338 CONCLUSION. 



important operations of nature are conducted by the agency 

 of atoms too minute to be either perceptible by the human 

 eye, or comprehensible by the human understanding. 



We cannot better conclude this brief outline of the history 

 of fossil Polyparies, extending as they do, from the most 

 early transition rocks to the present seas, than in the words 

 with which Mr. Elhs expresses the feelings excited in his 

 own mind by his elaborate and beautiful investigations of the 

 history of living Corallines. 



" And now, should it be asked, granting all this to be true, 

 to what end has so much labour been bestowed in the de- 

 monstration ? I can only answer, that as to me these dis- 

 quisitions have opened new scenes of wonder and astonish- 

 ment, in contemplating how variously, how extensively, life 

 is distributed through the universe of things, so it is possible, 

 that the facts here related, and these instances of nature ani- 

 mated in a part hitherto unsuspected, may excite the like 

 pleasing ideas in others; and, in minds more capacious and 

 penetrating, lead to farther discoveries, farther proofs, 

 (should such yet be wanting,) that One infinitely wise, good, 

 all-powerful Being has made, and still upholds, the Whole 

 of what is good and perfect ; and hence we may learn, that, 

 if creatures of so low an order in the great scale of Nature, 

 are endued with faculties that enable them to fill up their 

 sphere of action with such Propriety, we likewise, who are 

 advanced so many gradations above them, owe to ourselves, 

 and to Him who made us and all things, a constant applica- 

 tion to acquire that degree of Rectitude and Perfection, to 

 which we also are endued wuth faculties of attaining." — 

 Ellis on Corallines, p. 103. 



of the Valves of a marine Cypris (Cytherina) and sixteen species of Forami- 

 nifers. 



