/C
 
 Sea-lily. Ajnocrinut rotundw.
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES 
 
 OF A 
 
 NATURALIST. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM SPIERS, M.A., 
 
 F.G.S., F.R.M.S., ETC., 
 
 CO-EDITOR OF THB 'JOURNAL OF MICROSCOPY AND NATURAL SCIENCE.' 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.; 
 
 AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, B.C. 
 l8qo.
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, ft Viuey, Ld., London and Ayleebury.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 little volume of Natural History 
 sketches has very little to do with 
 opinions or speculations. The aim of 
 the writer has been to describe the facts and 
 phenomena of Nature as they have appeared to 
 present themselves to his own observation. They 
 are life-pictures rather than compilations. So far 
 as systematic arrangement is concerned, there has 
 certainly been an effort to treat each subject 
 taken up in such a way as to lay at least a 
 stepping-stone on the path to a more serious 
 contemplation of the sciences of the text-book 
 and the laboratory, but the primary intention of 
 the author has been rather to awaken or to 
 stimulate a love for Nature in the minds of 
 some who may not as yet have suspected what 
 wondrous and ever-varying beauty lies everywhere 
 about us in ditch and pond, in rock and stone, 
 in river and sea, on earth and in the skies. 
 
 209O941
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 The same objects have been described by other 
 and abler pens, but facts and laws present them- 
 selves in different aspects to different minds, 
 and the ceaseless and diversified operations of 
 Nature cannot be too frequently portrayed. Even 
 those who would not care to claim the character 
 of students of Nature are not unwilling to be 
 considered lovers of Nature, and for such the 
 plain and non-technical descriptions of a few 
 of her secrets, by those who tell the story of 
 what they themselves have seen and felt in her 
 presence, cannot fail to possess some degree of 
 interest. 
 
 As to the value of scientific study in these 
 days, it is almost superfluous to argue. As a 
 means of mental discipline, the methods of inquiry 
 and reasoning made use of in the pursuit of 
 physical science are of great utility, while almost 
 all matters affecting health and life are of such 
 a sort as to be profitably dealt with only by a 
 rigid adherence to those methods. What misery 
 some bring upon themselves and others by dense 
 ignorance of the most elementary laws of Nature ! 
 And certainly the sum of happiness is much in- 
 creased by some acquaintance, however superficial, 
 with the results of the researches and doctrines of 
 men of science which bear upon the vast problems 
 concerned in the origin and history of life, the
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 development and meaning of organic forms, and 
 the principles upon which the government of the 
 material universe is carried on. In regard to the 
 spirit and aims of such studies, nothing can be 
 more admirable than the following words of 
 Charles Kingsley on this point, in which he 
 sets forth the qualifications of the observer of 
 Nature : " He should be brave and enterprising, 
 and withal patient and undaunted ; not merely 
 in travel, but in investigation ; knowing (as Lord 
 Bacon might have put it) that the Kingdom of 
 Nature, like the Kingdom of Heaven, must be 
 taken by violence, and that only to those who 
 knock long and earnestly does the great mother 
 open the doors of her sanctuary. He must be 
 of a reverent turn of mind also, not rashly 
 discrediting any reports, however vague and 
 fragmentary, giving man credit always for some 
 germ of worth, and giving Nature credit for an 
 inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will 
 keep him his life long always reverent, yet 
 never superstitious ; wondering at the commonest, 
 but not surprised by the most strange ; free 
 from the idols of size and sensuous loveliness ; 
 able to see grandeur in the minutest objects, 
 beauty in the most ungainly ; estimating each 
 thing, not carnally, as the vulgar do, by its 
 size, or its pleasantness to the senses, but
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 spiritually, by the amount of Divine thought re- 
 vealed to him therein ; holding every phenomenon 
 worth the noting down ; believing that every 
 pebble holds a treasure, every bud a revelation ; 
 making it a point of conscience to pass over 
 nothing through laziness or hastiness, lest the 
 vision, once offered and despised, should be with- 
 drawn ; and looking at every object as if he 
 were never to behold it again." Glaucw, p. 46. 
 
 This volume is mainly the record of pursuits 
 which occupied holiday hours snatched from a 
 life devoted to other and more serious tasks, 
 but it has often been felt that these pursuits, 
 while being a relief from the strain of other 
 kinds of work, have yet been in a large measure 
 in harmony with it, and helpful to its better 
 performance. The preaching of the Gospel covers 
 a wider ground than the mere interpretation of 
 a written Word. Nature has revelations for man 
 if he will try to read them intelligently. She 
 may not be able to answer all the instincts of 
 his complex being, but she has much to say 
 that is vitally concerned in his moral, social, and 
 spiritual welfare. It is the duty of the teacher 
 of religion, we contend, to seek philosophical and 
 scientific truth, as well as to expound and enforce 
 theological doctrines. To leave out of our litera- 
 ture all that bears upon the exposition of Nature's
 
 PREFACE. 9 
 
 processes and marvels is, we think, to betray our 
 cause, and to show ourselves incapable of grasping 
 its sacredness and its grandeur, and can only 
 result in handing over our best and noblest sons, 
 the flower and hope of the Christian Church, to 
 influences that may be inimical to their faith 
 and their devotion to God and humanity. It 
 is considerations of this kind that have led to 
 the inclusion of what we prefer to call Reveries 
 amongst papers which are more properly described 
 as accounts of Rambles of a Naturalist.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 I. AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS 
 
 IL RAMBLES IN CORNWALL 
 
 III. ANCIENT SLATE-INSCRIPTIONS 
 
 IV. A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL . 
 V. DEAD SEA-LILIES 
 
 VI. A BAY IN A QUARRY .... 
 
 VII. ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES . 
 
 VIII. A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY 
 
 IX. MARVELS OF THE POND. 
 
 X. A RAMBLE THROUGH CATEKHAM VALLEY 
 
 XI. TIJIY ROCK-BUILDERS .... 
 
 XII. STAR-GAZING 
 
 XIII. AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE 
 
 XIV. TBILOBITE HUNTING .... 
 XV. WHAT is CREATION? .... 
 
 XVI. THE MINISTRY OF NATURE . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17 
 37 
 51 
 61 
 72 
 80 
 100 
 110 
 118 
 134 
 142 
 162 
 178 
 195 
 216 
 240
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTBATIONS. 
 
 Frontispiece. Encrinite. Apiocrinus rotundus. 
 1. Seaweed. Fucus canaliculatus . . . 
 
 Fucus vesiculosus ...... 21 
 
 Fucus serratus ...... 22 
 
 Fucus nodosus ...... 24 
 
 Halidrys siliquosa ...... 25 
 
 Plocamium coccineum ..... 27 
 
 7. Diatom. Navicula didyma ...... 30 
 
 8. Pleurosigma formosum ..... 33 
 
 9. Graptolite. Didymograptus Murchisoni ... 52 
 
 10. Sea Fir. Sertularia fusca, with calycles ... 53 
 
 11. Sertularia abietina, calycles and capsule . 55 
 
 12. Magnified Calycles of Graptolite ..... 55 
 
 13. Double Graptolite. Diplograptus pristis ... 56 
 
 14. Silurian Encrinites. Marsupiocrinus ccelatus. Arms 
 
 and proboscis of ditto. Crotalocrinus rugosus. 
 
 Pelvis, stomach, and arms of ditto .... 75 
 
 15. Head of Encrinite. Poteriocrinus .... 76 
 
 16. Trilobite. Phacops caudatus ..... 94
 
 I 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 17. Ammonites communit ....... 103 
 
 18. Side view of ditto ........ 103 
 
 19. Pearly Nautilus ........ 104 
 
 20. Section of Shell of Ammonite ..... 105 
 
 21. Foliation of Ammonite Chambers ..... 106 
 
 22. Ammonites Jnfrons ........ 167 
 
 23. Side view of ditto ........ 107 
 
 24. Ammonites oUutus ....... 108 
 
 26. Side view of ditto ........ 108 
 
 26. Ammonites lawtus ........ 109 
 
 27. Ammonites varioosus and side view .... 9 
 
 28. Amoeba .......... 121 
 
 29. Rotifer mtlgari* ........ 123 
 
 30. Melicerta ringens ........ 127 
 
 31. Plumatetta repens ........ 129 
 
 32. Coral. Favorites GotMandica ..... 143 
 
 33. Tabulae of ditto ........ 143 
 
 34. Coral. LitKostrotion basaltiforme , . . .145 
 
 35. Halysites catenulatm ..... 147 
 
 36. Astrcea ananus ..... .14 
 
 37. Heliolites interstinctus ..... 149 
 
 38. CoraUites of ditto ........ 150 
 
 39. Coral. Section of Favosites cervicornis . . .151 
 
 40. Isastrtea insignis ...... 163 
 
 41. Thecosmilia annularis ..... 154 
 
 42. ,, Smilotrichus granulatus ..... 154 
 
 43. Lithareea ........ 165 
 
 44. Desmid. Closterium striolatum ..... 181 
 
 45. Volvox ylobator ........ 185 
 
 46. Water-flea. Daphnia pulex. Male . . . .187
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 15 
 
 " P A6B 
 
 47. Water-flea. Daphnia pulex. Female . . . .187 
 
 48. Hydra viridis . * . 190 
 
 49. Stings of Hydra . 191 
 
 50. Trilobite. Trinucleu* fimbriatus 196 
 
 51. Paradoxides Tessini 196 
 
 52. Agnostus pisiformi. Upper side . . 197 
 
 53. Underside . . 197 
 
 54. King-Crab. Limulus. Under side . . . .201 
 56. Trilobite. Head-shield and Tail-shield of Phillipsw . 205 
 
 56. Eye of Trilobite. Asaphus caudatus .... 207 
 
 57. Fossil King-Crab. Belinurus trilolitioides . . .211 
 
 58. Trilobite. Prestwichia . . . . . .. .211 
 
 59. Larva of King-Crab 211 
 
 60. Larva of Trilobite 211 
 
 61. Shrimp Parasite. Bopyrus crangorum. Upper side . 213 
 
 62. Under side of ditto 213 
 
 63. Serolis Fabricii, with eye magnified . . . .214
 
 I. 
 
 AMONGST THE SEA WEEDS. 
 
 ' Thou sea, who wast to me a prophet deep 
 Through all thy restless waves and wasting shores, 
 Of silent labour, and eternal change ; 
 First teacher of the dense immensity 
 Of ever-stirring life, in thy strange forms 
 Of fish, and shell, and worm, and oozy weed : 
 To me alike thy frenzy. and thy sleep 
 Have been a deep and breathless joy." 
 
 KlNGSLEY. 
 
 jHERE are very few of my readers, pro- 
 bably, who have not found some degree 
 of pleasure in collecting seaweeds during 
 their holidays, even though there has 
 been no sort of scientific interest in the occupation. 
 Yet it is quite as entertaining, and assuredly more 
 profitable, to turn these familiar things to account 
 in the way of increasing our knowledge of Nature. 
 To those for whom anything like a practical study 
 of any branch of natural history is impossible save 
 during the week or two which, once a year or so, 
 is snatched from a busy life, a few notes on the 
 subject of seaweeds, suggested by my own observa- 
 tions and wants, may be of some value. Although 
 
 2
 
 1 8 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 during one of my vacations I gave myself up almost 
 exclusively to seaweed collecting, yet my sphere 
 of operations was so limited, and the kind of shore 
 which I worked was so uniform, that I must draw 
 somewhat upon previous experiences as well as 
 upon the results of others' work if I would be of any 
 service. 
 
 FIG. 1. Fucus canaliculatus, and spore containing sporules. 
 
 It may not be amiss, in the first place, to settle 
 what we mean by a seaweed. The very common 
 " grass-wrack," a sort of sea-grass, is not a true 
 seaweed. This plant, which botanists call Zostera 
 marina, is really a true flowering plant, whereas 
 seaweeds proper are non-flowering, cellular plants, 
 and constitute the lowest group of the great Linnean 
 division of Cryptogamia, to which also belong
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 19 
 
 lichens, fungi, mosses, and ferns. What we are 
 concerned with, then, are marine algae, plants that 
 have no vascular tissue, nor any root, stem, leaves, 
 flowers, nor seeds. There are seaweeds which seem 
 to possess roots, but these are mere sucker-like discs, 
 and have no root-functions in regard to nutrition, 
 while the so-called stems and leaves are, accurately 
 speaking, fronds and their modifications. Those 
 curious vesicles on so many marine algse, which 
 look like pods or seed-vessels, and which the novice 
 might suppose were concerned in reproduction, are 
 in reality nothing but air-vessels, whose function is 
 to keep the fronds floating. The higher algae are 
 reproduced by spores, and others by zoospores. The 
 former method is analogous to that which obtains 
 amongst ferns, while zoospores are cells that separate 
 from the parent plant. In general, when repro- 
 duction is by spores, there are organs which in some 
 senses correspond to the anthers and pistils of 
 flowers. In the spore cavity or conceptacle, are 
 certain bodies called antheridia, which fertilize the 
 spores proper. Many of the green seaweeds are 
 reproduced by zoospores, which method has been 
 thus described by Dr. Harvey, the well-known 
 phycologist : " In an early stage the green matter, 
 or endochrome, contained within the cells of these 
 algse is of a nearly homogeneous consistence through- 
 out, and nearly fluid ; but at an advanced period it 
 becomes more and more granulated. The granules, 
 when formed in the cells, at first adhere to the 
 inner surface of the membranous wall, but soon 
 detach themselves, and float freely in the cell. At
 
 20 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 first they are of irregular shapes, but they gradually 
 become spheroidal. They then congregate into a 
 dense mass in the centre of the cell, and a move- 
 ment, aptly compared to that of the swarming of 
 bees round their queen, begins to take place. One 
 by one these active granules detach themselves from 
 the swarm, and move about in the vacant space of 
 the cell with great vivacity. Continually pushing 
 against the sides of the cell-wall, they at length 
 pierce it, and issue from their prison into the sur- 
 rounding fluid, when their seemingly spontaneous 
 movements are continued for some time. The vi- 
 vacious granules, or zoospores, at length become 
 fixed to some submerged object, where they soon 
 begin to develop cells, and at length grow into algse 
 similar to those from whose cells they issued." 
 
 Not much need be said as to the apparatus for 
 collecting and mounting seaweeds. An old knife 
 and a few bottles for the more delicate species, 
 with some sort of vasculum or satchel for the larger 
 kinds, are all that will be required. The collector 
 must not be above going bare-footed into the water 
 now and then, unless he is provided with a pair 
 of strong knee-boots ; for beyond where the lowest 
 tide leaves its line of sea-wrack may be found many 
 rare and choice specimens. At the same time, the 
 drift that lies over all those parts of the shore that 
 have been covered by the tide will well repay 
 scrutiny. 
 
 As soon as convenient the specimens should be 
 well washed in fresh water ; floated on to paper 
 with careful fingers, helped, in the case of delicate
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 21 
 
 kinds, by a quill pen or small camel's hair brush. 
 The plan I find to answer best is to lay a sheet of 
 thickish paper at the bottom of a large meat dish, and, 
 after filling the dish with water, to place the speci- 
 men over the paper, and tease it out into as graceful 
 a form as time and patience will permit. 
 
 FIG. 2,Fucus vesiculosus. 
 
 After this the mounts must be pressed^ and dried. 
 When drained, spread over each a few strips of 
 clean linen rags, which should be changed occasion- 
 ally, care being taken to avoid disarranging. 'the 
 plants, and keeping them for a day or two under 
 pressure. Many seaweeds are gelatinous, and will
 
 22 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 adhere to the paper without any medium. The 
 large, coarse, olive-coloured weeds are not easily 
 mounted for the herbarium, but small portions of 
 them may be fastened on paper like dried plants, 
 
 FIG. 3. Fucus serratus, with conceptacle, spore andsporules. 
 
 while larger specimens merely require drying, and 
 can be hung up for future reference, it being 
 possible to restore to them much of their natural 
 appearance by immersing them in warm water. 
 For the identification of specimens a cheap and
 
 AMONGST 7 HE SEAWEEDS. 23 
 
 portable book is the one by Shirley Hibberd, pub- 
 lished by Groombridge, which, for all ordinary 
 purposes, is more serviceable than many a far 
 costlier work. Landsborough's book is also cheap 
 and useful. For more advanced work it will be 
 necessary to procure some such treatise as Greville's 
 or Harvey's on British Algse. 
 
 The classification of seaweeds is a much simpler 
 matter than is the case with more highly organized 
 plants. It is curious that there is a direct relation 
 between the colour and the mode of reproduction, 
 so that, roughly speaking, the arrangement of sea- 
 weeds according to colour will correspond to botani- 
 cal classification. The identification of genera 
 and species, however, will require the microscope. 
 There are three great primary divisions of marine 
 
 (1) Olive-coloured (Melanospermete) ; 
 
 (2) Red (Rkodospermece) ; 
 
 (3) Green (Chlorospermece}. 
 
 The olive-coloured kinds are mostly tough and 
 strong ; many are furnished with air-vessels, and, 
 in general, they grow near the shore. The 
 commonest of these are the well-known Fuci 
 (Greek phycos, a sea-weed), popularly called sea- 
 wrack. The commonest of all is the Bladder-wrack, 
 so called from the bladder-like air-vessels which 
 cover it and by which it is kept floating in the water. 
 Fucus nodosus (Fig. 4) is covered with large air- 
 cavities. F. serratus (Fig. 3) has saw-like edges to 
 the fronds, and is destitute of air-vessels. Another
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 familiar species is the channelled Fncus (Fig. 1). 
 These with several others were once largely used in 
 the manufacture ,of kelp on account of their alkaline 
 constituents. F. 
 vesiculosus and F. 
 canaliculatus are 
 equally common at 
 most English sea-side 
 places (Figs. 1,2). The 
 celebrated Gulf-weed, 
 Sargassum bacci- 
 ferum, belongs to this 
 order of Fucacece. 
 
 In the tide-pools 
 near low-water mark 
 occurs in many parts 
 of our coasts the 
 Desmarestia, whose 
 fronds are flat and 
 lance-shaped and pin- 
 nate, having spiny 
 teeth on their edges. 
 This may be taken as 
 typical of the Spor- 
 ochnacece or second 
 order of olive weeds. 
 
 The most attractive of all the seaweeds with air- 
 bladders is the Sea-oak or Halidrys (Fig. 5). It is 
 found very generally on rocks and stones in the sea 
 at nearly low water mark. Usually the fronds are 
 about half a foot in length, though it is not un- 
 common to find them as long as three or four feet. 
 
 FIG. 4. Fucv* nodosus.
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 25 
 
 It is very much branched, and the branches are 
 ornamented with curiously shaped air-chambers, 
 which look like the pods of vetches, or of the 
 mustard plant. These pod-like structures are even 
 marked with transverse depressions, just as if there 
 
 FIG. 5. Halidrys siliquosa. 
 
 were actually seeds inside, and so the illusion is 
 increased. 
 
 Several of these Fuci are very useful. The 
 Scotch used to gather them for kelp-making, but 
 that industry has been superseded. They are _still 
 used as manure and as food for cattle, being mixed 
 with meal. In the Hebrides the ashes of the
 
 26 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Bladder-wrack are used for drying cheeses, thus 
 obviating the use of salt. These ashes contain about 
 half their weight in alkaline salt. Its bladders also 
 yield iodine, used largely for medicinal purposes. 
 F. serratus is largely used for packing lobsters, and 
 the channelled Fucus is eaten by cattle in the 
 north of Britain. 
 
