246 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



clothing the rocks ; mosses carpet the surface, seed 

 brought by birds, plants carried by the oceanic 

 currents, animalcules floating in the atmosphere, live, 

 propagate and die, and are succeeded, by the assis- 

 tance their remains bestow, by more advanced 

 vegetable and animal life ; and thus generation 

 after generation exist and perish, until at length the 

 coral island becomes a paradise, filled with the 

 choicest exotics, the most beautiful birds, and delicious 

 fruits, amongst which man may indolently revel to 

 the utmost desire of his heart." l 



No doubt its author considered this a sublime 

 finish to his meagre statement of facts, but, unfortu- 

 nately it must have been educed from his own inner 

 consciousness, and should be treated as the lucubra- 

 tion of a heated imagination, and not as a summary 

 of scientific fact such as may be gleaned from the 

 works of Darwin, Dana, Agassiz, and others, who 

 have made the subject a special study. " How 

 startling does it seem when we are told " that these 

 gorgeous dreams are the stern realities of scientific 

 fact, but perhaps the writer himself was scarcely 

 conscious, in his enthusiasm, that his spirit was 

 wandering in the unsubstantial realms of Fairy-land. 



1 "The Microscope," by Jabez Hogg, F.L.S. (London, 1867), 

 p. 490. 



