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THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. VI. 



modes oflife and action, and the important changes effected 

 in the relative proportion of land and water, by such appa- 

 rently inadequate agents. They have instructed us, that 

 above, beneath, and around us, there are beings so minute as 

 to elude our unassisted vision, yet possessing sensation and 

 voluntary motion, and each furnished with its systems of 

 nerves, and muscles, and vessels, and preying upon creatures 

 still more minute, and of which millions might be contained 

 in a drop of water ; nay, even that these last are supported 

 by living atoms still less, and so on — and on — till the mind 

 is lost in astonishment, and can pursue the subject no 

 farther ! 



Thus are we taught, — 



" That those living things 

 To whom the fragile blade of grass, 



That springeth in the morn 



And perisheth ere noon, 

 Is an unbounded world ; — 



That those viewless beings, 

 Whose mansion is the smallest particle 

 Of the impassive atmosphere, 



Enjoy and live like man ! 



And the minutest throb, 

 Which through their frame diffuses 



The slightest, faintest motion, 



Is fixed, and indispensable, 



As the majestic laws 

 That rule yon rolling orbs !" 



Shelley. 



We have contemplated the results produced by these 

 countless myriads of animated forms,- — the excess of calca- 

 reous matter brought into the waters of the ocean consoli- 

 dated by their influence, and giving birth to new regions ; 

 and we have obtained evidence that in the earlier ages of 

 our globe, like effects were produced by similar living 

 instruments. The beds of fossil coral are now the sites of 

 towns and cities, whose inhabitants construct their abodes 