 The third order is called Laminar iace<z. The 
 frond is flat and without midrib, and there is a 
 kind of stalk. These grow below tide mark, but 
 they are plentifully cast up, and very large speci- 
 mens are dragged about by visitors to the sea- 
 side. Laminaria or Tangle is a good specimen 
 for the study of the sucker-like "roots" which 
 many algae possess. 
 
 L. fascia, or the Papery Tangle, has a very short 
 thin stem, and widens out into a long broad frond ; 
 one of the large tangles is called the Oar-weed. 
 The Sweet Laminaria, or Sea-belt, makes a good 
 hygrometer when hung up and will foretell rain. 
 
 The Dictyotacece include the Sea-endive, the 
 pretty Padina pavonia, called so from its resem- 
 blance to a peacock's tail, the Girdle-weed or 
 Zonaria, and Taonia or Peacock-weed, Dictyota 
 or Netted sea-weed, Stilophora or Nettle-bearer, 
 Punctaria and others. 
 
 The other orders of olive weeds are Chordariaceae 
 and Ectocarpacea, which include several lovely 
 feathery plants. 
 
 Rhodospermece or red seaweeds are the most 
 beautiful of all. Red is the prevailing colour, but 
 a few brown, purple, and orange-tinted species are
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 27 
 
 included. The many-tubed Polysiphonia, whose 
 fronds are made up of thread-like tubular cells, is 
 well worth microscopical examination. There are a 
 score of British species, and many more on other 
 shores. Laurencia is abundant near low-water 
 mark, and is of a deep red colour. The Coral weed, 
 Corallina, has jointed pinnate fronds, and should 
 be sought for in the deeper pools. Young and 
 healthy specimens are 
 dark purple, but as picked 
 up they are usually 
 white. This is a very 
 curious plant, and scarcely 
 looks like a plant, being- 
 pointed, and clad with a 
 coating of carbonate of 
 lime. If a portion be 
 placed in acid, the mineral 
 will dissolve, and the real 
 plant structure be plainly 
 discerned. Nitophyllum^ 
 or Shining Leaf, is a very 
 
 . ,, ,;. FiG.Q.Plocamiumcoccineum. 
 
 fine weed, especially J\. 
 punctatum, and may easily be found. 
 
 One of the commonest, and at the same time one 
 of the prettiest, of the red seaweeds is the one called 
 Plocamium (Fig. 6). Its popular name is the Braided- 
 hair weed; indeed, plokamos means braided hair. Its 
 colour is a delicate pinky red. On account of its 
 elegant form and beautiful colour, it is one of the 
 chief favourites of those who arrange seaweed 
 ornaments. Although it lives beyond the shore-
 
 28 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 line, yet it is cast up in abundance everywhere 
 along our coasts. The Griffithsias, called after 
 Mrs. Griffiths, the celebrated algologist, are all of 
 them exceedingly pretty. 
 
 One of the loveliest of the rhodosperms is Mau- 
 geria sanguined, more familiarly known by its 
 older name of Delesseria sanguined. It is very 
 common in the deep rocky pools. The Peacock's 
 Tail, or Padina pavonia, is well known, and is 
 largely used for ornamental patterns. 
 
 Ckondrus crispus, or Irish Moss, called, by the 
 Irish, Carrageen, belongs to this second division 
 of seaweeds. When seen growing in the quiet 
 pools it appears very beautiful, and is of a deep 
 brown or purple colour, but in shallower water is 
 yellowish. The tasteless gelatine derived from it 
 is largely used in cooking, and at one time it 
 was credited with curative properties in cases of 
 consumption. It is still used in making jellies, 
 and even for blanc-mange, by confectioners. One 
 of the species of chondrus constitutes the material 
 from which Chinese birds make those edible nests 
 which are so highly prized by Oriental epicures. 
 Griffithsia, which has already been referred to, 
 is a widely distributed and pretty genus. All the 
 species are of delicate texture, and must not be 
 kept too long in water, or they will lose their 
 colour. The palmated Rhodymenia or Dulse is eaten 
 in Ireland, and is also dried for use as tobacco. 
 
 The third division of marine algae consists mainly 
 of green weeds. 
 
 The commonest of these, indeed one of the
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 29 
 
 commonest of all seaweeds, is Codium tomentosum, 
 the Woolly Skin-weed. It is of a fine dark green 
 colour, and may be found in the deep rock-pools 
 that are never left dry. Its texture is sponge- 
 like, and it is covered with delicate filaments. A 
 prominent order of this group is that which com- 
 prises the Ulvacece. The best known of these are 
 the black-green Porphyra, the Enteromorpha, 
 nearly as common as Codium, called so because 
 of its intestine-like tubular fronds, and the bright 
 green, flat, and delicate Ulva, whose membranaceous 
 frond, waved at the margin, grows sometimes to a 
 length of two feet. 
 
 With one or two exceptions specimens of all 
 the foregoing, besides many others not referred to, 
 lie before me, the results of a few days' exploration 
 of a mile or two of shore ; and as I glance over 
 these plant-pictures shining out from their white 
 background, they revive for a while the delight 
 with which I sought and gathered them, and some- 
 thing of the awe which the great solemn ocean 
 awakened in the mind while its lovely treasures 
 were being culled comes upon me even now while 
 I admire them. What produces devouter or more 
 enduring impressions than to walk along the margin 
 of the murmuring sea, stopping now and again to 
 examine the wonders it casts up at our feet ; or to 
 gaze over its expanse stretching out to where it 
 seems to touch the sky, as though to bring into 
 relief our littleness of knowledge, and at the same 
 time to suggest the vastness of our intellectual 
 capacities ?
 
 3 o RAMBLES AND REVERIES, 
 
 " Nature hath tones of magic deep, and colours iris bright, 
 And murmurs full of earnest truth, and visions of delight ; 
 'Tis said, ' The heart that trusts in her was never yet 
 
 beguiled,' 
 
 But meek and lowly thou must be, and docile as a child. 
 Then study her with reverence high, and she will give the 
 
 key, 
 So ahalt thou learn to comprehend the secrets of the sea." 
 
 There are many marine algse besides these larger 
 ones, which never fail to give delight to those who 
 will take the trouble to look for them, minute and 
 indeed invisible, and requiring the microscope for 
 
 FlG. l.Navicvla didyma. 
 
 their detection. They are common enough, but 
 they are passed over unconsciously by all but the 
 thorough student of the wonders of the shore. 
 These are the Diatoms, whose glassy coverings or 
 valves are familiar to every one who possesses a 
 microscope (Figs. 7, 8). It is scarcely possible to avoid 
 collecting diatoms if anything at all wet is gathered. 
 Weeds, muddy or sandy sediment from tidal pools, 
 damp caves, stones, in fact everywhere, these 
 interesting organisms are met with. If obtained 
 in a living state, their curious locomotion, which 
 led the older naturalists to class them amongst 
 animalculsB, may be studied ; and if dead, their
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 31 
 
 beautiful frustules provide valuable material for 
 mounting for the microscope. Their movements 
 seem to be wholly mechanical, and there is no 
 trace of any self-directive power. They are of a 
 jerky nature, and are quite aimless and uncertain. 
 
 So prolific are these tiny plants that their ac- 
 cumulated valves make large deposits in some places, 
 as is the case at Dolgelly, Mull, and elsewhere in 
 Britain. The entire city of Richmond, in Virginia, 
 is built upon a bed of these diatoms eighteen feet 
 in thickness. In Bohemia there is a deposit of 
 them fourteen feet thick, from which is obtained 
 that fine material used for delicate castings. I 
 have a tin of diatomaceous earth from Hanover, 
 known as Kieselguhr, or flint mud, which con- 
 sists of very little else than the frustules of 
 diatoms. This is the material which is used in 
 the manufacture of dynamite, since it has the 
 property of absorbing three times its weight of 
 nitro-glycerine, thus presenting a remarkable illus- 
 tration of combined feebleness and power. Tripoli 
 powder and rotten stone, used for polishing, are 
 similarly constituted. It is no exaggeration to say 
 that, notwithstanding their extreme minuteness, 
 these organisms have added more to the fossiliferous 
 contents of the earth than all the great mammals 
 put together. 
 
 The external covering or shell of diatoms is made 
 up of two portions or valves, usually called frustules ; 
 but there is no hinge connection, as in the case of 
 molluscous bivalves. The two frustules are con- 
 nected by a layer of silica, which runs round their
 
 32 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 edges. This flinty covering is perforated, in order 
 to allow of communication with the outer world. 
 
 The minuteness of these plants is marvellous 
 when we bear in mind how perfect they are in every 
 detail of their form and markings. The giants 
 amongst them are not more than about one-fiftieth 
 of an inch in length, while the majority are less 
 than one-thousandth of an inch. My friend, Mr. 
 Isaac Robinson, of Hertford, who has made these 
 organisms a special study, relates that one of his 
 slides which contains the frustules from a single 
 drop of water has upon it no less than 200,000 
 frustules, and another reaches the astonishing num- 
 ber of 430,000. And the water itself has to be 
 taken into account in attempting to form an idea of 
 the size of these infinitesimal inhabitants of that 
 small world. If the bulk of the drop of water had 
 consisted exclusively of frustules, there would have 
 been, in the latter case, upwards of ten millions. 
 How much truer it appears now than Shakespeare 
 ever imagined when he made Hamlet say, " There 
 are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than 
 are dreamt of in our philosophy ! " 
 
 The utmost diversity of form is met with amongst 
 these minute plants. They are boat-shaped, tri- 
 angular, square, crescent-like, filamentous, and sea- 
 weed shaped ; in fact, there is scarcely any conceiv- 
 able pattern which does not find its counterpart 
 amongst these extraordinary objects. 
 
 The mounted frustules of Diatoms are extensively 
 used as tests for the determination of the quality 
 of microscopic lenses. An illustration of one of
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 
 
 33 
 
 these is given. It is called Pleurosigma formosum 
 (Fig. 8). For this object I must go to my cabinet 
 and take out one of the slides there stored, and 
 which has been properly prepared by a professional 
 mounter. 
 
 The silicious valves of Diatoms are beautifully 
 marked with ridges, called costse, connected with an 
 inner membrane ; besides which there are numerous 
 dots, more or less minute, along the outside mem- 
 brane. Generally the dots are arranged in regular 
 lines or series, radiating from the median line or 
 costa. . With a low power these rows of dots look 
 
 FIG. 8. Pleurosigma formosum. 
 
 like continuous lines or striae. Supposing that the 
 diatom has been properly cleaned and well mounted, 
 the striae can be resolved into dots by objectives of 
 the requisite quality and magnifying power. As 
 the fineness of the dots varies in different species 
 (it is the character of these markings that determines 
 the species), it must not, of course, be expected that 
 a lens which will show the dots on one will neces- 
 sarily do so on another. Certain well understood 
 species, therefore, are usually adopted by the 
 microscopist for testing lenses, and some of these 
 are commonly referred to as to a sort of standard by 
 which they describe the capabilities of an objective. 
 The costa is always visible, then the lines or striae
 
 34 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 are brought into view ; and lastly, if the lens is 
 equal to the proper test, the dots start ont into dis- 
 tinctness. It may be as well, however, to remark 
 that the practised microscopist can often bring out 
 dots by manipulating his light and condensers 
 where the tyro would altogether fail. Some frus- 
 tules do not exhibit the dot structure, but appear 
 to be ornamented with ridges. But however highly 
 magnified, the dots where they are shown are 
 all geometrically perfect, and not one of the 
 many thousands is ever found out of its proper 
 place. 
 
 Pleurosigma formosum has been chosen as one of 
 the most useful of these tests, and the appearances 
 which it presents under the quarter inch, one-eighth 
 inch, and one-twelfth inch objectives, may soon 
 become familiar to the student. Another species, 
 P. angulatum, is a good test for still higher powers ; 
 while none but the very best lenses will resolve into 
 dots the markings on Amphipleura pellucida, one 
 of the fresh-water species. There are, of course, many 
 other test objects besides diatoms, but these furnish 
 a very easy and reliable means of examining lenses, 
 and they have the great advantage of permanency 
 in regard to shape and appearance, a vital feature 
 of a reliable standard. 
 
 To mount the valves of Diatoms so as to preserve 
 them they should be put into a solution of sulphuric 
 acid. When the effervescence ceases it is an indi- 
 cation that all organic matter is destroyed. They 
 must then be. washed and treated with nitric acid, 
 and washed again till nothing but dust is left. This
 
 AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 35 
 
 dust will be found crowded with the most bewitching 
 forms, and is well worth mounting for future 
 entertainment and study. 
 
 Diatoms are propagated usually by cell-division. 
 By this process one cell becomes two, and these 
 again divide. The cell-contents first divide, and each 
 portion begins at once to grow a new valve. When 
 this is completed the two parts separate, each pos- 
 sessing one of the old valves and a new one, and 
 thus two perfect plants replace one old one. Professor 
 Smith studied these processes some thirty years 
 ago, and came to the conclusion that self-division 
 occupied about twenty-four hours. If this is correct, 
 the progeny of a single diatom would amount to a 
 thousand millions in a month. This process is 
 analogous to gemmation, and is something like the 
 growth of a tree by budding. After awhile, how- 
 ever, the vital energy of the cells seems to be 
 exhausted, and then a true generative process is set 
 up. The cell contents of two parent frustules unite 
 in some mysterious way and produce new genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Of these microscopic Algae the number of species 
 is simply bewildering. It is so recently as 1824 
 that Agardh published the first systematic arrange- 
 ment of them, and he recorded forty-nine species. 
 Now, however, they are numbered by thousands. 
 Their exhaustive study is quite enough to occupy 
 the whole leisure of any one individual, and it is not 
 to be expected, therefore, that I can give here a 
 complete account of them. But let it not be thought 
 that they are contemptible or unworthy of investi-
 
 36 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 gation on account of their diminutive dimensions. 
 There are very few objects in Nature which afford 
 such pleasure to those who carefully examine them, 
 and, moreover, it is by studying these minuter forms 
 of life that we obtain light on the most profound 
 problems of existence.
 
 II. 
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 
 
 " We turned, we wound 
 About the clifEs, the copses, out and in, 
 Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
 Of shale and hornblende, rag, and trap, and tuff, 
 Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 
 Grew broader towards his death, and fell, and all 
 The rosy heights came out above the lawns." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 Y first acquaintance with this delightful 
 county was made under most favour- 
 able auspices. The visit was paid in 
 company with several members of a 
 scientific society to which I belong, and the main pur- 
 poses of it were geological. The field is one that has 
 attracted the attention of many leading geologists ; 
 and no knight of the hammer can fail to respond 
 to its fascination when once he finds himself in the 
 midst of its enchanting scenery. Peach, Pengelly, 
 Phillips, Le Neve Foster, Sedgwick, Ue la Beche, 
 Bonuey, all these have studied the Cornish rocks, 
 and given us the results of their observations. 
 There are in Cornwall several influential scientific 
 societies, such as the Geological Society of Cornwall
 
 38 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 and the Mining Institute, and it was by the help 
 of these that our way had been so prepared as that 
 we found it easy to obtain access to everything 
 that a geologist might wish to see. 
 
 Operations were commenced at Truro, where we 
 were conducted over the new cathedral, just then 
 on the eve of being opened. After this the valuable 
 museum of the Royal Institution of Cornwall was 
 inspected, and then we threw ourselves in earnest 
 into the organized plans for the day, namely, to 
 visit several works connected with one of the most 
 remarkable developments of modern industry in 
 Cornwall the quarrying and preparation of China 
 Clay. 
 
 Do not let any of my readers imagine that China 
 clay is at all like London clay, either the slippery 
 material that one walks upon at Sheerness when 
 the tide is out, which the geologists call London 
 clay ; or that abomination of the metropolitan 
 streets too familiar to many who are not geologists. 
 It has no affinity whatever with these, nor any 
 likeness to them. Emblematical of Cornish cha- 
 racter, it is almost spotlessly white. 
 
 First, I must say a word or two about the name 
 of this interesting commodity. It is called China 
 clay, because it was in China that it first became 
 known. For many ages the Celestials manufactured 
 their beautiful ware without a rival. So successful 
 were they in guarding the secret of its composition 
 that it was only within quite recent times that a 
 Jesuit missionary was able to send a sample of 
 the crude material to Europe. The Rev. Hilderic
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 39 
 
 Friend, who has resided in China, recently sent 
 me a note on this point, in which he observed that 
 " a learned Jesuit missionary, P. Dentrecolles, tells 
 us that the matter of chinaware is composed of two 
 sorts of earth, one called Pe-tun-tse, and the other 
 Kao-lin ; this latter is mixed with shining particles, 
 the other is simply white and very fine to the touch." 
 The Pe-tun-tse is the China stone and the Kao-lin 
 is the China clay. 
 
 It is rather more than a century since China clay 
 works were originated in Cornwall. About that 
 time a Mr. W. Cookworthy, who had given con- 
 siderable attention to porcelain-making, received 
 some specimens of Kao-lin and of ware made there- 
 from. Not long afterwards he was fortunate enough 
 to discover a large quantity of the substance in its 
 natural state at St. Stephen's, in Cornwall. Very 
 soon several works were established, and now that 
 the secret was out the material was found abun- 
 dantly in many other places. It seemed as if the 
 declining industries connected with copper and tin 
 had at length met with a successor which was to 
 provide employment for some, at least, of those 
 whose occupation was going. At the beginning of 
 this century there were about half-a-dozen China 
 clay works in operation, and nearly 2,000 tons were 
 annually shipped from the county. Now, however, 
 so rapid has been the development of the industry, 
 nearly half-a-million tons are exported every year. 
 
 The next matter I ought to try to explain is the 
 mode in which China stone and China clay occur 
 in nature. One of the most convenient places for
 
 40 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 studying this is at the works of the West of England 
 China Clay Company at Nanpean, near St. Austell. 
 It was here that the party of which I was a member 
 had the opportunity of observing all the processes 
 through which the natural product has to go, from 
 its extraction out of the earth to its final washing 
 and baking that fit it for the potter. 
 
 Every one knows that there are enormous quan- 
 tities of granite in Cornwall. Granite used to be 
 regarded as the basic or foundation rock of the 
 earth's strata, but it is now known to have burst 
 its fiery way through various strata during almost 
 every geological period, and it was the upheavals 
 or eruptions of the molten masses which afterwards 
 cooled in the form of granite that transformed the 
 barren schists of Cornwall into rocks that are veined 
 with metalliferous lodes. Geologists are of opinion 
 that the series of extensive granite bosses which 
 stretch from Dartmoor to the Scilly Islands first 
 appeared after the deposition of the Upper Devonian 
 rocks. In fact, the leading feature of Cornish 
 geology now may be described as a group of granite 
 islands protruding out of a sea of Devonian schists. 
 The composition of granite, though varying in 
 difierent districts in regard to minor characteristics, 
 is mainly a mixture of quartz, mica, and felspar. 
 In some kinds the grains are very small, while in 
 others huge quartz crystals are seen an inch or 
 more in length. About half the bulk of granite is 
 made up of felspar, which is in reality hardened 
 volcanic lava. Cornish felspar is a silicate of 
 alumina and potash.
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 41 
 
 Now, it is this felspar in the granite that furnishes 
 ns with China clay. It might seem an impossible 
 thing to a person with a lump of hard granite in 
 his hand to get the felspar out of it and to break 
 up that felspar into silica and potash at any such 
 cost as would make it worth while to do so. And 
 certainly it would be an utter impossibility for man 
 to x do this at anything like a remunerative outlay. 
 But Nature does the work without effort and without 
 expense. By certain natural processes, the felspar 
 of the granite is decomposed, and the rock is trans- 
 formed into a soft crumbling mass, which in many 
 places can be scooped out with the hand. The 
 potash and part of the silica are washed away, and 
 the silicate of alumina which remains constitutes 
 the China clay of commerce. China stone is this 
 same clay at a somewhat earlier stage in the process 
 of decomposition, when there is more of the quartz 
 mixed with it. Sometimes the clay comes nearly 
 up to the surface, but generally there is more or 
 less of sand and stones overlying it. This "over- 
 burden," as the covering is called, must, of course, 
 be removed before the clay is worked. 
 
