170 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



species, like a little lieather-busli of whitest ivory,* 

 and every needle leaf a polype cell — let us stop 

 before the imagination grows dizzy with the con- 

 templation of those myriads of beautiful atomies. 

 And what is their use? Each living flower, each 

 poljrpe mouth is feeding fast, sweeping into itself, by 

 the perpetual currents caused by the delicate fringes 

 upon its rays (so minute these last, that their motion 

 only betrays their presence), each tiniest atom of 

 decaying matter in the surrounding water, to convert 

 it, by some wondrous alchemy, into fresh cells and 

 buds, and either build up a fresh branch in their 

 thousand-tenanted tree, or form an egg-cell, from 

 whence when ripe may issue, not a fixed zoophyte, 

 but a free swimming animal. 



And in the meanwhile, among this animal forest 

 grows a vegetable one of delicatest sea-weeds, green 

 and brown and crimson, whose office is, by their 

 everlasting breath, to reoxygenate the impure water, 

 and render it fit once more to be breathed by the 

 higher animals who swim or creep around, 



* Crisidia Eburnea. 



