THE WONDEES OF THE SHORE. Ill 



There are a few other true cellepore corals round 

 the coast. The largest of all, Cervicornis, may be 

 dredged a few miles outside on the Exmouth bank, 

 with a few more Tubulipores : but all tiny things, 

 the lingering, and, as it were, expiring remnants of 

 that great coral-world, which, through the abysmal 

 depths of past ages, formed here in Britain our lime- 

 stone hills, storing up for generations yet unborn the 

 materials of agriculture and architecture. Inexpres- 

 sibly interesting, even solemn, to those who will 

 think, is the sight of those puny parasites, Avhich, as 

 it were, connect the ages and the zones : yet not so 

 solemn and full of meaning as that tiny relic of an 

 older world, the little pear-shaped Turbinolia (cousin 

 of the Madrepores and Sea-anemones), found fossil in 

 the Suffolk Crag, and yet still lingering here and 

 there alive in the deep water of Scilly and the west 

 coast of Ireland, possessor of a pedigree with dates, 

 perhaps, from ages before the day in which it was 

 said, " Let us make man in our image, after our like- 

 ness." To think that the whole human race, its joys 

 and its sorrows, its virtues and its sins, its aspirations 



