Ch. XXIV.] BOOKS AT SIMON'S BAY. 417 



the unmistakeable impress of relationship to those found in 

 Europe, certainly a very remarkable fact, and wonderfully 

 extending the geographical area of those early inhabitants 

 of the earth whose first traces have been so ably followed up 

 in Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Denmark. 



Attached to the Museum is an admirable library and 

 reading-room, which includes the munificent gift of Sir 

 George Grey, the late Governor, and which was rich in 

 valuable MSS. and early editions of works dear to the 

 bibliophile. 



Mr. M'Gibbon, the curator of the Botanic Gardens, 

 kindly accompanied me over that establishment, which 

 adjoins the Museum. I hoped to have found a collection 

 of Cape plants in it, but was disappointed, and but few 

 plants had names attached to them. The Colonial Govern- 

 ment grants the sum of £250 per anmmi for its support, 

 which, it must be allowed, is small enough, and for which 

 the respectable condition of the garden was ample return. 



The sea-shore at Simon's Bay is strewed with boulders 

 of grey granite, much exposed, but affording some sheltered 

 crannies, in which were beautiful natural aquaria, contain- 

 ing a number of Actiniae of a crimson colour, closely re- 

 sembling our A. mesembryanthemum, as well as others of 

 a white and buff colour. The dominant mollusk was cer- 

 tainly Patella (Limpet) ; not only did numerous forms of 

 Patellae strew the sand, but large and handsome ones ad- 

 hered to the rocks, overgrown with seaweed, and looking 

 like little moving pastures. In one of these large limpets 

 (Patella oculus) which I removed, I found a very pretty 

 mottled Planaria ensconced under the mantle. Next to 

 Limpets, Trochi were most common. Two Eehinoderms, 

 both probably new, rewarded my search. One of them was 



