coral and gigantic sertularise and other ramifying polypes, not without 
the softer forms of zoophyte flowers and true vegetable fuci, may still 
afford haunts to the huge cephalopods, colossal stellerides, the lengthening 
annelides, and the ophidian monsters—lords of this lower world, preying 
on the smaller creatures and on each other, and realizing some of the 
conceptions formed of a previous geological period. Not, however, until 
another change reverse the present level of land and sea, can it be cer¬ 
tainly known, if there then shall be on this planet those capable of 
knowing, how far these conjectures are right; but of one thing we may 
rest assured, that “ He who causeth the solitary rose to blossom in the 
desert, and the rain to fall where no man is,” hath given to his creatures, 
even at the bottom of the waters, an organization and a habitation mu¬ 
tually adapted, and whether to be revealed to, or hidden for ever from, 
the eye of man, they are all equally illustrative of the infinite perfections 
of the Creator. 
