Submarine Architecture. 341 



wait till man has bequeathed his works to her for resolution into 

 their primary elements. She begins to grind a palace to powder 

 the same day as it is built. The dew and the sunshine are as 

 effectual for the purpose as any other of her agencies, but she 

 does not waste while destroying. She simply appropriates, and 

 so. to justify the decay of the marble column or the sublime statue 

 that enchants the world, she plants it at once with green and 

 golden mosses, teaches the ivy to pierce it with its soft teeth, 

 and, when it has fallen from its base, and the rains have made 

 a pool around it, she sends other ministers to bore tunnels 

 through the mass, and others to clothe it with incrustations, so 

 that it soon becomes wholly hers, for appropriation to new 

 purposes. 



Bmilius wants to know if it is right to wander so far away 

 from the subjects which gave rise to these remarks, when at 

 the next haul we are presented with a treasure which makes us 

 all forget our peculiar differences of taste and inclination, in 

 admiring the beauty of a new illustration of the relations which 

 may be established between the works of art and the works of 

 nature. Broken bottles are frequently brought up by the 

 dredge, and sometimes these are very beautifully incrusted with 

 colonies of sea-creatures ; but here is one complete. It may have 

 been a champagne or a Scotch ale bottle — we cannot tell 

 which — and the deposits on its exterior are more beautiful and 

 varied than any similar example which has ever come under 

 our observation. Here, we agree, is a prize worth the labours of 

 the day — a prize, too, which interests us all, the zoologists and 

 the moralists alike ; and as our day's explorations have now 

 come to an end, we discuss its merits and its history during 

 the voyage home. 



After removing some of the sand and slimy forms which 

 cling about it, and then carefully laying it on one side in a 

 vessel of sea- water that its numerous inhabitants may be pre- 

 served, we begin an investigation of the method in which it has 

 been made so beautiful an example of maiine masonry. It is 

 smothered with Serpulee, oysters, Balani, Lepralise, etc., and, 

 whichever way we view it, we see myriads of trumpets, bird- 

 beaks, tentacles, and siphons protruded from the cellular and 

 tubular walls of this incongruous colony, which, like a city on a 

 rock, has a very complete homogeneity in the close relationships 

 of its various inhabitants. We call it the Acropolis, in the marine 

 order of architecture, and the various inhabitants of the shells and 

 tubes we liken to the trades and callings of the people of a terres- 

 trial city. It is no easy matter to distinguish and determine 

 the several species associated in this great colonizing enterprise, 

 but time and patience will do much, and by degrees we make 

 out a sufficient number to furnish a pretty fair idea of the 



