Nat] AND SYMBOLS. 241 



continue their toils. Below the line which they have traced 

 you then discover a continuous stony mass, composed of shells, 

 molluscs, and echinidae, with their bristling spikes and frag- 

 ments of coral connected by a calcareous sand proceeding from 

 the pulverisation of the shells. It often happens that the heat 

 of the sun penetrates this calcareous mass when it is dry, and 

 causes it to split open in many places ; the waves then possess 

 sufficient force to divide it into blocks of coral about six feet 

 long by three or four and a half feet broad, and to hurl them 

 upon the reef ; this operation terminates in the elevation of such 

 a crest that the high tides only wash over it at certain periods 

 of the year. The calcareous sand does not experience any fur- 

 ther change, and offers to the seeds brought thither by the waves 

 a soil wherein vegetation flourishes with sufficient rapidity to 

 speedily overshadow its dazzling white surface. Whole trunks 

 of trees, transported by the rivers from other countries and other 

 islands, find there at length, after a protracted voyage, a resting- 

 place. Some small animals, such as insects or lizards, are con- 

 veyed among them, and usually become the first inhabitants of 

 these reefs. Even before the trees are thick and leafy enough to 

 form a wood, the sea-birds build their nests among them ; stray 

 terrestrial birds seek refuge in the copses; and finally, long 

 after the polypes have accomplished their work, man appears 

 and erects his hut on the fertile soil MY. 



Nature is a Book. 



Nature is a book, and a most profound and splendid book. 

 Those who will read it will be completely fascinated and wisely 

 taught. To one who looks abroad to contemplate the agents of 

 Nature as he sees them at work upon our planet, no expression 

 uttered nor act performed by them is without meaning. By 

 such a one the wind and rain, the vapour and the cloud, the 

 tide, the current, the saltness and depth, and warmth and 

 colour of the sea, the shade of the sky, the temperature of the 

 air, the tint and shape of the clouds, the height of the tree on 

 the shore, the size of its leaves, the brilliancy of its flowers 

 each and all may be regarded as the exponent of certain physical 

 combinations, and therefore as the expression in which Nature 



Q 



