CHAP. XIV.] MUSEUM. 201 



were last here. The vacant spaces are not filling up with private 

 houses, according to the original plan, so that the would-be me 

 tropolis wears still the air of some projector s scheme which has 

 failed. The principal hotels, however, have improved, and we 

 were not annoyed, as when last here, by the odors left in the 

 room by the colored domestics, who had no beds, but slept any 

 where about the stairs or passages, without changing their clothes. 

 With similar habits, in a hot climate, no servants of any race, 

 whether free or slave, African or European, would be endurable. 

 In the public museum at the Patent Office I was glad to see 

 a fine collection of objects of natural history, brought here by 

 the late Exploring Expedition, commanded by Captain Wilkes. 

 Among other treasures is a splendid series of recent corals, a good 

 description of which, illustrated by plates, will soon be publish 

 ed by Mr. Dana, at the expense of Government. These zoo 

 phytes are accompanied by masses of solid limestone, occasionally 

 including shells, recently formed in coral reefs, like those men 

 tioned by Mr. Darwin as occurring in the South Seas, some as 

 hard as marble, others consisting of conglomerates of pebbles and 

 calcareous sand. In several of the specimens I saw the imbedded 

 zoophytes and shells projecting from the weathered surface, as do 

 the petrifactions in many an ancient limestone where they have 

 resisted disintegration more than the matrix. Other fragments 

 were as white and soft as chalk ; one in particular, a cubic foot 

 in bulk, brought from one of the Sandwich Islands, might have 

 been mistaken for a piece of Shakspeare s Cliff, near Dover. It 

 reminded me that an English friend, a professor of political econ 

 omy, met me about fifteen years ago on the beach at Dover, after 

 he had just read my &quot; Principles of Geology,&quot; and exclaimed, 

 &quot; Show me masses of pure white rock, like the substance of 

 these cliffs, in the act of growing in the ocean over areas as 

 large as France or England, and I will believe all your theory 

 of modern causes.&quot; Since that time we have obtained data for 

 inferring that the growth of corals, and the deposition of chalk- 

 like calcareous mud, is actually going on over much wider areas 

 than the whole of Europe, so that I am now entitled to claim 

 my incredulous friend as a proselyte. 



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