THE WONDERS OF THE SHOEE. 61 



become a favourite liaunt, not only for invalids, but 

 for naturalists. Indeed, it may well claim tbe 

 honour of being the original home of marine 

 zoology and botany in England, as the Frith of 

 Forth, under the auspices of Sir J. G. Dalyell, has 

 been for Scotland. For here worked Montagu, 

 Turton, and Mrs. Griffith, to whose extraordinary 

 powers of research English marine botany almost 

 owes its existence, and who still survives, at an 

 age long beyond the natural term of man, to see, 

 in her cheerful and honoured old age, that know- 

 ledge become popular and general, which she 

 pursued for many a year unassisted and alone. 

 And here too, now, Dr. Battersby possesses a col- 

 lection of shells, inferior, perhaps, to hardly any 

 in England. Torbay, moreover, from the variety 

 of its rocks, aspects, and sea-floors, where limestones 

 alternate with traps, and traps with slates, while at 

 the valley-mouths the soft sandstones and hard 

 conglomerates of the new red series slope down 

 into the tepid and shallow waves, affords an 

 abundance and variety of animal and vegetable 