 As may be supposed, geologists and chemists 
 have taxed their ingenuity in order to account for 
 this remarkable dissolution of the granite and felspar. 
 Carbonic acid, one of the strongest solvents in nature, 
 was, of course, invoked to explain the phenomenon. 
 But why has not this agent led to the disintegration 
 of granite in other places ? Besides, could carbonic 
 acid act at such vast depths as those at which it is 
 known the clay occurs ? Mephitic vapours are also
 
 42 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 had recourse to, and these, no doubt, accompanied 
 the intrusion of the granite and the metals into the 
 rocks through which they poured when in a state 
 of fusion. Mr. J. H. Collins, who has paid great 
 attention to this subject, is of opinion that the 
 decomposition of the felspar and the consequent 
 formation of the Kaolin arose from the long con- 
 tinued action of water or steam containing hydro- 
 fluoric acid. Traces of fluor are met with in the 
 granite at many places, and frequently the Kaolin 
 is in proximity with metalliferous veins, while in 
 many cases the clay deposits run along for miles in 
 the direction of tin veins, although they may be 
 only a few feet in breadth. 
 
 The outside surface-workings are very interesting. 
 Generally the clay has to be raised from a lower 
 level than the neighbouring ground. To effect this 
 a shaft is sunk, and from the bottom of this a level 
 is cut out underneath the clay that is to be worked. 
 An artificial arrangement of water channels leads 
 to the wearing down of the clay, which then hangs 
 suspended in the water, and this is pumped up from 
 the pit to the surface, usually to a somewhat higher 
 level than the ground, so as to allow of subsequent 
 operations and washings to be carried on by the 
 down-flowing of the water under the action of 
 gravity. In the wider channel the sand is de- 
 posited ; in the next, the finer mica is obtained, 
 which is not quite without value. The stream, 
 thus gradually purified, passes on to the first pits, 
 in which the clay settles to the bottom, and the 
 water runs off to be used over and over again. In
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 43 
 
 these pits the mixed water and clay look quite 
 milky, and it is not at all unlikely that the tourist 
 may suspect that he has discovered the source of 
 Cornish cream you must not say Devonshire 
 cream in Cornwall or you are sure to be rebuked 
 for your levity but let us hope that cows are as 
 plentiful in Cornwall as China clay is abundant. 
 
 The clay is taken from the " pits" into the tanks, 
 where the fluid gradually becomes thicker, and after 
 that it is poured into long, shallow pans built over 
 flues. Here the drying process goes on until the 
 substance is firm enough to bear being cut into 
 squares of about nine inches. After a time these 
 squares may be shovelled out, and the blocks of 
 clay are ready to be transported to the pottery. 
 If Cornwall were only blessed with coal, it might 
 rival the Severn and Staffordshire. But the making 
 of porcelain requires such great heat that the cost 
 of bringing coal to the clay renders Cornish 
 potteries an impossibility. It is cheaper to send 
 the clay to the coal than to bring the coal to the 
 clay. 
 
 Besides being used in the manufacture of porcelain, 
 China clay is of importance to calico makers and 
 bleachers. It is unfortunate, however, that it does 
 not remain in the " pores " of the calico, which it 
 whitens and thickens, and hence the fabric does not 
 retain its apparent excellence when it has been 
 through the hands of the laundress. Large quan- 
 tities are taken also by paper manufacturers, for the 
 purpose of giving body and weight to their paper. 
 Some other applications of the article, the character
 
 44 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 of which is not quite beyond suspicion, are resorted 
 to ; and, on the whole, it must be confessed that 
 China clay in its uses has not won a reputation that 
 harmonises with its pure and spotless appearance. 
 
 It would not be easy for the holiday-maker to 
 find a more delightful way of spending a bright 
 summer day than to take this walk from St. Austell 
 to Nanpean and back, or, if he prefers to drive, as 
 we did, to include in the excursion the open works 
 of Carclaze and Minear Downs. In these latter 
 places he will see strings of tin ore and schorl or 
 tourmaline in the decomposed granite ; and, indeed, 
 there is scarcely a spot he will pass but will furnish 
 food for admiration and enjoyment. And if he be 
 devout as well as thoughtful, he will not fail to 
 recognise the wisdom and goodness of Him who 
 " setteth fast the mountains," and yet maketh them 
 to yield up their treasures for man's use and 
 happiness. 
 
 On our return to Truro, we were entertained at 
 the rooms of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 
 where the President and several members of the 
 Council were assembled to give us welcome, and 
 where we had a good opportunity of examining a 
 capital selection of Cornish rocks and minerals. 
 
 The tin industries were the next objects of 
 attention. The first excursion for this purpose was 
 to Carn Brea, where the granite is seen in all its 
 glory, and to the mining district of Redruth and 
 Camborne. Cook's Kitchen, the oldest mine in the 
 county now at work, Dolcoath, the deepest mine in 
 the West of England, and others, were visited,
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 45 
 
 under the guidance of Captain Josiah Thomas, 
 who gave us most valuable and lucid information 
 in regard to every point that called for remark. 
 Speaking of Dolcoath mine, he said that the present 
 workings were started in 1799. The mine was 
 three-quarters of a mile long, a quarter of a mile 
 wide, and over 400 fathoms deep from the surface. 
 Out of that piece of ground there had already been 
 obtained three and a half millions of pounds' worth 
 of copper, and nearly the same of tin. The total 
 outlay had been 40,000, and they were making 
 about 50,000 a year profit. The mine shows no 
 tendency to exhaustion, but, on the contrary, gets 
 richer as the depth increases. I must not stay to 
 describe all the various kinds of machinery by 
 which the men go up and down the mines, and by 
 which the ore is crushed and dressed, and prepared 
 for the smelter ; nor must I attempt to tell how 
 royally we feasted at the Tehidy mansion of the 
 Bassetts, or how instructive were the speeches that 
 were delivered after the luncheon. On subsequent 
 days, Land's End and Cape Cornwall were visited, 
 and other mines were examined, one of the most 
 notable of which, Botallack mine, runs out under 
 the sea ; but no special reference need be made to 
 these. 
 
 Tin is obtained mainly from cassiterite, or tin- 
 stone, so far as Cornwall is concerned ; but lodes 
 rich enough to require little preparation for the 
 smelter are very rare. After the tin-stone has 
 been broken into lumps, it passes through the 
 " stampers," which may be called huge hammers.
 
 46 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Here the lumps are reduced to a fine grain, which 
 undergoes various washings. When purified from 
 all foreign matter, so far as washing can effect this, 
 the tin is smelted. By the kindness of Messrs. 
 Bolitho, we were enabled to watch the entire pro- 
 cess, which was fully explained to us by Mr. A. K. 
 Barnett, F.G.S., of the Penzance Smelting Works. 
 The crushed ore is first mixed with "culm," or 
 anthracite, and subjected to a heat that causes it 
 to glare like the sun and bubble like boiling water. 
 The white tin is then run off into pans, and is 
 refined by forcing green wood into the bath. The 
 ebullition which ensues produces a frothy dross that 
 has to be removed. Then the tin, still molten, is 
 poured into vessels of various sizes, in which it 
 remains till it becomes solid. When this final 
 stage of the operations was reached, we had the 
 satisfaction of each receiving a small medal of the 
 refined tin, stamped with Messrs. Bolitho's trade 
 mark, a pleasing memento of our visit. 
 
 Tin-mining in Cornwall has seriously suffered 
 from the rich deposits that are now being worked 
 in Australia and America. During the last ten 
 years, more than a hundred mines have ceased to 
 work. Copper, too, though never of anything like 
 equal importance with tin in Cornwall, has gone 
 on gradually decreasing in the quantity obtained. 
 
 Next to the granite and metalliferous deposits, 
 the most interesting Cornish rock is the Serpentine, 
 a tough, compact stone, which is often veined so 
 beautifully as to make it valuable for decorative 
 purposes. It forms a large portion of the Lizard
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 47 
 
 district, where it may be seen in the high cliffs, 
 intruding into the slates, and sometimes itself 
 invaded by another igneous rock called Gabbro. 
 It is curious that this Serpentine, forming a kind 
 of plateau in a basin of surrounding hornblendic 
 schists, may be identified by means of the pretty 
 Cornish heath, Erica vagans, which grows on the 
 Serpentine in great profusion, and scarcely any- 
 where else. De la Beche supposed that the 
 Serpentine appeared during the deposition of the 
 Killas or Devonian clay-slates ; and it is clearly an 
 eruptive rock like the granite. It is impossible to 
 describe the delight we experienced in rambling 
 over this peninsula, climbing the Logan Rock, 
 which, though hundreds of tons in weight, could 
 yet be made to swing by a mere push ; gazing at 
 the white and golden sands of Kynance Cove, and 
 exploring the wondrous caves which the devouring 
 sea has eaten out of the hard cliffs in many a 
 place. 
 
 Igneous and metalliferous rocks are so general 
 and so important in Cornwall that no apology need 
 be offered for this somewhat lengthy, yet all too 
 scanty, description of them ; for, indeed, very little 
 else remains to be remarked in the geology of this 
 county, the stratified rocks being rarely met with. 
 
 CAMBRIAN. Mr. Collins has described the old 
 slates which are seen near Camborne, Ponsanooth, 
 etc., as Cambrian ; but no fossils have been found 
 in them. 
 
 SILURIAN. In the Fowey beds, ichthyolites are 
 found, while at Gorran Haven several species of
 
 48 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 brachiopods and trilobites enable the age of the 
 beds to be discovered. 
 
 DEVONIAN. The beds of this age consist of the 
 well-known Killas, and through them vast bosses 
 of granite have burst their way. On St. Michael's 
 Mount, the junction of the granite and the Killas 
 was distinctly traced out for us by Sir W. W. 
 Smyth, who, in this excursion, conducted our party, 
 and entertained us at his summer villa close by. 
 
 CARBONIFEROUS. These are the Cornish "culm- 
 measures," and are situated on the north coast, too 
 far out of our line of march to be visited. 
 
 Until recently, no formation has been known in 
 Cornwall newer than the Palaeozoic, unless some of 
 the " elvans " or dykes of quartz-porphyry running 
 out from the granite be newer, as they certainly 
 are more recent than the granite which has burst 
 through the Devonian Killas. But, within the last 
 few years, a most interesting bed has been dis- 
 covered near St. Erth. While digging for clay for 
 the Penzance dock, a number of marine shells were 
 met with. These turned out to be identical with 
 the fossils of the Pliocene or Red Crag, which 
 every visitor to Walton-on-the-Naze has seen. 
 Here a busy hour was spent by our company ; and 
 I was able to obtain a good supply of Nassa, 
 Turritella, and a few other things. Can it be that 
 this deposit means that the sea, so recently as the 
 Pliocene age, stretched from the Atlantic away to 
 the Mediterranean, where similar fossils are found, 
 and that the deposits of the crag period have since 
 been denuded from the entire tract of country
 
 RAMBLES IN CORNWALL. 49 
 
 between Cornwall and Norfolk ? This is a question 
 suggested by the opening up of this modern bed 
 in the bosom of Palaeozoic Cornwall, and shows 
 the importance o'f the discovery. 
 
 Time fails me to tell of the innumerable other 
 interesting walks and drives which helped to fill up 
 that sunny week. What delightful clambering we 
 had over the crags of St. Michael's Mount, glittering 
 here and there with valuable streaks of mineral I 
 what glorious rides on brake and coach through the 
 winding lanes, whose tangled banks gave constant 
 interest to the botanist ! How gleefully we scampered 
 over fields to pluck a root of chicory growing wild 
 in profusion, or through quiet glens filled with the 
 restful music of the babbling brook, where flourished 
 in all. its glory the Queen of Ferns, Osmunda 
 regalis! With what indescribable emotions we paddled 
 about bays and coves in the deepening gloaming, 
 watching the bright phosphorescence which at 
 intervals flashed along the ripples of water made 
 by our oars and keels ! These and many other 
 marvels must be passed over, but they can never be 
 forgotten. A tour like this, during which some of 
 the secrets and beauties of nature are beheld in the 
 company of those who know how to interpret them, 
 leaves influences arid lessons of life-long import. 
 I cannot resist the temptation to quote a passage 
 from Quatrefages' charming pages, which more 
 than any words that I can conceive gives a descrip- 
 tion, so far as such feelings can be described, of the 
 sentiments which again and again filled my mind 
 during the fleeting hours spent on the gleaming 
 
 4
 
 50 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 strands of those Cornish coves, or on the quiet 
 waters of those Cornish bays, or on the wild 
 nigged cliffs that rib them round as with im- 
 pregnable barriers : " If you still preserve any of 
 those illusions which, day by day, are vanishing 
 amid the turmoils of life, if you regret the dreams 
 that have fled never to return, go to the ocean side, 
 and there on its sonorous banks you will assuredly 
 recall some of the golden fancies that shed their 
 radiance over the hours of your youth. If your 
 heart have been struck by any of those poignant 
 griefs which darken a whole life, go to the borders 
 of the sea, seek out some lonely beach, beyond 
 reach of the exacting conventionalities of society, and 
 when your spirit is well-nigh broken with anguish, 
 seek some elevated rock, where your eye may at once 
 scan the heaving ocean and the firmament above ; 
 listen to the grand harmonious voices of the winds and 
 waves, as at one moment they seem to murmur gen- 
 tle melodies, and at another swell in the thundering 
 crash of their majesty ; mark the capricious undu- 
 lations of the waves, as far as the bounds of the 
 horizon, where they merge into the fantastic figures 
 of the clouds and seem to rise before your eyes into 
 the liquid sky above. Give yourself up to the sense 
 of infinitude which is stealing over your mind, and 
 soon the tears you shed will have lost their bitter- 
 ness ; you will feel ere long that there is nothing 
 in this world which can so thoroughly alleviate the 
 sorrows of the heart as the contemplation of nature, 
 and of the sublime spectacle of creation, which leads 
 us back to God " (Rambles of a Naturalist, I. 120).
 
 III. 
 
 ANCIENT SLATE-INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 " It is a lonely place, and at the side 
 Rises a mountain rock with rugged pride, 
 And in that rock are shapes of shells, and forms 
 Of creatures in old worlds." 
 
 CEABBE. 
 
 '0 student of Geology is likely to be very 
 long before he is introduced to the 
 Graptolites, and having once seen those 
 lustrous pyritous impressions which in 
 many localities cover the Silurian slates as though 
 with silvery hieroglyphics, he will never forget 
 them. They are as curious as they are beautiful, 
 and no extinct forms have given rise to more 
 discussion respecting their structure and palaeonto- 
 logical significance. 
 
 The name of these fossils was given to them 
 from their resemblance to lines of writing, their 
 similarity to some of the old inscribed stone slabs 
 being very striking in the case of a not overcrowded 
 layer of slate. They have never been found outside 
 the Cambrian and Silurian systems, being most 
 abundant at the base of the Silurian formation, and
 
 52 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 in the upper Cambrian strata. It will be seen then 
 that graptolites furnish a most valuable test of the 
 age of the rocks in which they occur. For want 
 of a little information of this kind a speculator 
 some years ago spent a large sum in searching 
 for coal amongst the black shales of Tullygirvan 
 
 FIG. %.Didymograptw Murchisoni. 
 
 in Ireland, notwithstanding that every blow of the 
 pick revealed quantities of graptolites which would 
 have informed the merest tyro in geology that he 
 was working rocks that had been deposited vast 
 ages before the coal forests began to grow. 
 
 The best places in this country for obtaining 
 these most interesting fossils are the Lower Silurian 
 beds of Dumfriesshire, the soft shales of which are
 
 ANCIENT SLATE-INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 53 
 
 easy to work, at Low-wood on the eastern side of 
 Lake Windermere, in the slaty shales of the railway 
 cutting near Conway station, in the slate quarries 
 of Llansantfroid in Denbighshire, in the Arenig 
 rocks of Port Madoc in North Wales, and of 
 Ramsey Island, at St. David's, and other places 
 in South Wales, in the Ludlow series of the Upper 
 Silurians, and in the 
 Wenlock shales of 
 Builth. 
 
 The zoological charac- 
 ters of the graptolite are 
 not easy to discover from 
 their fossil remains, 
 especially as there is no 
 known living form with 
 which they can be 
 grouped. The truth is 
 that our modern classi- 
 fications, whilst extensive 
 enough to include within 
 their limits every organic 
 form both extinct and 
 surviving, require a few spaces to be left in 
 which to place some fossilized remains of creatures 
 that are totally unlike anything now existing. 
 Graptolites are of this kind. While presenting 
 a few similarities to the broader characteristics 
 of Hydrozoa, they yet differ so radically from all 
 other Hydrozoa as to lead Professor Nicholson 
 to set them apart in a sub-class which he calls 
 Graptolitoidea, corresponding to Allnian's Rhab- 
 
 FIG. IQ.Sertularia fusca, 
 (a) Colony, natural size, 
 (*) Calycles, magnified.
 
 54 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 dophora. Other allied groups of Hydrozoa are the 
 sub-class Hydroida, of which Hydra and Sertularia 
 are known to every microscopist. The less known 
 snb-classes Siphonophora and Lucernarida, along 
 with the Hydrocorallinae or Millepores, leading 
 on to Corals, the latter, however, belonging to 
 Actinozoa, which with Hydrozoa make up the 
 sub-kingdom of Coelenterata. 
 
 Although Graptolites have very little in common 
 with any of these groups, yet it will be easier to 
 convey an idea of what their structure probably 
 was by drawing attention to the familiar Sertularia 
 or Sea-fir. A representation of one of these, 
 Sertularia fusca, is given (Fig. 10). The entire 
 colony, or polypary, as it is called, is seen at a, being 
 in appearance very much like a plant, and, indeed, 
 is picked up on the sea shore by multitudes who 
 suppose it to be a seaweed. At b is a magnified 
 view of a portion of the colony, where the shape 
 of the cups or calycles can be more easily made 
 out. These caps or cells are inhabited by polypes 
 or lowly jelly-like creatures. The stem is horny 
 and hollow, giving off many horny branches. The 
 polypes are connected with each other and with the 
 polypary by a fleshy tissue called the ccenosarc 
 (common flesh), which runs through the hollow 
 stems of the colony or hydrosoma. Occasionally 
 there will be found on the branches of the polypary 
 little capsules, called gonothecae, which may be 
 seen by the naked eye, but must be magnified in 
 order to perceive their shape. These are concerned 
 in reproduction. The embryo emerges from these
 
 ANCIENT SLA TE-INSCRIP TIONS. 
 
 55 
 
 as a free swimming animal, a sort of jelly fish, 
 which, however, soon settles down and proceeds to 
 establish a colony. Fig. 11 shows the magnified 
 calycles, and also a much enlarged reproductive 
 capsule of the common Sea-fir (Sertularia abietina). 
 For the purpose of 
 comparison a por- 
 
 tion of graptolite is 
 added at Fig. 12, 
 showing a magni- 
 fied view of what 
 are regarded as cor- 
 responding to the 
 calycles or cells of 
 Sertularia. 
 
