THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



67 



value, but also a deep physiological import, is a 

 wonderful evidence of the abundance of intellectual 

 resources which genius can develope, however se- 

 cluded and wherever its lot be cast. How many 

 an involuntary recluse, in far more favoured climes, 

 drags heavily his time as if it were a chain, and 

 bemoans piteously his hard fate in being shut out 

 from all community with the intellectual world 

 and the objects of its studies. Let him take a 

 lesson from the course of the Norwegian priest, 

 and learn that everywhere there is employment for 

 the active mind, sources of continual enjoyment and 

 instruction; that, in the most lonely places, God's 

 book of nature lies open on the mountain and by 

 the sea-side, with many a page in it unscanned as 

 yet by mortal eye, and many a new and wondrous 

 history as yet unperused. Even if the excitement 

 of fame be sought for, it is not forbidden ; the name 

 of Sars, who reaped reputation when seeking no 

 more than knowledge, familiar to every naturalist 

 in Europe and America, in Asia, and at the Anti- 

 podes — for there are great naturalists settled far 

 in the south, and many in the far east — is a 

 sufficient proof that able work brings the rewards 

 of applause and veneration, even when they be 

 unasked for. 



Sars has especially directed attention to the dis- 

 tribution of marine animals and plants on the coasts 

 of the province in which he has fixed his habitation. 

 In the tract from high-water mark down to the 



