

IV. 



MULTUM E PARVO. 



NATURAL history affords not a few instructive examples 

 of 



" What great effects from little causes flow ; " 



and these are well worthy of our study, as presenting 

 to us one peculiar aspect of the wisdom of God, with 

 whom nothing is great, nothing small. Some of the 

 mightiest operations in nature are the results of pro- 

 cesses, and the works of agents, apparently feeble and 

 wholly inadequate to produce them ; and our wonder is 

 excited when we are able intelligently to trace them to 

 their causes. I propose, therefore, to devote this chapter 

 to the consideration of a few of these, which come more 

 immediately within the province of the naturalist. They 

 may be classed, according to the nature of their operations, 

 as either constructive or destructive. 



How many a poetic dream is associated with the sunny 

 isles of the Pacific ! What a halo of romance encircles 

 all our ideas of those mirror-like lagoons in the midst of 

 the great ocean-waves, those long, low reefs just emerging 

 from the sea, on which the cocoa-nut palm is springing 

 from the very water's edge! Beautiful they are in our 

 imagination, as we have realised the pictures drawn by 