 It is probable 
 that Graptolites 
 were in some re- 
 pects similar to 
 these Sea-firs. The 
 
 double Graptolites (Fig. 13) look rather like Sea- 
 pens (Pennatula). This led Page to regard them 
 as allied to these members of the order of Actinozoa, 
 but the resemblance is merely 
 external. Others have ranged 
 the Graptolites amongst Polyzoa, 
 which gives them a still higher 
 y,. development, but there is very 
 chisoni. little justification for this. Few 
 
 palaeontologists or zoologists are more competent to 
 decide such a question than Professor Nicholson of 
 Aberdeen, who makes them a sub-class of Hydrozoa, 
 
 FIG. 11. Sea-fir (Sertularia aMetind) 
 with magnified calycles and capsule.
 
 56 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 regarding them as nearly related to the Sea-firs 
 In support of this it is said that Mr. Hopkinson 
 discovered egg-bearing capsules (Gonothecae) in 
 Graptolites. Nicholson figures what he calls 
 capsules in his monograph of the Graptolitidse 
 
 FIG. 13. Double Graptolite (Diployraptus pristis). 
 
 which he found on some of his specimens. Fossil 
 Graptolites are of course destitute of all traces of 
 the animals which inhabited them, and we possess 
 very little more than the mere stems upon which 
 the polypes were seated. Professor Allman, how- 
 ever, doubts if these objects figured by Nicholson 
 really are egg-cases. He supposes that Graptolites
 
 ANCIENT SLATE-INSCRIPTIONS. 57 
 
 were not reproduced after the manner of Sertularians, 
 but were developed by budding. The cups he 
 thinks were filled with protoplasmic matter called 
 Nematophores. From these characters he is induced 
 to place the Graptolites as low down as Rhizopods. 
 We are compelled, therefore, to leave the point in 
 some degree of uncertainty, and to take the tolerably 
 safe position of regarding these curious organisms 
 as being nearly related to Sea-firs, while at the 
 same time they possess some characters of the much 
 lower class of Rhizopoda of which Foraminifera 
 are familiar members. 
 
 These preliminary observations will, it is hoped, 
 enable every reader to understand the following 
 somewhat technical definition of Graptolitoidea 
 given in Nicholson's Manual of Zoology, page 167 : 
 " Hydrosoma (the entire organism) compound, 
 occasionally branched, consisting of numerous poly- 
 pites united by a coenosarc; the latter being enclosed 
 in a strong, tubular, chitinous polypary, whilst the 
 former were protected by hydrothecae (cups). In 
 the great majority of Graptolites the hydrosoma 
 was certainly unattached; but in some aberrant 
 forms doubtfully belonging to the sub-class 
 there is reason to believe that the hydrosoma 
 was fixed. In many cases the hydrosoma was 
 strengthened by a chitiuous rod, the solid axis or 
 virgula, somewhat analogous to the chitinous rod 
 which strengthens the polyzoary in the singular 
 Polyzoon, Rhabdopleura. This axial rod lies in a 
 groove on the dorsal side of the polypary (i.e. on 
 the side opposite to that on which the hydrothecae
 
 5 8 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 are developed), and it may be prolonged beyond 
 one or both ends of the colony. The polypary is 
 typically famished at its proximal end with a 
 minnte triangular or dagger-shaped spine (sicula), 
 which represents the embryonic skeleton." 
 
 Graptolites differ from Sertularia in possessing 
 the axis and sicula, while it is quite certain that 
 the typical forms were free swimming and not 
 fixed as Sea-firs always are. 
 
 There are two main groups of Graptolites, one 
 of which (monoprionidian) is characterized by a 
 row .of hydrothecse or cups on one side only of the 
 rod, whilst the other (diprionidian) has a row of 
 cups on each side of the axis. There are others 
 which have four rows of hydrothecae (Tetragraptvs). 
 The diprionidian Graptolites are found in the Cam- 
 brian and Silurian rocks, the ordinary form (mono- 
 prionidian) being found only in the Cambrian. 
 These two forms are illustrated by the ordinary 
 twin Graptolite {Didymograptus Murchisoni} at 
 Fig. 9 and the double Graptolite {Diplograptus 
 pristis) at Fig. 13. 
 
 This discussion respecting the nature and affinities 
 of Graptolites has a very important bearing on 
 the evolution theory. It is significant that while 
 marking so definitely a distinct geological period 
 these interesting fossils appear and disappear with 
 startling abruptness without any apparent cause, 
 revealing such slender relationship to other animal 
 groups as to make it quite impossible to rank them 
 with any other organisms. The believer in the 
 doctrine of special creation may certainly find much
 
 ANCIENT SLATE-INSCRIPTIONS. 59 
 
 to corroborate his views in the history of Graptolites, 
 especially if he be willing to take the moderate 
 position preferred by many Christian students of 
 science, namely, that creation was by method or 
 process Divine law or even law of Nature it may 
 be called operating sometimes slowly, as we see 
 it, and at other times rapidly, as though by special 
 manifestations of creative energy. In those remote 
 ages in which Graptolites flourished, types of life 
 seem to have swept in one after the other in waves, 
 as if some Supreme Power were forcing them on. 
 The leading groups of Palaeozoic animals, Molluscs, 
 Crustaceans, Fishes, Reptiles, seem to have had no 
 ancestors, and can only be linked on to each other 
 by creations of the human imagination and by 
 supposing such vast geological blanks as we have 
 no right to take for granted. These views are 
 amplified by Professor Dawson in his Chain of 
 Life, from which the following quotation may fitly 
 be taken as the conclusion of this chapter : " The 
 progress of life is not gradual but intermittent, and 
 consists in the sudden and rapid influx of new forms 
 destined to increase and multiply in the place of 
 those which are becoming effete and ready to vanish 
 away or to sink to a lower place. Further, since 
 the great waves of aquatic life roll in with each 
 great subsidence of the land, a fact which coincides 
 with their appearance in the limestones of the 
 successive periods, it follows that it is not a struggle 
 for existence, but expansion under favourable cir- 
 cumstances, the opening up of new fields of 
 migration that is favourable to the introduction
 
 60 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 of new species. The testimony of palaeontology on 
 this point, in my judgment, altogether subverts the 
 prevalent theory of l survival of the fittest,' and 
 shows that the struggle for existence, so far from 
 being a cause of development and improvement, 
 has led only to decay and extinction, whereas the 
 advent of new and favourable conditions, and the 
 removal of severe competition, are the circumstances 
 favourable to the introduction of new and advanced 
 species." 
 
 Opinions so authoritative, based upon such weighty 
 considerations, are deserving of respectful and care- 
 ful attention, and should certainly make all who 
 desire to know the truth and to see it prevail receive 
 with the utmost caution any partial hypothesis which 
 requires so much aid from the imagination to make 
 it fit in to the demands of the case as do many of 
 the current theories and speculations concerning the 
 origin and development of life on the earth.
 
 IV. 
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 
 
 Life's needful functions, food, exertion, rest, 
 By nice economy of Providence, 
 Were ever ruled to carry on the work 
 Which out of water brought forth solid rock." 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 of the most lovely and enjoyable 
 walks that can be found on the Kentish 
 coast is the one from Folkestone to 
 Dover. The lofty chalk cliffs broken 
 into infinite shapes by the action of the waves, the 
 glittering pebbly beach making ceaseless music as 
 the water ripples over it, the sparkling brightness 
 of the sea as it gently rolls at the feet, all combine 
 to make a picture of indescribable beauty. Some 
 would prefer to wander along the upper cliffs, from 
 which on a sunny day the coast of France is dis- 
 tinctly visible over the expanse of undulating billows, 
 and to descend occasionally into the sheltered nooks 
 formed by landslips of greater or less extent, where 
 mare's tails grow profusely, and where now and 
 then the blindworm, so like a young adder to the 
 uninitiated, glides forth ; but he who has a geologist's
 
 62 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 tastes and a geologist's legs will soon haste down the 
 broken slopes of the Folkestone Warren, and tramp 
 the flinty shingle with unwearying feet, that he may 
 feast his eyes on the magnificent sections of the chalk 
 formations which are presented all the way along. 
 If the tide is going out the walk under the cliffs is 
 perfectly safe, and for a considerable distance the 
 foreshore will prove a most attractive field to the 
 hunter of fossils. Here is found one of the most 
 accessible sections of the Gault, a dark stiff bluish 
 clay, which lies at the very base of the upper 
 Cretaceous strata, and described as being from 100 
 to 200 feet in thickness. Immense quantities of 
 iron pyrites and phosphatic nodules lie about, some 
 of them so smooth and spherical that paterfamilias 
 may carry them home for marbles, while others are 
 bright with sulphur, and present, when split open, 
 the most graceful crystalline forms. But more 
 valuable than these to the geologist are the swarms 
 of Ammonites, many of them resplendent with the 
 hues of mother-of-pearl, the numerous Belemnites, 
 so called from their resemblance to a horny dart, 
 the regularly grooved shells of the Inoceramus, the 
 finely streaked Nucula, the curious Hamite, and 
 many others, which are thickly strewn about. In 
 some places the bed looks like one mass of fossils, 
 and all around 
 
 " Are shapes of shells, and forms 
 Of creatures in old worlds, and nameless worms, 
 Whole generations which lived and died ere man, 
 A worm of other class, to crawl began." 
 
 During several visits, none of them of more than
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 63 
 
 a few hours' duration, I have collected the following : 
 Ammonites margaritatus, A. tuberculatus, A. inter- 
 ruptus, several other species of Ammonites, Belem- 
 nites minimus and others, Hamites rotundus, 
 Inoceramus sulcatus, I. concentricus, Rostellaria 
 carinata, Solarium, Nucula ovata, N. pectinata, 
 Natica Gaultina, Pleurotomaria Gibsii, Turrilites 
 elegans, Ostrea carinata, Pentacrinus Fittoni, Spine 
 of Echinus, Teredo, Carapace of Crab, Lobster, and 
 Saurian vertebrae. As there are some 250 species 
 at least recorded for the Gault it would be easy to 
 add to this list by remaining at Folkestone long 
 enough to take advantage of the most favourable 
 tides. 
 
 The hammer and chisel are of little use for the 
 Gault. Its fossil contents must be carefully cut out 
 with a knife, and even the most delicate handling 
 will not always secure them unbroken. Let the 
 amateur take up a ball of the plastic clay and 
 mould it with his hands into an apple-dumpling 
 shape, sticking upon it with as much artistic taste 
 as he possesses the various specimens picked up, 
 and this, when hardened by keeping, will make a 
 capital paper-weight for the study table, and will 
 serve as a miniature representation of the Gault. 
 
 But we must leave this fruitful necropolis of 
 ancient cretaceous beings, so fascinating to the 
 geologist, but a terror to the Channel Tunnel 
 engineers, and round the point which terminates 
 the Warren. 
 
 Now the chalk proper may be witnessed in all its 
 glory. From this spot to Lydden Spout the cliffs
 
 64 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 rear themselves up almost perpendicularly from 
 high-water mark, aud distinct bands of different 
 cretaceous deposits can be seen. At the bottom, 
 lying on the Gault, is a thin layer of chalk marl, 
 next above which is a thick band of grey chalk, the 
 delight of the tunnellist, and after this comes an 
 important deposit of white chalk without flints, 
 composed mainly of crumbled foraminifera and 
 mollusca, presenting under the microscope a re- 
 markable similarity to the deep sea ooze of our own 
 time ; while last of all is a layer of nodular chalk 
 containing many flints. It is said that these nodules 
 are simply petrified sponges, and that flints are of 
 similar origin. These animals yes, sponges are 
 animals long before we were born secreted great 
 quantities of silica from the water of the ancient 
 seas, which after the death of the sponges became 
 a nucleus around which were aggregated other 
 elements by chemical agencies, the whole hardening 
 afterwards into the unbreakable flints that are so 
 cordially hated by those who have the management 
 of the cutters in the Channel Tunnel operations. 
 But this is not the only theory afloat concerning 
 the origin of flints. 
 
 Near Lydden Spout some idea of the action of 
 the sea in wearing down rocks may be obtained. 
 A very useful path winding down from the coast- 
 guard station to the beach below has been quite 
 washed away for some distance at the bottom in 
 the space of a few months, and now the pedestrian, 
 if he should reach the spot when the water is coming 
 in, may find himself in serious difficulties. A little
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 65 
 
 farther along the South Eastern Railway Company 
 are being compelled to pay attention to the founda- 
 tions of their line. Enormous changes are attributed 
 to this denuding power of the ocean, and it is sup- 
 posed by most geologists that this "tight little 
 island " has been gradually separated from the 
 continent by the wear of ceaseless waves through 
 years uncountable. It may have been, however, 
 that more violent agencies had something to do 
 with the existence of the " silver streak," and perhaps 
 this rent in the earth's ribs was first started by 
 some volcanic shock or spasm of earthquake. One 
 advantage of being a geologist is that you have 
 carte blanche to theorize, and you are not obliged 
 to give yourself any trouble about proof. It is 
 certain, however, that England was once joined to 
 France, for there, on the other side of the twenty 
 odd miles that separate perfidious Albion from her 
 artless neighbour, are the clear evidences of the 
 union which formerly existed. Layer after layer, 
 from the Gault to the upper chalk, appears on the 
 French coast, in exactly the same order and with 
 perfect identity, as regards fossil contents and litho- 
 logical structure, as are exhibited in the Folkestone 
 and Dover cliffs. The dip, or inclination, of those 
 strata is such as to demonstrate that the chalk bed 
 which is most favourable for tunnelling operations 
 lies almost horizontally across the Straits, and there- 
 fore, as Professor Boyd Dawkins, who led our party, 
 drily remarked to us, "Providence evidently intended 
 there should be a Channel Tunnel, whatever the 
 Duke of Cambridge or Lord Wolseley may say." 
 
 5
 
 66 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 The works of the " Submarine Continental Rail- 
 way Co." lie under the shadow of the mighty 
 Shakespeare Cliff, which rises sheer up from the 
 beach to a height of 450 feet. At the first blush 
 the smoking chimneys and grimy sheds strike the 
 spectator as a black and offensive spot on the fair 
 whiteness of the chalk background, but one has to 
 remind himself that this is a utilitarian age, and 
 has little patience with that sentiment which would 
 fain roll away the murky smoke from our leaden 
 skies, and hurl back the iron wheels that disturb 
 the solitude of every peaceful glen. 
 
 Admission into the works was obtained by a 
 written order bearing the signature of Sir E. W. 
 Watkin. Our Open Sesame had of course been 
 previously provided, and we were able to see all 
 that our eyes might have been trained to see. 
 Machines of various kinds, Swan's electric lighting 
 engines, powerful lifting machinery, and engines 
 for pumping aif into the tunnel and water out of it, 
 all possessed a charm because of their association 
 with this great undertaking ; but of such things I 
 forbear to write, remembering the old proverb about 
 the cobbler and the last, which perhaps I ought 
 to quote rather in the dignified words of Apelles 
 when he rebuked an impertinent shoemaker who 
 dared to criticise a slipper in one of his pictures, 
 Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 
 
 The shaft, of course, is the chief object of interest 
 to the sight-seer. This descends to a depth of 160 
 feet, and constitutes the only outlet for the debris
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 67 
 
 of the tunnelling operations. If the tunnel should 
 ever become un fait accompli, there will be inclined 
 planes of considerable length on the two coasts, 
 gradually leading to the bottom. It has, perhaps, 
 not been generally understood through the country 
 that the work has progressed so far as we found to 
 be the case, and something like surprise was felt 
 even by our legislators when the indefatigable 
 " hecklers " of St. Stephen's elicited the fact that 
 over two miles of tunnel had actually been com- 
 pleted. On the English side 2,400 yards, and on 
 the French side 1,600 yards, have been excavated. 
 At present the work is at a standstill, and seems 
 likely to remain so if we may judge from the recent 
 votes of Parliament. 
 
 Geologists and mining engineers are quite agreed 
 as to the practicability of this gigantic undertaking. 
 The problem of ventilation may be regarded as 
 solved, and it is not likely that the atmosphere of 
 the tunnel will ever be any worse than that of the 
 Metropolitan Railway. The possibility of faults 
 being encountered is a more formidable question, 
 although it is not thought by experienced geologists 
 that there can be any considerable alterations in the 
 submarine strata. Professor Boyd Dawkins, who 
 has measured and examined every foot of the rocks 
 concerned, so far as they are accessible, is of opinion 
 that the one care of the excavators must be to 
 keep out of the Gault clay, and then such minor 
 faults as might occur may be rendered harmless 
 by the use of iron tubes, or by lining the exposed
 
 68 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 face with plates of iron cemented together. The 
 French have already met with one of these 
 fractures, but were able easily to get back into the 
 right formation. 
 
 As regards the commercial advantages which this 
 country would derive from the Channel Tunnel 
 there is scarcely any division of opinion. The total 
 exports and imports between England and the Con- 
 tinent reach an annual value of 400 millions sterling. 
 Hence there must be considerable loss by damage, 
 as well as delay, in loading and unloading, especially 
 in cases of transhipment at London, all of which 
 might be avoided if goods could be taken direct 
 from this country to any part of Europe. The 
 shipping interest has fiercely opposed the scheme ; 
 and Mr. Henry Lee was even requested by a section 
 of his constituents to resign his seat in Parliament 
 on account of the evidence given by him before the 
 Parliamentary Committee. The same spirit as 
 that which Southampton manifested would have 
 prevented the introduction of machinery into manu- 
 facturing industry, and so have checked the growth 
 of England's prosperity and wealth. Mr. Giffen, 
 of the Board of Trade, believes that ultimately the 
 shipping interest would reap great benefit from the 
 tunnel, for the loss now suffered is causing many 
 to send their cargoes direct to the continental 
 ports. 
 
 It has been urged as a reason for not carrying 
 out the work that it might lead to a complete 
 breaking down of all our healthy insular peculiarities,
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 69 
 
 and that in social and national life the English 
 would become assimilated to Continental ideas. 
 Some of our insular prejudices might with great 
 advantage be replaced by more cosmopolitan notions. 
 But why should not the reverse process take place 
 in the leavening of French society with English 
 sentiments and ideas ? Such objections, however, 
 are hardly worth considering, for they cut at the 
 root of all intercourse between nations, and would, 
 if carried to their logical issue, lead us into Chinese 
 exclusiveness and stagnation. 
 
 The weightiest objection against the construction 
 of the tunnel, and the one that is likely to prove 
 fatal to the scheme, is that which is raised by the 
 military authorities of the country. There would, 
 say our leading generals, be a standing danger in 
 the possibility of an enemy possessing himself of 
 the entire works, and so effecting an easy entrance 
 into our very midst ; and, moreover, in time of 
 diplomatic differences there would be the recurrence 
 of panics which might lead to the unnecessary 
 destruction of valuable property. Sir Lintorn 
 Simmons, Inspector of Fortifications, amused the 
 Committee of Inquiry by stating his opinion that a 
 government so insane as to permit a tunnel being 
 made, would be insane enough not to destroy it in 
 time of danger. 
 
 The idea of invading England by means of a 
 submarine passage is not a new one. There is an old 
 engraving in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, 
 dated 1803, which shows that Napoleon, then First
 
 70 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Consul, had snch a plan actually laid before him. 
 The picture represents a tunnel crowded with 
 soldiers and cannon, while the sea above swarms 
 with vessels, and the air is filled with balloons. 
 It is admitted on all hands that the tunnel could be 
 rendered useless in a few minutes, and war between 
 civilised peoples never breaks out without consider- 
 able warning and preparation. Even France would 
 not be capable of seizing the English defences and 
 garrison by a coup de main without awakening 
 previous suspicion. 
 
