of which the elongated spines 



