OF CREATION 



239 



infinitely more rare, and for that reason also more dif- 

 ficult to render. The most enduring monuments of 

 man himself his cities, his pyramids, and his lofty 

 columns are, in many cases, built of these far more 

 ancient and far more lasting objects, which withstand 

 the shock of earthquakes and the hand of time, and 

 which scarcely yield, even at last, to the slow in- 

 fluence of crystalline forces, re-arranging the particles 

 by the aid of heat and electricity. 



Fig. 94 



Many species of 

 radiated animals 

 animals developed 

 more or less in a 

 star- shape, and form- 

 ed of five parts or 

 rays are common 

 in the chalk (see fig. 

 94) ; but the elegant 

 lily encrinites of the 

 older periods had 

 now dwindled to a 

 few species of small 

 size and diminish- 

 ed beauty. One of the less common, but most pe- 

 culiar forms of these creatures, has the form of a 

 pouch, or rather, perhaps, of an egg open at the top. 

 The whole is built up of plates accurately fitting one 

 another; and arms proceeded from the summit, sur- 

 rounding the mouth. The shell or case, which 

 was not supported on a stem, is known to naturalists 

 by the name of Marsupite ;* and one cannot easily 



STAR FISH. 



* Marsupium, a pouch or purse, from the resemblance of the shell 

 to a pouch. 