 The arrangements proposed for the temporary 
 demolition of the tunnel are such as these : 
 by means of a portcullis at the mouth of the 
 tunnel, several lengths of rails could be im- 
 mediately removed, and a trap-bridge raised. 
 Ventilation could at once be stopped, and shingle 
 in large quantities heaped up in the way of a 
 hostile force. Besides which, it would be possible 
 to carry alongside the tunnel, or underneath it, 
 mine galleries in which dynamite could be per- 
 manently kept in sufficient quantities to render the 
 tunnel impassable in a few seconds. Sluice-valves, 
 also, might be so constructed as to flood the tunnel 
 at a very short notice. 
 
 Of course, as Lord Wolseley has said, military 
 arrangements are never in perfect order in time 
 of peace ; but then it is not reasonable to suppose 
 that all these arrangements, so simple and effective, 
 would be found to be out of order at the same 
 moment.
 
 A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 71 
 
 M. de Lesseps has lately said, " If the Channel 
 Tunnel be not now completed, the glory of the 
 work will belong to the next century, along with 
 the right to wonder at our hesitations, and perhaps 
 at our prejudices."
 
 V. 
 
 DEAD SEA-LILIES. 
 
 1 Here, too, were living flowers, 
 Which, like a bud compacted, 
 Their purple cups contracted ; 
 And now in open blossom spread, 
 Stretch'd, like green anthers, many a seeking head. 
 And arborets of jointed stone were there." 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 NY one looking at an encrinite for the 
 first time would probably suspect that 
 it was the remains of a dead flower. 
 And when it was alive it was still more 
 like a plant. But it is an animal, or rather a 
 colony of animals. And though lying here in be- 
 tween the layers of a Silurian slab, or flattened out 
 on a slice of Liassic shale, dead enough, and only 
 the skeleton of its former self, it is sufficiently 
 beautiful to justify us in calling it a dead Sea-lily. 
 
 Crinoids, the fossils of which are usually called 
 Encrinites, belong to the sub-kingdom of Echino- 
 dermata, or spiny-skinned animals, which at one 
 time Professor Huxley included with the lower 
 worms (Scolecida) in the proposed sub-kingdom 
 Annuloida or ring-like animals.
 
 DEAD SEA-LILIES. 73 
 
 The star-fish and sea-urchin are the most familiar 
 examples of echinoderms. Indeed, the sea-lily may 
 be called a stalked star-fish. There are two types 
 of Crinoids. (1) Sessile, which, after the develop- 
 mental stages have been gone through, are not 
 permanently fixed or " rooted," and hence are spoken 
 of frequently as "free." A common living example 
 of these is Comatula rosacea. (2) Stalked or 
 pedunculated, which are permanently fixed when 
 fully developed. Apiocrinus rotundus is a good 
 example (Frontispiece). The column is often very 
 long, and is composed of many joints, which are so 
 articulated with each other as to give great flexibility 
 to the stem. 
 
 A Crinoid may be described as an echinoderm 
 having its body fixed, during a part or the whole of 
 its existence, by means of a flexible stalk or column. 
 The body is cup-shaped, and hence is called the 
 " Calyx." It is covered with an external armour 
 of calcareous plates, the upper surface being 
 protected with smaller plates, loosely connected 
 together by a leathery membrane. Its mouth is on 
 the upper surface, thus differing from the star-fish, 
 which has the mouth underneath. From the margin 
 of the body spring five jointed arms, which some- 
 times subdivide, thus producing ten, or even fifteen, 
 branches. These carry innumerable pinnules, and 
 so form a cluster of delicate feathery plumes. 
 
 In regard to the mode of locomotion of larval 
 and free Crinoids, the ambulacral, or water vascular 
 system, respiration, and the nervous and reproductive 
 organs, I must refer the reader to the text-books,
 
 74 
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 only touching upon these points where it may be 
 necessary to indicate any variations from the normal 
 characters of living Oinoids that older forms may 
 exhibit. 
 
 The earliest Encrinite is the Dendrocrinus of the 
 Cambrian age. 
 
 In the Silurian deposits, particularly in the 
 Wenlock limestone, vast numbers of encrinites 
 have been obtained, and many of them of extreme 
 beauty. The chief genera represented are Glypto- 
 crinuS) Crotalocrinus, Marsupiocrinus, Cyathocrinus, 
 Platycrinus, Taxocrinus, Ictkyocrinus, and Edrio- 
 crinus. We have selected as illustrations Marsupio- 
 crinus (marsupium, pouch) and Crotalocrinus, so 
 called from its similarity in shape to a child's rattle 
 (Greek krotalon, rattle). The arms of C. rugosus 
 begin at the top of the body, and the ossicles are 
 fastened to each other both at the sides and verti- 
 cally, thus giving the appearance of a basket-work 
 rattle (Fig. 14). 
 
 The Devonian rocks also furnish large quantities 
 of encrinites. 
 
 In the Carboniferous deposits encrinites are so 
 numerous that it has even been suggested that the 
 period to which they belong should be called " the 
 age of Crinoids." From the Yoredales of Hebden 
 Bridge very fine specimens have been obtained. 
 It would seem as if the muddier sediments of the 
 Yoredale deposits had proved suddenly fatal to vast 
 quantities of these delicate organisms, just as we 
 know would now be the case were the water in 
 which the coral polypes are carrying on their mar-
 
 DEAD SEA-LILIES. 
 
 75 
 
 vellons operations to become fooled with mud. No 
 one can have walked through the Peak District of 
 Derbyshire without having observed the " screw- 
 stones," or casts of encrinital stems which protrude 
 
 FIG. 14. SILURIAN ENCEINITES 1. Marsupiocrinus ccelatus. 
 2. Base of arms, mag. 3. Proboscis, inserted in fossil shell. 
 4. Crotalocrmus rwgosus. 5. Pelvis. 6. Flat stomach surface 
 and bases of arms. 7. Portion of 4a magnified. 
 
 from the limestone walls that form the boundaries 
 of the roads and fields all over that region. Most 
 of our readers also will be familiar with the lovely 
 black or mottled marble pieces variegated with 
 white markings of every conceivable shape, the 
 result of section through the fossil encrinites at
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 different angles. Poteriocrimts crassus (Fig. 15) is 
 one of the most frequently occurring of the Derby- 
 shire encrinites. The body or "head " is tapered in 
 shape, thus resembling the little Rhizocrinus Lofo- 
 tensis which has been dredged up alive from the 
 depths of the North Sea by Dr. Carpenter and Sir 
 Wyville Thompson. In other respects, however, 
 Rhizocrinus finds affinities with an ancient race of 
 crinoids which flourished in 
 Jurassic times, and of which 
 Apiocrinus rotundus is a con- 
 spicuous specimen (Frontis- 
 piece). Other carboniferous 
 crinoids are the genera 
 Actinocrinus, Cyathocrinus, 
 Gilbertocrinus, Taxocrinus, 
 Woodocrinus, Platycrinus. 
 Numerous as are the British 
 Carboniferous encrinites, 
 they occur in still vaster 
 numbers in North America. 
 Very few occur in the Permian strata. This does 
 not mean that they had died out, for they reappear 
 in large numbers in later epochs. 
 
 The Secondary encrinites are not so numerous as 
 the Primary, but they are, in the main, of a higher 
 type. The encrinites of the Secondary rocks mainly 
 differ from those of the Primary in not having the 
 grooves of the arms arched over, but the mouth 
 and the grooves concerned in obtaining food were 
 open to the surface and continuous, whereas the 
 
 FIG. 15. 
 Head of Poterwcrimig.
 
 DEAD SEA-LILIES. 77 
 
 Palaeozoic crinoids mostly had the upper surface of 
 the calyx covered by a sort of dome, composed of 
 limy pieces of plates, the mouth and grooves not 
 being open to the surface. The grooves, in fact, 
 were veritable tunnels running to the mouth under- 
 neath the plates. These types are sometimes 
 referred to under the names Palasocrinoids and 
 Neocrinoids, but it would not be safe to regard these 
 terms, which were suggested by Dr. P. H. Carpenter, 
 as applying exclusively to geological age. 
 
 There are considerable numbers of encrinites in 
 the Triassic formations. One of the most beautiful 
 of all is the Encrinus liliiformis, which is peculiar 
 to the Muschelkalk of Germany, a deposit not found 
 in the English Trias. Its flower-like head is sup- 
 ported gracefully on a rounded stalk, the joints of 
 which are curiously articulated with one another, 
 while the fringed arms are each composed of a 
 double series of tiny plates of lime. 
 
 In the Jurassic deposits crinoids continue to be 
 common, more especially those belonging to the 
 genus Pentacrinus, the columns of which are five- 
 sided (pentagonal), having long slender arms. 
 Pentacrinus Briarem, so familiar to every visitor to 
 the Whitby Lias, possesses no less than a hundred 
 and fifty joints in the five pinnated arms of one 
 individual. These were covered with muscles and 
 an integument, which kept the innumerable ossicles 
 in their place, while the membrane was covered 
 with the minute cilia, the function of which was to 
 effect motion and propel the water down the grooves 
 that everywhere converged towards the mouth.
 
 7 8 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 When found in the softer clays of Lincoln and 
 Whitby the joints are separate from each other, 
 and have for a long time been picked up and valued 
 as ornaments. In more ignorant and superstitious 
 days they were even supposed to have been the 
 relics of ancient personal decoration and the em- 
 blems of devotion. In Scott's Marmion we find 
 this myth referred to in the following lines : 
 
 "On a rock by Lindisfarne 
 St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 
 The sea-born beads which bear his name." 
 
 Apiocrinits is a common Oolitic genus. The 
 crinoids of this group had a long column, which 
 was rounded and expanded at the uppermost joints, 
 forming with the summit a pear-shaped mass, and 
 hence obtaining the name of the Pear encrinite. 
 The organism was generally fixed to some hard 
 body, such as a shell, the base of the column being 
 spread out on the surface of such object just as the 
 common sea- weed (Corallina officinalis) arranges 
 itself on the sea-bed. 
 
 In the Jurassic rocks we meet with the more 
 highly developed crinoids, such as Saccosoma. This 
 greatly resembled the modern Comatula, or feather 
 star. When young it was attached, but like 
 Comatula it became free after having passed through 
 the larval stages. When the living larva of Coma- 
 tula was first dredged up it was supposed to be 
 one of the fixed or pedunculated crinoids, and was 
 named Pentacrinus Europaus, but its true nature 
 is now well understood. It is generally held that
 
 DEAD SEA-LILIES. 79 
 
 Crinoids are allied to the star-fishes through 
 Comatula and Euryale, while they are linked on to 
 the sea-urchins by the Saccosoma of the Oolites 
 and the Marsupites of the Chalk. 
 
 A marked decrease in the number of encrinites 
 is observable in the Cretaceous deposits. The 
 stalked crinoids are represented by the genera 
 Pentacrinus and Bourgueticrinus. Amongst the free 
 crinoids are the feather-star and the tortoise en- 
 crinites (Marsupites). 
 
 The process of diminution continued through post- 
 Cretaceous times. In Eocene beds Crinoids are very 
 poorly represented. But the forms which survive 
 are for the most part those of highest development, 
 such as the free or " sessile " Comatula, a typical 
 example of modern living Crinoids.
 
 VI. 
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 
 
 1 Go forth under the open sky, and list 
 To Nature's teachings." 
 
 BRYANT. 
 
 J Y friend Baxter though that is not his 
 real name happened to be spending 
 his summer holiday in the vicinity of 
 far-famed Malvern at the same time 
 as myself. One bright morning, as I was just 
 starting oif for a geological ramble, he met me, 
 and looking at me with a half-bewildered, half- 
 amused stare at my leathern bag slung over my 
 shoulder, and my thick walking-stick spud in my 
 hand, he said, " Why, you surely have not turned 
 rural postman, have you? Where in the world 
 are you off to ? " 
 
 " I'm going a-geologising," I replied ; " you 
 know the old saying, ' Blessed is the man who 
 has a hobby.' " 
 
 " Well, yon must be thrice blessed," he good- 
 humouredly answered, "for you seem to have a 
 number of hobbies. But what do you say to my
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 81 
 
 going with you to-day ? I've nothing particular 
 on hand." 
 
 " Oh, I should be very glad of your company ; 
 but do you care to undertake a tramp of a dozen 
 or fifteen miles this warm clay ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't think very much of that ; you know 
 I get some good walks on Sunday in our circuit." 
 
 "True," I answered; "you local preachers have 
 the advantage of us ministers in that respect." 
 
 " And yet some of us think we should do a little 
 better if we could get into the town pulpits 
 rather offcener," said he, laughingly. " But I will 
 just run in and tell them I am going with you." 
 
 " And, I say, just try to find a pair of boots with 
 some soles on them, will you ? A few sandwiches 
 too would be useful. I have some business to do 
 at the post-office, so I will meet you there." 
 
 Baxter soon joined me, and we started off on 
 the road that led out of the town. 
 
 " Where are you making for ? " he asked. 
 
 " What a question to ask a geologist ! " said I ; "it 
 would be impossible for me to tell you, my dear 
 fellow." 
 
 " Why, do geologists never know where they are 
 going to ? Perhaps that accounts for some of the 
 curious conclusions they arrive at," said he, with a 
 significant smile. 
 
 "Which remark is an allegory, I suppose," replied 
 I. " You know a geologist has to follow landmarks 
 when in the field, and if he is good for anything, 
 he will endeavour to do the same when he is drawing 
 conclusions from his facts and observations." 
 
 6
 
 82 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 " By the way," said Baxter, " what made you take 
 up with such a curious subject as geology? It 
 seems to me to consist mainly of hard names and 
 dry details ; and, so far as I can judge, it doesn't 
 help one much in theology." 
 
 " Your question would take a deal of answering," 
 I replied. " Geology has a great deal to do with 
 theology ; but if it had not, a preacher ought by 
 no means to limit his studies to what is technically 
 called theology. If he does, he will very likely 
 become a Dr. Dryasdust. I began to read geological 
 books long before I took to preaching, and my 
 early love has never faded. When a boy at 
 school I received Dr. Harris's Pre- Adamite Earth 
 for a prize, and I was so fascinated with its 
 marvellous stories of old-world life that the science 
 has kept hold of my imagination ever since. Your 
 ideas about it, I know, are very prevalent. I 
 remember a passage in Wordsworth's Excursion 
 which rather humorously describes the geologist : 
 
 ' You may trace him oft 
 By scars which his activity has left 
 Beside our roads and pathways 
 He who with pocket hammer smites the edge 
 Of every luckless rock or stone that stands 
 Before his sight by weather stains disguised, 
 Or crusted .o'er with vegetation thin, 
 Nature's first growth, detaching by the stroke 
 A chip or splinter to resolve his doubts ; 
 And with that ready answer satisfied, 
 Doth to the substance give some barbarous name ; 
 Then hurries on, or from the fragment picks 
 His specimen.'
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 83 
 
 If the poet had lived to this day, he would have 
 been amongst the first to recognize the value of 
 geology, and to perceive its bearing upon some 
 of the most vital problems of life and religion." 
 
 " But," said Baxter, " don't you think it would 
 have been all the better for religion if there had 
 never been any such thing as geology ? I, of course, 
 know nothing about the science, but one frequently 
 hears it said that geologists deny the Bible state- 
 ment that the world was created in six days, and 
 that their doctrines would make our planet many 
 millions of years old." 
 
 " I am afraid, my dear fellow, that many Christians 
 misunderstand geologists, just as some geologists 
 misrepresent the Bible. I think, however, the 
 time is approaching when scientific men generally 
 will see that the Christian religion does not 
 necessarily make men narrow-minded and bigoted, 
 and when there will not be a single Christian who 
 will stand in dread of scientific inquiry and 
 discovery. Now you must bear in mind that Moses 
 does not assert that the world is only six thousand 
 years old. It is doubtful whether he said that even 
 the human race is that age. The chronology of the 
 Pentateuch has been arranged with the utmost 
 care, I know ; but you are perfectly aware of 
 the vast differences that exist amongst the various 
 calculations, as, for example, those of Hales and 
 Ussher. Geology, however, has not proved man to 
 be much older than about six thousand years. The 
 wild arithmetic of a few who are of rationalistic or 
 atheistic tendencies, and who are ready to deny
 
 84 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the Bible statements, even without any scientific 
 authority, must not be taken as the deliberate and 
 final verdict of geologists. With regard to the 
 physical universe, the language of Moses harmonizes 
 perfectly with the belief in its enormous antiquity, 
 and Christians ought to feel grateful to geologists 
 for leading us out of the false interpretations which 
 for so many centuries have obscured the sacred 
 narrative. And if geology should, later on, make 
 it undeniable that the human race is of much 
 greater antiquity than we have been taught to 
 regard it, surely it is well for us to know what 
 the truth is, so that we may, in this respect also, 
 arrive at more accurate interpretations of the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 " But," said my friend, " supposing that our Bible 
 chronologies may be stretched a few thousand years 
 that would not meet the enormous demands of 
 geology, would it ? " 
 
 " I don't say it is necessary to stretch our Scripture 
 chronology. As I have said, geology has not de- 
 monstrated that man is more than about six 
 thousand years of age. I can affirm this on the 
 authority of Sir J. W. Dawson, of Montreal, one of 
 the most reliable geologists of our time. But still, 
 I don't care to regard Moses as teaching that our 
 race is no older than six thousand years, for he does 
 nothing of the kind. Your difficulty, however, I 
 can clearly see, is not with regard to man's age, 
 but arises from the fact that there must have been 
 life on the earth, according to the evidence of fossils, 
 myriads of years before Adam was created."
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 85 
 
 " Precisely so. Creation is said in Genesis to 
 have occupied six days the six days immediately 
 preceding man's appearance and I really don't see 
 how that statement can be reconciled with what 
 our geologists hold concerning the antiquity of the 
 earth, and of plants and animals. This is why I 
 have looked upon geology with mistrust, and have 
 regarded it as atheistic in tendency and anti- 
 Scriptural in teaching." 
 
 " Still, my dear friend," said I, " you must admit 
 that it is better to know the truth than that we 
 should even pin our faith to the most venerable 
 writer if he is in error. You may depend upon it, 
 the evidence of geology will have to be as clear as 
 sunlight, and as undeniable as that two and two 
 make four, before the narrative which we regard as 
 divinely inspired is given up at the bidding of that 
 science. But you need be in no sort of fear, for 
 Moses is not in the least danger yet from geological 
 researches. In fact, Moses nowhere says the uni- 
 verse was made in six days of twenty-four hours ; 
 but, rightly viewed, his language prophetically 
 sanctions the modern geological doctrines on the 
 subject of the earth's antiquity. It is probable that 
 they who lived before Moses knew better than our 
 grandfathers what the truth of this matter is, but 
 the early traditions by the time of Moses had lost 
 something of their fulness, and hence the inspired 
 language which Moses wrote has all along been 
 misunderstood, to be more accurately explained in 
 our time as the result of geological studies. As 
 soon as ever the records of the rocks were ac-
 
 86 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 curately deciphered, it was perceived that creation 
 must have occupied long ages, and theologians, put 
 upon the right scent, quickly saw that the Mosaic 
 use of the word * day ' not only sanctioned, but even 
 demanded, its recent explanation as meaning in- 
 definite duration, or uninterrupted time." 
 
