1 62 



Marvels of the Universe 



piece of coral. One would have thought, however, that those engaged in its examination would 

 have seen how impossible it would have been for any creature belonging to the lower forms of 

 marine life to take in flinty matter for one part of its structure and hme for the other part. 



It remained for Professor Loven, of Sweden, to show that the specimen, so far as one portion 

 was concerned, was a true Glass Sponge, and that it had been described in an inverted position. 

 The other part was coral. 



The first Venus' Flower Basket to reach England was sold for thirty pounds, one account says 

 fifty pounds. At the time, its true history was not known. Attached to it was a small piece of 

 shrivelled, brown, leathery substance. When this was softened and e.xamined microscopically it 

 displayed the spicules of flint, like harpoons, etc., already referred to. This at once indicated its 

 animal origin. It was dredged up from the waters near the Philippine Islands, and was first 









'^'^:"-: ;=p.' * 



Ptiolo hy'] 



[Tr. Bnrishote. 



\'E\US' FLOWER BASKET. 



A section of the beautiful basket showing the slender threads and delicate w^ebbing of spun glass. This structure gives free 

 access to the particle-laden water ^vhich forms the sustenance of the inhabitant of the fairy palace. 



described in a paper, in 1841, by Sir Richard Owen. From that date onwards more than one hundred 

 differently-formed Glass Sponges have been brought up from ocean floors during the various 

 expeditions made for marine exploration. But the most elegant of all the Glass Sponges is the 

 cornucopia-shaped Euplectella, the " beautifull}'-woven " sponge. Its texture is square-meshed, 

 yet every angle is rounded and ornamented by fine filaments which form a natural web and woof, 

 soft, beautiful and fascinating. Delicate ruffles of spun glass in zigzag and spiraloid directions 

 add to the complexity of the structure, while they evidently assist the stability of the wonderful 

 skeleton. It has been frequently said that no man can make a bird's-nest so beautifully as the bird. 

 With equal truth it may be said that no artificer in spun-glass handicraft can fashion a frame so 

 marvellous as that involuntarily produced in the living Glass Sponge. 



It wiU be noticed in the illustrations of the cornucopia specimens that as the tube gradually 

 decreases in size so the square meshes are proportionately graduated with exquisite precision. The 