 " But does not that interpretation imply the taking 
 of great liberties with the language of Scripture ? " 
 
 " Not at all," I answered. " The word ' day ' has 
 never been, nor is it now, used to denote just twenty- 
 four hours, exeept in a technical way and by an 
 accommodation of language. In common parlance 
 ' day,' as you know, means the period of light as 
 distinguished from night. By general consent the 
 word is frequently applied to long and indefinite 
 periods. It is in this sense that Moses uses it in 
 Genesis, and, -indeed, in other places. The first 
 ' day ' was the first period in which light was 
 caused to shine on the darkness and confusion of 
 the earth's primary condition." 
 
 " Yes, but how does that explanation fit in to the 
 succeeding days of creation ? " 
 
 " Oh, perfectly well. The separation of the terres- 
 trial from the atmospheric waters took place during 
 the second epoch that is, the cooling earth had 
 become sufficiently low in temperature for water to 
 lie upon its surface instead of rising as vapour. 
 The gathering together of the seas in the depressions 
 of the earth, and the sprouting forth of lowly herbs, 
 occupied the third period, and during the fourth 
 the vapours had sufficiently condensed to allow of 
 the heavenly luminaries being visible, and becoming
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 87 
 
 signs for the division of day from night, and for the 
 reckoning of seasons, days, and years. The creation 
 of all such animals as inhabit the water or fly 
 through the air is ascribed to the fifth epoch, while 
 during the sixth land, animals, and man were made. 
 You see, then, that the word ' day ' is used of a time 
 when as yet the sun did not ' divide the day from 
 the night.' Besides, in this very chapter the word 
 has several different significations. The first time 
 it occurs it means ' light.' You remember it is said, 
 ' God called the light Day.' In the very same verse 
 it denotes both ' the evening and the morning ' 
 that is, the period of confusion and of order. It is 
 also used of the duration of light as affected by the 
 sun. And in the second chapter of Genesis it is 
 made to include the entire period of creation, and 
 is used likewise to refer to the Divine rest or 
 cessation from creation that is, from that special 
 manifestation of creative agency described by Moses ; 
 and this rest has continued to our time. All through 
 the Scriptures and indeed in every other book 
 the word ' day ' is used in this indefinite manner, 
 and no one ever mistakes the meaning intended. 
 The Mosaic use of it would never have been mis- 
 conceived had men possessed the least knowledge 
 of the condition of things during the ages which 
 the word denotes in the Book of Genesis. I 
 have not much doubt that Moses himself under- 
 stood that the periods of creation were of 
 indefinite duration, or he would not have chosen 
 so elastic a word as ' day ' to describe them, 
 especially as he must have been conscious that he
 
 88 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 was applying it to periods when as yet the sun 
 was not referred to." 
 
 " This is all new to rne," said Baxter, with ani- 
 mation. " You see I have never been drawn out in 
 this direction before. But I begin to think I have 
 been labouring under very great delusions, and I 
 shall certainly look with more reverence on geology 
 henceforth, now that I see how valuable a handmaid 
 it is to the adequate understanding of the Mosaic 
 record of the creation." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say that," I replied. " And 
 if ever you should set about the study of geology, 
 don't forget Dawson, and Dana, and Kingsley. You 
 will, of course, be obliged to read Lyell, and Geikie, 
 and Boyd Dawkins, but be sure you look at Hugh 
 Miller, Hitchcock, and Pye Smith. But, if you don't 
 care to go into the subject to any extent, let me 
 recommend you to read, at least, an admirable little 
 book, published by the Sunday School Union, on 
 The Creation:' 
 
 " Do you really think this kind of reading would 
 help me at all in my preaching?" 
 
 " Decidedly I do. There are persons, I am aware, 
 who deride scientific study, but they are only those 
 who are densely ignorant of science. All scientific 
 knowledge is valuable to the preacher if he knows 
 how to keep it in its proper place. Many a chord 
 in the Bible has lain silent for ages, and might have 
 remained so for ever, had not science discovered it 
 and caused it to vibrate with sweet music." 
 
 We had by this time reached the cutting that 
 we were searching for, and, turning off the road,
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 89 
 
 hastened over two or three fields in the direction of 
 the grey escarpment which was visible at some little 
 distance ahead. On reaching it we found a lime 
 quarry of considerable size. We at once entered it, 
 and quietly surveyed the steep walls of rock of a 
 greyish white colour, mixed with bands or layers 
 of darker argillaceous shale, which rose up all 
 round us to a height of from thirty to forty feet. 
 We were completely shut off from the outer world, 
 and in the quarry intense stillness reigned. 
 
 " I can hardly expect you to enter into my feelings," 
 said I to Baxter ; " but what a magnificent spectacle 
 this is to one who knows the history of these rocks ! 
 These deposits tell, in language too plain to be 
 misunderstood, that over them once rolled the 
 great sea, and in every handful of that lime are 
 the gravestones of the former inhabitants of the 
 ocean which myriads of ages ago murmured here." 
 
 u Then this limestone," said my companion, " is 
 largely made up of the shells of creatures which used 
 to live in the sea, is it ? " 
 
 "Yes. Most limestones have been deposited in 
 deep seas. This particular quarry belongs to what 
 are called the Wenlock beds, which are nearly two 
 thousand feet thick, and are crowded with organic 
 remains. You may imagine the length of time it 
 must have taken for that thickness of lime to be 
 slowly deposited by the continual dropping of shells 
 and the gradual labours of tiny corals. Above the 
 Wenlock series are the Ludlow beds, about two 
 thousand feet thick, while below are the Woolhope 
 formations, three thousand feet in thickness. These,
 
 90 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 with some others, constitute what are called the 
 Upper Silurian strata. Below are many thousands 
 of feet of Lower Silurian, Cambrian, and Pre- 
 Cambrian formations ; while above are the enormous 
 deposits of Old Red Sandstone, Coal, Millstone 
 Grit, New Red Sandstone, the Oolites, Chalk, and 
 numerous other kinds of rock and clay, all laid by 
 decaying forests or by the accumulation of animal 
 remains. Now, perhaps, you can form an idea of 
 the sort of evidence which has led geologists to give 
 up the belief that our globe is only some few thou- 
 sands of years old." 
 
 " Indeed I can," said Baxter ; " but, to tell the 
 truth, you almost take away my breath." 
 
 " Oh," said I laughingly, " out of pity for you I have 
 told you next to nothing of the wonders casketed 
 in the rocks ; you can't digest geological strong 
 meat yet. But let us get to work, for we shall find 
 the time go quickly." 
 
 The first thing to be done was. to sketch the 
 adjacent district and to draw a diagram of the 
 section before us. Then marking down the various 
 thicknesses and directions of the bands of stone, 
 and the angles which the beds made with the floor, 
 measurements which are known technically as the 
 dip, strike, downthrow, and so on, all the prelimi- 
 naries were finished and work was begun in earnest. 
 I asked Baxter to grope about wherever he liked, 
 and if he came across anything that looked in- 
 teresting among the debris to bring it to me. To 
 some people our occupation would have seemed 
 toilsome drudgery ; but, to those who are trained
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 91 
 
 to understand only a tithe of what they witness, 
 there are few things so exhilarating or so worthy 
 of occupying the hours of a holiday as fossil-hunting 
 in a favourable spot. 
 
 After some hours spent in climbing, jumping, 
 rolling slabs and blocks of stone over, hammering 
 and chiselling, brightened by snatches of conversa- 
 tion, we proposed a rest for the double purpose of 
 eating our luncheon and talking over our " finds." 
 
 Various specimens of coral had been secured ; for 
 the Wenlock limestone is in many parts almost a 
 mass of coral, probably an ancient coral reef, like 
 those which stretch for hundreds of miles in the 
 Southern Seas, whose wondrous history Charles 
 Darwin so graphically wrote. What we call coral 
 is really the skeleton or solid support of the tiny 
 creatures which formed the substance. Mr. Darwin 
 believed that coral islands and reefs are gradually 
 built up by colonies of minute animals, until by 
 alterations in the level of the sea the structure rises 
 above the surface of the water, and then, by the 
 drifting of seeds and in other ways, vegetation 
 sprouts out, trees grow, and at length man himself 
 finds a home upon the island which has been formed. 
 
 Darwin's theory, like all others, has had to be tried 
 by the test of accumulating facts and knowledge, 
 and, as some affirm, is found wanting. I have not 
 space now for even a brief account of the controversy 
 which this question has originated, but I shall deal 
 with it in another chapter when I come to write more 
 exclusively upon corals. Let it suffice to say at 
 present that it would be no discredit to Darwin
 
 92 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 even if his theory, which was received with almost 
 universal admiration at first, should be found not to 
 cover the whole of the phenomena concerned ; and 
 he himself, I am sure, would be amongst the first, 
 were he alive, to admit the validity of evidence that 
 seemed to be true and reliable ; yet I cannot help 
 feeling that after all his explanation does account 
 for many of the facts of the case. 
 
 Montgomery, in his Pelican Island has described 
 this coral fabric as 
 
 " The mausoleum of its architects, 
 Still dying upwards as their labours closed ; 
 Slime their material, but the slime was turned 
 To adamant by their petrific touch ; 
 Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives 
 Their masonry imperishable." 
 
 There were also several stone-lilies (Encrinites), 
 with their many-jointed stalks, and which sometimes 
 may be discovered with their flower-shaped cups 
 surmounting the stalks. The separated joints of 
 the stalks, each of which is a distinct animal, have 
 some resemblance to beads ; hence, in different parts 
 of the country, they are known as " St. Cuthbert's 
 beads " and " wheel stones." Like the coral, this 
 substance is really made up of the skeletons of the 
 creatures which once existed in it, and so enormous 
 was the number of them that whole beds of lime- 
 stone owe their formation almost entirely to them 
 as, for instance, the encrinital limestone. 
 
 Nothing else invited special remark except the 
 lamp-shells. These are bivalves, and are called
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 93 
 
 technically Brachiopoda. They differ from the more 
 ordinary types of bivalves, such as mussels, oysters, 
 etc. (Lamellibranchiata), in being always equal-sided 
 and never quite equivalvular i.e., the two shells 
 are symmetrical, but not of equal size. The old 
 naturalists called them lampades, or lamp-shells, 
 from their fancied resemblance to the antique lamps 
 of symmetrical form, whose wick corresponded to 
 the pedicle, or footstalk, by which the creature in a 
 later stage of development attaches itself to some 
 submarine object. 
 
 After some further talk about our specimens, we 
 resumed our hunt. Baxter stopped me in a moment 
 or two, however, by saying, " I am not quite clear 
 about the way in which these rocks, which, you say, 
 were formed at the bottom of the sea, have become 
 elevated and removed so far from the ocean. I 
 have been puzzling over that problem ever since 
 we got into the quarry. Do you think you could 
 explain it a little more simply for my dull com- 
 prehension ? " 
 
 " It is probable," I replied, " that volcanic agency 
 had a great deal to do with the matter in this 
 particular place. If you will just step up here 
 where I have been at work, you will get a tolerably 
 good view of the surrounding district, and you will 
 perhaps be able to make out that it is roughly conical. 
 Sir Roderick Murchison, whose magnificent work 
 Siluria is by far the best geological guide for 
 this part of the country, is of opinion that this 
 locality forms the crater of a gigantic extinct volcano, 
 which has been worn down by the action of water
 
 94 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 and climate to what it now is. Enormous submarine 
 volcanoes, such as must have been in almost con- 
 tinual action when the earth's crust was perhaps 
 thinner than now, would speedily pour out masses 
 of material extensive enough to alter the level of 
 the ocean bed, and cause its waters to drain off 
 to other parts of the land. Extraordinary changes 
 in the distribution of land and sea have taken 
 place within historic times, and even during our 
 own lifetime, from the same or similar causes." 
 
 FlO. 16. Trilobite (Phacops caudatus). 
 
 When we had been at work for another hour, 
 Baxter suddenly cried out, " What in the world is 
 this ? I think I have discovered something at last." 
 Taking the piece of limestone from his hand, and 
 looking at it, I saw at once he had managed to 
 knock out of the rock with his rude hammer of 
 stone a very valuable fossil. 
 
 " Well, you are a lucky dog," I said. " You have 
 actually got the greater part of a trilobite ; the 
 Fates evidently intend you to be a geologist."
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 95 
 
 "A trilobite? I think I have heard of that 
 creature before." 
 
 ' I dare say yon have. It is often referred to in 
 discussions on Design and Evolution. Trilobites 
 belong to the same animal group (Crustacea) as 
 the lobster. They are found in works far older 
 than even these ancient Wenlock strata ; indeed, 
 they are amongst the oldest inhabitants of our globe. 
 Although they became extinct many ages ago, for 
 they do not occur in any rocks newer than the 
 Carboniferous, yet so perfectly have they been pre- 
 served, and in such vast numbers, that it is possible 
 to study their structure, even to the minutest detail, 
 from their fossil remains. Their external covering 
 is divided into three lobes, and it is this feature 
 which has originated their name ; for trilobite, as 
 you know, means three-lobed. They vary greatly 
 in size, some, like the Olenus, being as small as a 
 pea, and others attaining to a length of several 
 feet. These interesting creatures can be traced 
 through about twenty metamorphic stages. Dr. 
 Buckland, in his famous " Bridgewater Treatise," 
 pointed out that the same modification of the 
 organ of vision is found in this earliest Crustacean 
 as in some living representatives of this group; hence, 
 the mutual relations between light and the eye 
 must have been the same in those remote ages as 
 at the present day. Any argument for the doc- 
 trine of Evolution, therefore, which is based on 
 a supposed change of environment since those 
 primeval ages, is certainly weakened by the evidence 
 which the trilobite's eye furnishes. The trilobite,
 
 96 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 moreover, could swim and burrow in the sand ; it 
 was protected with an almost impregnable case, 
 while its head was covered with hard shields, and 
 it could roll itself up in a stone-like ball when 
 pursued by its foes. How is it that such a highly 
 organised animal, with an eye as perfect as that of 
 the modern insect, consisting of hundreds of lenses, 
 with a structure so eminently adapted to its modes 
 of life, should appear at its best at the very dawn 
 of its existence in the Cambrian age, and go on 
 gradually deteriorating until it died out in the 
 Carboniferous age ? Is this the survival of the 
 fittest ? The difficulty has, of course, been grappled 
 with by Darwinians, but it has not been utterly 
 explained away." 
 
 " Then you are not an evolutionist," said my 
 friend. 
 
 " I can only answer that question by saying Yes 
 and No. There is no word in the English vocabulary 
 so abused as the word evolution. It is used for 
 education, for growth, for the processes of nature's 
 laws, and for the transmutations by which the 
 original nebula out of which our globe is said to 
 have been produced has resulted in the highest 
 animal forms, including even man. It implies 
 creation by formative laws, under the superin- 
 tendency of a Deity, and it is put in the place of 
 God by those who are atheistically inclined. You 
 see, then, how difficult it is for me to say whether 
 1 am an evolutionist or not. Then, you must not 
 forget that every man who declares himself an 
 anti-evolutionist is at once laughed at as an
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 97 
 
 ignoramus by the more ill-mannered of the other 
 side, and, as one doesn't care to be thought a fool, 
 I prefer to ask my scientific inquisitors to furnish 
 me with a careful definition of what they mean 
 by evolution, by which piece of subtlety I mostly 
 manage to evade an answer. I have really tried 
 honestly to find out what is meant by evolution, 
 and have left no influential book unexamined ; but I 
 find there are almost as many opinions as there are 
 evolutionists, and so I have come to the conclusion 
 that there are no real evolutionists, but that all 
 who are so styled are simply on their way to the 
 truth which they have not yet reached. The 
 extreme forms of evolutionism which were rampant 
 a score of years ago are fast dying out, and perhaps 
 you and I may live to see the very word almost 
 forgotten. Already the myth of spontaneous 
 generation is given up, even by Haeckel ; and, 
 moreover, man is declared by all ' who are com- 
 petent to judge ' as Professor Huxley is fond of 
 saying when writing polemically as being of an 
 order distinct from, and higher than, the rest of 
 creation. Geology and zoology prove nothing yet, 
 except that we need to revise our notions about 
 species, and that our natural history classifications 
 have] been made upon wrong principles, so that 
 varieties have been elevated into more important 
 groups. There is no ground for believing that all 
 types of plants and animals have developed from 
 one archetype, or that both sexes have, by ordinary 
 processes, evolved from one individual. The whole 
 question of development and degeneration is at 
 
 7
 
 98 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 present in a chaotic state, and they are the wisest 
 who weigh evidence and suspend judgment." 
 
 This valuable find whetted the appetite of my 
 friend, and now the only thing he regretted was 
 that he had not come furnished with hammer and 
 chisel, instead of having to call in to his aid the 
 hereditary instincts which are said to have come 
 down to us from our stone-age progenitors. So 
 absorbed were we both that several hours passed 
 by without weariness, and I was quite astonished 
 when at length, looking at my watch, I found that 
 we had been in that quarry no less than eight hours. 
 We had now to select our specimens, label and 
 describe them, wrap up in paper the more fragile 
 ones, and pack them in the leathern receptacle 
 which I had brought for that purpose. Besides 
 the corals and stone-lilies, we bagged several por- 
 tions of trilobites, perfect specimens being rarely 
 captured ; a large number of Molluscan species 
 (shell-fish), such as the lamp-shells, the beau- 
 tifully striated Orthis, the graceful Strophomena, 
 the Atrypa, and the Rhynchonella, and a few other 
 things. 
 
 We beguiled our rather long walk home with 
 conversation on the topic to which Baxter had 
 already referred. We talked on until we reached 
 our respective abodes, thankful for rest and re- 
 freshment after so long and diligent a tour, and 
 both, I believe, satisfied that we had spent as 
 cheerful and profitable a day as any of the holiday- 
 makers that we saw flitting here and there around 
 us. As for Baxter, he has since then become a
 
 A DAY IN A QUARRY. 99 
 
 confirmed and incurable fossil-hunter, and, as he is 
 not restricted by the exigencies of the itinerant 
 system, he has been able to collect quite a small 
 museum of specimens, all which dire events he 
 attributes to the conversation and exploits of that 
 bright summer day when we spent together those 
 busy, happy hours in a Quarry.
 
 VII. 
 
 ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES. 
 
 " On the pavement lay 
 
 Carved stones of the abbey-ruin in the park, 
 Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 ERY curious, and sometimes exceedingly 
 amusing, are the experiences of the 
 man who travels about in search of 
 natural history specimens. Whether it 
 be for insects or shells or fossils, he soon finds not 
 only material for his cabinets, but also an abund- 
 ance of folk-lore of a most interesting character, 
 of which every branch of science has its store. I 
 very well remember, during one of my geological 
 tours in the north of England, being invited to look 
 at the collection of an old pensioner, who had 
 won quite a reputation in the village for being a 
 geologist. On going to the house I was at once 
 taken into the garden, where the bulk of the 
 specimens had been arranged as ornaments on 
 miniature grottoes, and in the crevices of larg
 
 ST. HILDAS SNAKE-STONES. 101 
 
 lumps of cork. This did not look very promising, 
 but I held my peace, and waited and observed. 
 One after another of the old man's curiosities was 
 pointed out to me, and among them were shown 
 with great gusto a number of "petrified snakes," 
 as he called them. I had already made the 
 discovery that the old man was more of an artist 
 than a naturalist, and was quite impressed with 
 the taste and accuracy of some of the heads cast 
 in clay which here and there lay about, and which 
 he had moulded with his own hands. I suspected 
 at once, therefore, what his petrified snakes would 
 turn out to be, and so did not pitch my hopes 
 very high. When we came to them, I found, as 
 I had already surmised would be the case, that 
 his fossil snakes were Ammonites, whose curled 
 shells are so suggestive of a coiled snake. To 
 complete the delusion, and to evince the old man's 
 belief that they really were vipers in stone, he 
 had affixed to the end of the coil a snake's head 
 of clay. It required a good deal of talk to convince 
 the old gentleman that the objects were not snake- 
 stones, but merely the shells of creatures very 
 similar to the recent Nautilus. It was at Whitby 
 where this notion first took its rise, and for ages 
 it was held as an undoubted fact that St. Hilda 
 had transformed all the snakes into stone. Sir 
 Walter Scott, in his Marmion has given poetical 
 form to this old legend in lines that are familiar 
 enough to most geologists, and to many visitors 
 to romantic Whitby. I quoted them to the old 
 man :
 
 102 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 " The nuns of Whitby told 
 How, of the countless snakes, each one 
 Was turned into a coil of stone, 
 
 When holy Hilda prayed. . 
 Themselves within their sacred bound 
 Their stony coils had often found." 
 
 For ages these beautiful fossils have been the 
 objects of superstitious reverence on account of 
 their resemblance to coiled-up serpents and snakes. 
 In Egypt this was especially the case in earlier 
 times. The Brahmins treasured them up in costly 
 caskets and offered sacrifices to them, while the 
 Hindoos also rendered to them a sort of worship. 
 
 Next to Whitby, there is perhaps no place more 
 favourable for the study of Ammonites than Lincoln, 
 and it is there that I first felt the fascination of them. 
 Any one who will take the trouble to visit Swan's 
 brickyard will find a splendid section of Lias sic clay 
 exposed, clearly definable into three of those remark- 
 able zones with which the Liassic deposits have been 
 divided, each one containing its characteristic Am- 
 monite. Just as Europe might be divided into 
 sections each with its own type of man, or as the 
 seashore can be marked out into regions character- 
 ised by different sorts of seaweeds, so the whole of 
 the vast beds that make up the Liassic formation 
 are arranged in divisions or zones, in each of which 
 are types of Ammonites scarcely found elsewhere. 
 In this brickyard, where the Upper Lias is exposed, 
 the three zones visible are those characterised by 
 Ammonites bifrons,A.communis, and A. serpentinus. 
 
 Another pit lies to the south of the river gorge, 
 and formed quite a picturesque foreground to the
 
 ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES. 103 
 
 view from one of the windows at the back of my 
 house. Here the Middle Lias may be examined ; 
 and the lovely A. margaritatus, of pearly lustre, 
 along with A. capricornis, of ruder aspect, supply the 
 standards of the zones. The deeper portions of 
 the Lias may nearly all be seen by the enthusiastic 
 collector who will go out to two or three of the 
 villages south of Lincoln, such as Waddington and 
 Leadenham. It is certainly very remarkable that 
 the respective Ammonites of these closely related 
 
 FlG. 17. A. communis. FIG. 18. Side view. 
 
 zones should present such differences. It is one 
 of those curious and profound problems which the 
 geologist is continually meeting with. For those 
 who may wish a more detailed and systematic 
 account of these zones, I may mention that a com- 
 plete list of them, formed by a comparison of the 
 Liassic beds of the whole country, is given on p. 786 of 
 Geikie's larger Geology. Mr. Etheridge has shown 
 that these zones hold good for the whole of the 
 Secondaries throughout Asia, Europe, and America.
 
 104 
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES* 
 
 I have just said that the Ammonite is closely 
 related to the modern Nautilus. In order to obtain, 
 therefore, an idea of what the animal which inhabited 
 these wonderful shells was like, we cannot do better 
 than examine a Nautilus, an illustration of which 
 is given. No Ammonites have existed in our seas 
 since the close of the Secondary epoch of geology, but 
 
 FIG. 19. Pearly Nautilus. 
 
 there is no reason for doubting that the Nautilus is 
 the modern representative of this ancient and noble 
 race, which once crowded the waters of our globe. 
 
 Although the shell of the Nautilus is seen to 
 consist of many chambers, yet the entire animal is 
 confined to the last of these, which, in consequence, 
 is called the body-chamber. From this chamber 
 the animal can protrude its head at will. The
 
 ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES. 105 
 
 chambers are constructed one after the other as the 
 animal's growth demands more room. The deserted 
 chambers are then walled off by a curved pearly 
 division or septum, the communication between the 
 chambers being, however, kept up by means of a 
 membranous tube, called the siphuncle (i), which 
 is continued throughout the whorls of the shell. 
 
 FIG. 20. Section of shell of Ammonite. 
 
 In the Nautilus this siphuncle runs through the 
 central part of the chambers, whereas in Ammonites 
 it lies on the outside or dorsal portion. The creature 
 has a heart, four pyramid-shaped branchiae or gills, 
 two large eyes attached by short stalks to the sides 
 of the head, with various organs concerned in repro- 
 duction. Its tentacles are prehensile, and are useful 
 in procuring food, two of them being fused together
 
 io6 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 so as to form a strong hood with which to close the 
 shell. There is a nervous system, consisting mainly 
 of two masses or ganglia, protected partially by a 
 cartilaginous plate which we may regard as a kind 
 of rudimentary skull. It is clear then that the 
 creature is by no means a lowly organised one ; 
 indeed, it is placed at the very top of the Mollusca, 
 which are only a short step behind the Vertebrates. 
 The function of the chambers of the shell is 
 probably that of enabling the animal to alter its 
 specific gravity, but what are the precise uses of the 
 siphuncle does not seem to be understood. 
 
 FIG. 21. Foliation of Ammonite chambers. 
 
 The chief differences between a Nautilus and an 
 Ammonite have to do with the walls that divide 
 the chambers. In the case of the former the divi- 
 sions or septa are simple, and where they join the 
 shell the lines are plain. But the septa of Ammonites 
 have frilled edges of many patterns. These patterns 
 form very beautiful traceries on the exterior shells 
 of Ammonites. A representation of one of these 
 diversified patterns is given (Fig. 21). 
 
 It is worthy of remark, too, that the Nautilus 
 family made its appearance in the waters of our
 
 ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES. 
 
 107 
 
 globe long before Ammonites existed, and, indeed, 
 many of its genera had already become extinct 
 before the true Ammonites began to exist ; while the 
 Nautilus still survives, although Ammonites have 
 been absolutely extinct for ages. 
 
 As a help in the identification of specimens it 
 
 FIG. 22.^!. Ufrons. FIG. 23. Side view of A. Ufrons. 
 
 may be as well to present illustrations of a few of 
 the commoner species. 
 
 Ammonites Ufrons (Fig. 22) occurs in considerable 
 numbers in the Upper Lias. Although appearing 
 to characterise one of the zones at Lincoln, this is 
 not found to be the case elsewhere. The shell has 
 a sickle-shaped sculpturing on the sides, and the 
 body chamber occupies about one-half of the first 
 whorl or spiral.
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 A. communis (Fig. 17) is very plentiful in the 
 Middle and Upper Lias, and gives its name to one 
 of the Liassic zones. Its shell ornamentation 
 consists of rings, the side view showing portions of 
 these circular lines lying parallel with each other. 
 
 A. obtusus (Fig. 24) is a characteristic fossil of the 
 Lower Lias. It has a keel on the back of the shell 
 with radiating ribs along the sides. The body cham- 
 ber is large, occupying more than one complete whorl. 
 
 FIG. 24. 
 
 Flo. 25. Side view. 
 
 So far I have mentioned only Liassic Ammonites, 
 but they occur all through the Secondaries, that is> 
 the Lias, the Oolites, and the Chalk. One of the 
 commonest, as well as one of the most beautiful, of 
 these fossils is A lautm (Fig. 26), from the Cretaceous 
 series. The Gault beds in this series, seen so well at 
 Folkestone, are crowded with Ammonites of almost 
 every conceivable pattern. They vary remarkably in 
 size, some, like A. lautus, being less than half an inch
 
 ST. HILDA'S SNAKE-STONES. 109 
 
 in diameter, while in the Oolites there are species 
 which measure a yard across. 
 
 What the precise position of the Ammonite is 
 in the chain of life cannot be definitely settled. 
 The modifications through which these creatures 
 have passed can only be guessed at by observing 
 minute changes in the 
 shells. Such changes 
 are said to have been 
 observed as proceeding 
 from the outer whorl 
 more and more towards 
 the centre, as geological 
 time rolled on. The 
 earliest Ammonites were 
 smooth, later on they FlQ . 2 6.-A.lautus. 
 
 had ribs, and still later 
 
 spines appeared. The line of descent is usually 
 traced backwards through Goniatites with simpler 
 shell, and onwards, as has already been indicated, 
 to the Nautilus. But the line is confused and 
 broken, and the Nautilus, which is regarded as the 
 lingering scion of a great race, seems destined 
 to die out. 
 
 FIG. 27. A. varicosus and side view.
 
 VIII. 
 
 A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 
 
 " And for the heaven's wide circuit, let it speak 
 The Maker's high magnificence ; Who built 
 So spacious, and His line stretched out so far, 
 That man may know he dwells not in his own." 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 .VEN in the non-astronomical mind, the 
 contemplation of a visit to the famous 
 observatory of Greenwich could not 
 but produce the liveliest anticipations 
 of pleasure and instruction. When, therefore, an 
 arrangement had been made for a few of us to 
 go down to that mysterious workshop of envied 
 students of the skies, the hour was looked forward 
 to with great and eager hopes. Being at that 
 time the happy possessor of a three-inch telescope 
 equatorially mounted, and having dabbled in the 
 allied pursuits of photography and spectroscopy, I 
 naturally cherished large expectations of adding 
 to my scanty stock of knowledge in regard to these 
 most attractive branches of astronomical science. 
 
 We none of us, of course, believed that we were 
 going to see the most advanced instruments which
 
 A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY, in 
 
 the astronomical world has to show, for most 
 Englishmen understand, and are ashamed to confess 
 it, that even Greenwich is behind the age in the 
 matter of apparatus, though certainly not as respects 
 men. But talent, ingenuity, industry, though they 
 can accomplish vast things, cannot supply the lack 
 of the highest and most elaborate machinery and 
 optical powers. 
 
 It may be as well to say here that telescopes are 
 mainly of two kinds. There is the refractor, through 
 which the star or other object is looked at directly. 
 There is also the reflector, through which the star 
 itself is not actually seen, but its image is reflected 
 from a large mirror or speculum up the tube, and is 
 magnified by the eye-piece apparatus. The first re- 
 fractor was the one invented by Galileo, and through 
 it he saw, probably for the first time in human 
 history, the satellites of Jupiter. The largest re- 
 fractor in the world is the one lately erected at the 
 Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, in California, 
 the object glass of which is thirty-six inches 
 across. The Russians have the next best refracting 
 telescope, that of Professor Struve of Polkowa, the 
 diameter of which is thirty inches. The Vienna 
 refractor is twenty-seven inches, the Harvard College 
 one is twenty-six inches, and then comes Mr. R. S. 
 Newall's, lately presented to Cambridge, which 
 measures twenty-five inches, and was at the time 
 of its construction the largest in the world. 
 
 The finest reflector in the world is the one of 
 which everybody has heard, that belonging to Lord 
 Rosse, of Parsonstown, in Ireland, whose speculum
 
 112 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 is six feet in diameter. But in regard to definition, 
 the diameter of a reflector must not be compared 
 with the diameter of a refractor, the latter being 
 in every way superior. So that we are obliged to 
 admit that so far our astronomers have not been at 
 all on an advantageous footing in comparison with 
 several other nations in regard to the mechanical 
 and optical appliances of the observatory. 
 
 But although our Greenwich establishment is not 
 so splendidly equipped as others, yet it remains to 
 be seen whether the more imposing instruments 
 possessed by our transatlantic cousins will answer 
 to the expectations formed concerning them ; and, 
 even if they do, it will be long before Greenwich 
 will be put into the shade. The records of its work 
 are a magnificent testimony to England's enterprise 
 and industry, and, notwithstanding our changeful 
 skies and the niggardliness which our Government 
 has usually shown in regard to science, it must be 
 many years before any other country can show 
 such results as are chronicled in the archives of 
 Greenwich, or such a noble line of astronomical 
 heroes as England can boast of in Flamsteed, 
 Newton, Halley, the Herschels, Adams, and 
 Airy. 
 
 On our way down to the Observatory, up, as one 
 or two of our stouter companions found it to be 
 towards; the end of our journey, we beguiled the 
 time with talk about ancient astronomies, the 
 Pyramid observatories, the astronomical structures 
 of Benares and Delhi, the Ptolemaic system, the 
 incidents relating to Tycho Brahe" and Copernicus
 
 A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 113 
 
 and other subjects concerned in the development of 
 astronomy. 
 
 Permission to go through the Observatory had 
 been kindly granted by the Astronomer Royal, and 
 one of his assistants, E. W. Maunder, Esq., F.R.A.S., 
 accompanied the party, explaining the various in- 
 struments and their uses. Mr. Maunder interspersed 
 his talk with some interesting references to the 
 origin and history of the place. The Observatory 
 was founded in 1675 by Charles II., Flamsteed 
 being appointed " our astronomical observator," at 
 a munificent salary of 100 a year, out of which 
 he was to find his own instruments ! At that time 
 astronomy was to the bulk of the people very little 
 more than astrology, and to the rustics of Green- 
 wich Flamsteed was a kind of chief horoscopist. 
 It is related that an old woman went to him to 
 obtain help in finding a lost basket. The as- 
 tronomer gravely drew some circles on the ground., 
 and then pointed with his stick in a certain 
 direction. To his great surprise, the woman soon 
 came back to tell him he was right, and he found 
 himself famous ; but he determined to practise 
 astrology no more, even in jest. 
 
 Flamsteed, having to provide his own apparatus, 
 naturally enough thought he had the right to all 
 the results of his researches ; but the Royal Society, 
 backed by Newton, claimed them as public property, 
 and even went so far as to seize by force all the 
 records that were treasured up in the Observatory. 
 This caused dissension between Newton and Flam- 
 steed, and it is not impossible that the papers of 
 
 8
 
 II 4 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the astronomer had something to do with the 
 discovery of gravitation. This great law, like 
 many other wonderful things, seems not to have 
 been discovered solely by the labours of one man, 
 but it was certainly Newton, not Flamsteed nor 
 Descartes, who first gave it scientific form, and 
 gave such mathematical demonstration of it as has 
 placed it for ever beyond dispute. 
 
 The first instrument seen was the great transit 
 telescope, which by means of its wonderful spider 
 lines enables the observer to determine the instant 
 at which celestial bodies cross the meridian. The 
 telescope is so mounted that its optical axis may 
 move only in the plane of the meridian, and the dome 
 above it can be opened to the sky in the same plane. 
 So delicate are the movements of this apparatus 
 that a change of a few feet in the adjustment of 
 the mercury vessel will, to the confusion of John 
 Hampden and all other flat-earth theorists, indicate 
 the rotundity of the earth within that short space. 
 Connected with the transit instrument, but in 
 another room, is the chronograph, which registers 
 on a revolving barrel covered with prepared paper 
 the manipulations of the observer at the telescope. 
 Here a very curious fact was pointed out. Different 
 observers see and transmit phenomena in different 
 periods of time. As a psychologist would say, 
 cerebration varies in different individuals. By a 
 subtle arrangement these variations of mental 
 activity can be measured, and when the amount 
 of variation, or " personal equation," is known for 
 a certain person, his observations can be compared
 
 A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 115 
 
 with those of others. When will it be possible 
 to obtain a "personal equation " that will enable ns 
 to reconcile the differences which prevail amongst 
 men in their views of truth ? The astronomer is 
 to be envied by the moralist. 
 
 Then the equatorial of small degree was seen, 
 and after it the standard clock which gives time 
 to the world. Every day at one o'clock the great 
 ball drops, but, alas ! it cannot rise till it is wound 
 up by a windlass turned by hand. Some day, 
 when the price of a hundred-ton gun can be spared, 
 this may be done automatically. 
 
 The altazimuth instrument enables the observer 
 to sweep any meridian of the sky. It is used 
 mostly for watching the moon, and the dome over 
 it opens at any point by means of machinery. 
 To sailors these observations are of the utmost 
 importance, for, with the astronomer's results before 
 him in the Nautical Almanac, the moon becomes 
 a kind of hand upon the giant dial of the sky, of 
 which the figures are the stars, and he can thus 
 ascertain his whereabouts in any part of the world. 
 
 The great equatorial telescope is the largest 
 instrument at Greenwich. Its object glass is a 
 little more than a foot across. What a pigmy 
 compared with those mighty instruments possessed 
 by our enlightened transatlantic cousins ! Perhaps 
 some princely Lick will one day give England a 
 refractor with a diameter of three feet ; or, better 
 still, we may some time be able to sell an ironclad 
 for the purpose. There is, however, we are glad 
 to state, a twenty-eight inch refractor being now
 
 ii6 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 constructed, which, if not already in its place, soon 
 will be ; but even this splendid instrument will 
 leave England behind America and Russia in the 
 matter of telescopes. There is a piece of mechanism 
 in this room by means of which the object-glass 
 of the telescope can be taken out, cleaned, and 
 restored to its cell, without being touched by a 
 finger. A triumph of mechanical skill, it almost 
 seemed to live. This equatorial is used by Mr. 
 Maunder for spectroscopic work, and the visitors 
 were gratified by seeing the solar spectrum through 
 the six-inch spectroscope. Faint and incomplete 
 though it was by reason of the obscurity of the 
 sky, yet what a beautiful vision it was, and how 
 the spectacle threw one's thoughts back through 
 the wonderful stages of the history of solar physics 
 to the time when Newton in his dark room first 
 stood entranced before the analysis of the sunbeams 
 which were thrown upon the screen by his rude 
 prism ! 
 
 The equatorial is worked by a wonderful water 
 clock, whose curious S-shaped turbine, by the 
 action of the water, sets up mechanical movements 
 that keep the telescope upon the star, notwith- 
 standing its apparent motion. 
 
 There were also chronometers in scores, thermo- 
 meters for the registration of maximum and 
 minimum heat and dew-point, barometers, glass 
 globes for measuring the quantity of sunshine, 
 which looked as if they had not had much to do 
 lately j photographic apparatus, chiefly for the 
 purpose of recording the history of the sun, for
 
 A VISIT TO GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 117 
 
 more unfortunate than most of us he has to submit 
 to have his portrait taken at least twice a day ; 
 and, last of all, the reflecting telescope, whose 
 speculum is only a third of the mighty mirror of 
 Lord Rosse's instrument at Parsonstown. 
 
 All these great and curious things having been 
 seen, Mr. Maunder received the thanks of his 
 visitors. They dispersed, some to the pleasant 
 Thames, down which they had found their way to 
 Greenwich, and others to the less romantic but 
 speedier track of iron, all carrying with them 
 happy memories of this pleasant and instructive 
 visit to the greatest astronomical centre of the 
 world.
 
 IX. 
 
 MARVELS 0V THE POND. 
 
 1 There is no great and no small 
 To the Soul that maketh all ; 
 And where it cometh, all things are ; 
 And it cometh everywhere." 
 
 F one were to be asked what creature 
 occupies about the middle position in 
 regard to size of the whole assemblage 
 of animal life, perhaps an answer would 
 be given which would somewhat surprise those who 
 had not given the matter considerable attention. A 
 cat would be thought by some to be not a very bad 
 guess ; others might venture to descend as low in the 
 scale as a mouse. But even the smallest of these 
 would be many thousand times above the mark. 
 We should probably be far more correct in taking 
 the tiny house-fly as standing midway, in respect of 
 bulk, between the huge elephant and those minute 
 animals which the microscope reveals. And yet it 
 is not a libel on mankind to say that the bulk of 
 us are absolutely ignorant of almost every creature 
 smaller than a fly. How startling to be told that,
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 119 
 
 with only a comparatively few exceptions, man 
 knows nothing at all about nearly one half of 
 creation ! This realm, over which dominion was 
 given to him " in the beginning," has not even been 
 explored, save by an adventurous observer here and 
 there. 
 
 In this chapter I want to give a few glimpses, at 
 any rate, of this almost boundless region ; and to do 
 so I shall have to describe organisms that no human 
 eye can examine without optical aid. 
 
 We will make our way to some neighbouring pond 
 where there is some kind of plant life, and with 
 muslin net and collecting bottle will secure some 
 of the mixed growing arid decomposing vegetable 
 matter that lies tangled together in the water. Or, 
 if we keep an aquarium, it will only be necessary 
 to place under the magic lens a minute spray of 
 the weed that we may have there, or simply take 
 a drop or two of the water and put it into the live 
 box for inspection. There will at once start into 
 vision all sorts and sizes of active organisms round, 
 oval, linear, while some have most bewitching forms 
 of fairy-like beauty. In general, these living things 
 are called Infusoria. The name originated from 
 the fact that they usually abounded in infusions of 
 vegetable matter. Indeed, if a few wisps of hay be 
 put into a jar of rain or pond water and kept a day or 
 two in a warm place, there will be found a number 
 of these interesting creatures, and the more offensive 
 the water becomes the more likely it is to contain 
 some of the objects I am going to describe. 
 
 It may be as well to say that the word Infusoria
 
 120 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 is not now regarded as a very scientific one, although 
 it has given a title to several highly scientific 
 volumes, such as Pritchard's magnificent History 
 of the British Infusoria. The term did very well 
 while hardly anything was known about the struc- 
 ture and affinities and development of the organisms ; 
 but now that nearly all of them have been minutely 
 studied by microscopists, and their habits and life- 
 history thoroughly explained, they have to be 
 separated widely from one another in any accurate 
 zoological scale. In those days almost every tiny 
 thing that could swim about, even the spores of 
 mosses and ferns, and the zoospores of seaweeds, 
 were set down as animalcules, but we know better 
 now. 
 
 Well, we will begin with the lowliest of them, 
 the Amoeba. It is not easy to detect it, unless one 
 knows what to look for. But do you see those 
 glairy, gum-like patches that seem to lie motionless 
 on the glass ? Those are amcebfe. And they are 
 not motionless. Look well, and keep your eye 
 steadily fixed upon one of them. You will see that 
 it is not only not motionless, but it is never 
 still. Why, it was actually named after the old 
 mythical prophet Proteus, who never retained the 
 same form. It is now called amoeba, which means 
 that it is ever changing. As you *gaze at it yon 
 will see how it slowly puts out a sort of limb from 
 some part of its body, which gradually twines itself 
 around some speck of food, and then draws back the 
 newly-made limb into the mass of its body, bringing 
 the tiny meal with it. Or it may pour its body by
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 121 
 
 a very curious process after the limb, and so manages 
 to crawl about. It has no legs or arms, but it 
 makes them as required. Neither has it any mouth, 
 but it can manufacture one at any spot. As for a 
 stomach, well, it is all stomach, for it takes in food 
 all over. These limbs are usually called pseudopodia, 
 
 FIG. 28. Amoeba. 
 
 false feet, and consist of protoplasm, just the sort of 
 stuff you and I are made of, if we go back to the 
 original elements of the human body. 
 
 Imagine an amoeba with a tiny shell, and you 
 have one of those minute foraminifera whose long 
 labours in the sea have done so much to build up 
 the thousands of feet of chalk cliffs of our shores j
 
 122 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 or put it into a flinty skeleton, and it becomes a 
 polycystin ; or range a mass of them together, and 
 build around them walls and girders of flint, and a 
 sponge is the result. The jelly animal is the same 
 in every case, and all these agree in having no special 
 limbs, any portion of the body fulfilling, in turn, 
 the functions of arms, legs, mouth, or stomach. It 
 is clear then that we are dealing with the lowest 
 forms of animal life, and all the creatures just enu- 
 merated amoeba, foraminifera, polycystins, sponge 
 are grouped together in one large sub-kingdom, 
 called Protozoa, which, as the name imports, stands 
 on the lowest rung of the zoological ladder. 
 
 For more precise details respecting the structure 
 of amoeba we had better look at Nicholson's 
 Zoology. We learn there that the body of this 
 animal is composed of gelatinous sarcode, and can 
 be separated, theoretically at least, into an outer 
 transparent layer, termed the " ectosarc " or " ecto- 
 plasm," and an inner layer, granular and mobile, 
 called the " endosarc " or " endoplasm." It is the 
 outer layer which constructs the pseudopodia, while 
 the inner layer contains the nucleus, a spherical 
 vesicle which contracts and expands with something 
 approaching to regularity, and certain other cavities 
 of a temporary nature called vacuoles. These are the 
 only appearances of anything like organs that can be 
 detected, and there are no traces whatever of nervous 
 structure. The animal reproduces itself in the beau- 
 tifully simple way of merely dividing itself into two. 
 
 Now we will take from our gatherings a tiny bit 
 of the pond weed, of which there is a quantity lying
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 
 
 123 
 
 in a tangled mass in our jar, or waving in delicate 
 filaments towards the surface. Having placed it in 
 a small trough or live-cage, we had better examine 
 it first with an inch objective. Here is something 
 worth a good long look. It is a tiny transparent object 
 which seems to be moored to a 
 twig, and is surmounted by a 
 couple of wheel-like organs which 
 appear to be incessantly revolv- 
 ing. It is at once pronounced to 
 be a Rotifer, or wheel-animalcule. 
 Having found it, we proceed to 
 examine it with a rather higher 
 power. Suppose we use a half- 
 inch lens. We can make the 
 change in a moment, for our 
 nose-piece is one in which three 
 objectives can be screwed, and 
 all that we have to do is to give a 
 slight turn to this nose-piece and 
 the half-inch is in position at once. 
 We have now a spectacle that, if 
 one has never seen it before, is sure to be pronounced 
 one of the most beautiful and curious ever beheld. 
 Here are the wheels apparently turning round with 
 astonishing rapidity, and just under them is a giz- 
 zard actively at work. These wheels are not really 
 turning round, but they are made up of a circle of 
 fine hairs, called cilia, which are lashing the water 
 in quick succession, and that begets the illusion of 
 revolution. If our eye-lashes were whipping the 
 air in a similar fashion, it would really seem as if 
 
 FIG. 29. 
 
 Rotifer rndgaris.
 
 124 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the eye was rotating. By the constant play of these 
 cilia, the water in their neighbourhood is kept in a 
 state of agitation, and multitudes of minute objects 
 are brought by the miniature whirlpools within 
 reach of the creature's mouth. Some of them are 
 evidently rejected, for they fly away, while others 
 may be seen to go into the hungry maw of the animal. 
 
 A very slight inspection is enough to show that 
 the rotifer is much more highly organised than the 
 amoaba at which we have just been looking. There 
 are here evidently separate and specialised organs. 
 The head is distinguishable from the general mass 
 of the body ; the outer covering, which we may call 
 the skin, if you like, is clearly different from the 
 internal portions ; there are two tiny bright spots 
 which are probably organs of vision ; while we can 
 clearly detect a small ganglion of nerve substance 
 which fulfils the office of brain. There are also 
 other organs inside the body, all of which have 
 important vital functions to perform. 
 
 The first question that a real student of these 
 minute organisms will ask is as to their proper 
 place in the zoological scale, and this is a point 
 about which zoologists are not quite agreed. Pro- 
 fessor Huxley ranks them very close to worms, and 
 considers them to be "the permanent forms of 
 echinoderm larvae;" that is, they agree in many 
 points with an imperfect sea-urchin or star-fish. 
 Mr. Gosse, who has studied these creatures more 
 industriously than perhaps any other man, places 
 them still higher in the animal kingdom, and, while 
 admitting their connection with the lower worms,
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 125 
 
 seems inclined to associate them with insects. The 
 earlier arrangement of Huxley, in which Rotifera 
 are placed as a group of Scolecida, or lower worms, 
 such as inhabit water or are parasitic, is adopted 
 by Nicholson, and is, I think, the safest one to 
 follow at present. 
 
 But in whatever way this zoological discussion 
 may be ultimately settled, we have evidently taken 
 a great leap from the amcebean speck of jelly with 
 scarcely any traces of permanent organs to the 
 rotifer with its comparatively high organisation. 
 We have passed through the higher protozoa, such 
 as Polycystins, the more definite modern group of 
 Infusoria (which includes creatures like the familiar 
 paramcecium), the great family of Sponges, the varied 
 forms of Corals, and on to animals like worms. 
 And yet these creatures are invisible to the naked 
 eye, and used to be classed in that omnium gatherum 
 once known as the Infusoria. What a wonderful 
 illustration we have here of the rapid advance of 
 modern science, and what a splendid testimony 
 to the value of the microscope as a handmaid to 
 scientific research ! 
 
 Mr. Gosse prefers to call the gizzard a mastax, 
 and contends that it is really a mouth. He says 
 it consists of muscular fibre. Out of it a funnel 
 leads upwards, while a sort of oesophagus runs 
 downwards to the stomach. Inside the mastax are 
 two organs which work like hammers, and supply 
 the place of teeth. They pound down the particles 
 of food on an anvil, and prepare them for digestion. 
 All this is curious to witness, but to see these
 
 126 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 processes we need higher powers and more elaborate 
 arrangements. 
 
 The respiration of rotifers is said to be carried 
 on by means of what is termed a " water- vascular 
 system," consisting of two tubes filled with a watery 
 fluid, from which many shorter tubes proceed into 
 the internal parts of the body. The two longer 
 tubes run into a "contractile bladder," which pulsates 
 like a heart, and so keeps up the circulation. 
 
 One curious fact about rotifers must not be 
 omitted, and that is, the sexes are distinct, the 
 females being much more highly organised than 
 the males. The males are more free than the 
 females, but the latter can boast of a superior 
 development, and so probably both are content. 
 
 While we are watching the rotifer, it suddenly 
 loosens its hold of the twig to which it was anchored, 
 and swims away, or perhaps tucks in its wheels 
 and crawls in and out amongst the tangled weeds. 
 We can now see that the tail or foot is forked at 
 the end, and slides in and out like a telescope. 
 
 There are many varieties of rotifers, but I must 
 not overload my pages with technical words, which 
 would require for their explanation more space than 
 I can now spare. Those who wish to pursue the 
 fascinating subject into details must have recourse 
 to Hudson and Gosse's interesting book, or to the 
 ponderous volume of Pritchard. 
 
 I cannot, however, turn away from this group 
 of animals without saying a word about the tube- 
 building rotifers. Perhaps we shall be fortunate 
 enough to find one of these, say the Melicerta.
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 
 
 127 
 
 This creature is a brick-maker and an architect, 
 and can construct as elegant an edifice as one might 
 wish to see. It erects itself upon its telescopic foot 
 and thrusts out above its conical tower, the bricks 
 of which sparkle like so many gems, an expanded 
 
 FIG. ZQ.Melicerta ringens. 
 
 head, with four leaf-like structures surrounded with 
 cilia, making, when they are in action, a scene most 
 bewitching to behold. Mr. Gosse was fortunate 
 enough to discover how this tower was made. He 
 observed an organ just above the gizzard which is 
 not always visible, and which he likens to a circular
 
 128 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 ventilator, and found that this was the mechanism 
 by means of which the tiny mason constructed its 
 bricks. Diverting a stream of minute particles into 
 a kind of mould, the creature cements them together 
 with a sticky secretion, and in doing so changes 
 their appearance, so that they look like glittering 
 pellets ; then, bending her head, she deposits the 
 brick into its proper place, and so proceeds from 
 the foundation to the battlements, layer by layer, 
 till the lovely tower is complete. 
 
 Professor Williamson tells us that the first layer 
 of pellets is laid, not at the base, but in a ring at 
 about the middle position. " At first new additions 
 are made to both extremities of the enlarging ring ; 
 but the jerking constrictions of the animal at 
 length force the caudal end of the cylinder down 
 upon the leaf, to which it becomes securely cemented 
 by the same viscous secretion as causes the little 
 spheres to cohere." 
 
 The eye-spots in Melicerta are not usually observed, 
 as they are possessed only in a rudimentary form 
 by the younger ones, and disappear as the creatures 
 grow up. 
 
 There is just one other specimen 1 want to 
 describe before I close this chapter. I have never 
 found this particular species myself, but I . have 
 had several opportunities of looking at it in the 
 microscopes of my friends. Any microscopist, 
 however, is almost sure to have at hand a dead 
 specimen mounted on a slip of glass ; and even this 
 inanimate object is very beautiful, and by means 
 of diagrams it is easy to describe with sufficient
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 
 
 clearness the appear- 
 ance and the functions 
 of the creature as in 
 life. It is the Pluma- 
 tella repens. 
 
 This animal belongs 
 to a group of which there 
 are numerous kinds, and 
 every pond-hunter has 
 met with one or other 
 of them. I am told 
 that in the ponds of 
 Hampstead Heath they 
 are by no means rare. 
 When found in the 
 living state, 'a number 
 of individuals occur 
 together in a colony. 
 They are polyp-shaped 
 animals, and live to- 
 gether in communities 
 the shape of which is 
 that of a ramifying 
 tube. This tube is 
 dotted at intervals with 
 brown masses of an oval 
 form, from which may 
 be seen in the micro- 
 scope a number of long 
 pearly tentacles pro- 
 truding, all decorated F I. Zl.-Plumatella repens. 
 along their margins with cilia in constant movement. 
 
 9
 
 130 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 These creatures are as much higher in the scale 
 of organisation than rotifers as rotifers are above 
 amoebse. They are placed by zoologists amongst what 
 are called Polyzoa, a word which means " many 
 animals." Polyzoa constitute the lowest division of 
 Mollusca, so that, in fact, they are poor relations 
 of the snail, the oyster, and the cuttle-fish. They 
 chiefly inhabit salt water, and one of the most 
 familiar of the Polyzoa must have been seen by every 
 visitor to the seaside, though perhaps by the majority 
 regarded as a piece of decaying seaweed. This is the 
 sea-mat, or Flustra, which lies about everywhere on 
 the seashore. When looked at with the naked eye, 
 it is exactly like a piece of whitish-brown seaweed. 
 But pick it up and examine it with a pocket lens, 
 and you will see a vast number of lovely crystalline 
 cells, all built up according to the same pattern. If 
 you can dredge up a living specimen, and will place 
 it at once in water, you will see very soon a beautiful 
 sight. Out of these cells will rise multitudes of 
 ciliated tentacles, which wave and rotate in the 
 water in a remarkable way. There is another sea- 
 side polyzoon almost as common as the flustra, and 
 this assumes the form of a miniature fir-tree, for 
 which reason it is called the sea-fir, or S&rtularia. 
 
 There are, however, many fresh-water species of 
 Polyzoa, of which one of the commonest is Pluma- 
 tdla repens. Let us suppose we are looking at this 
 through the half-inch objective, with the light shin- 
 ing through it from beneath in a somewhat oblique 
 direction, in order not to alarm the timid creatures, 
 and also to enable us to get a better view of the cilia.
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 131 
 
 We shall first of all see a number of tubes and 
 cells, making together what is called the polypary, 
 or comcecmm, which means a " common house." 
 Then, fixing our attention on one animal, or polypide, 
 as it is termed, we are able to make out oasophagus, 
 stomach, and intestine, the latter bending round and 
 ending in an oval orifice near to the mouth. These 
 are all contained in a bag filled with fluid, and 
 having openings for the mouth and the anus. There 
 is a double system of muscles for the movements of 
 this digestive apparatus. There is a single nervous 
 mass or ganglion on one side of the oesophagus. 
 Around the bag is an investing sheath, from which 
 branch out numerous cells, each occupied by a 
 polypide. 
 
 Out of each bag will be seen slowly rising a 
 number of tentacles, which spread out like the rays 
 of a daisy or the feathers of a pheasant's tail. Over 
 the mouth is a kind of tongue or finger-like process, 
 called the epistome, whose office it seems to be to 
 keep out unsuitable atoms of food which the cilia 
 bring within reach. Just at the point where the 
 stomach ends and the intestinal tube curves round 
 may be seen a long, flexible string, called the 
 funiculus. This goes to the bottom of the cell, and 
 serves to moor the creature in position. Mr. Slack, 
 in his Marvels of Pond Life, to which I am chiefly 
 indebted for the foregoing description, gives us an 
 account of the feeding of Plumatella which he was 
 enabled to observe. He says, " One day a polyzoon 
 caught a large rotifer, which, with several others of 
 its tribe, had been walking over the ccencecium, and
 
 132 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 swimming amongst the tentacles, as if unconscious 
 of danger. All of a sudden it went down the whirl- 
 pool leading to the mouth, was rolled up by a 
 process that could not be traced, and, without an 
 instant's loss of time, was seen shooting down in 
 rapid descent to the gulf below, where it looked 
 like a potato-shaped mass, utterly destitute of its 
 characteristic living form. Having been made into 
 a bolus, the unhappy rotifer, who never gave the 
 faintest sign of vitality, was tossed up and down 
 from the top to the bottom of the stomach, just as 
 a billiard ball might be thrown from the top to 
 the bottom of a stocking. This process went on for 
 hours, the ball gradually diminishing in size, until 
 at last it was lost in the general brown mass with 
 which the stomach was filled. The bottom of the 
 stomach seems well supplied with muscular fibres, 
 to cause the constrictions by which the work is 
 chiefly performed; and, by keeping a colony for a 
 month or two, I had many opportunities of seeing 
 my Polyzoa at their meals." 
 
 The colony goes on enlarging by the development 
 of fresh cells, but new colonies are originated from 
 what are called statoblasts, germs very much like 
 the " winter eggs " of some other animals. 
 
 The muscles which draw the animal within its 
 cell are of that peculiar type of muscular structure 
 called "striped," and which amongst the higher 
 animals at any rate betokens voluntary action, or the 
 exercise of will. Has this tiny creature then a will 
 of its own ? Well, it can retract itself into its cell 
 very rapidly, and this it will do at the least sign of
 
 MARVELS OF THE POND. 
 
 '33 
 
 danger. It also has some kind of feeling, for it 
 possesses at least a rudimentary nervous system. 
 Let it therefore be treated tenderly, and give it 
 plenty of room in the live-box or compressorium; 
 for otherwise, like Melicerta, with its beautiful tube, 
 it may be crushed to death, and suffer who knows 
 how much pain.
 
 X. 
 
 A RAMBLE THROUGH CATERHAM VALLEY. 
 
 " So fresh, so pure, the woods, the sky, the air, 
 It seemed a place where angels might repair, 
 And tune their harps beneath those tranquil shades, 
 To morning songs, or moonlight serenades." 
 
 MONTOOMEBY. 
 
 ERY few places within twenty miles of 
 London present so many attractions to 
 the geologist as the neighbourhood of 
 Caterham. It was here that the London 
 members of the Wesley Scientific Society enjoyed 
 one of their most successful excursions. And, 
 indeed, it was a real enjoyment. The weather was 
 most propitious bright, crisp, in short everything 
 that an October afternoon ought to be. We were 
 favoured with the presence of Mr. J. H. Cowham, 
 F.G.S., Science Tutor at the Westminster Training 
 College, who has made this district a special study, 
 and was therefore able to direct us along the most 
 instructive and convenient route, as well as to give 
 us reliable information as we proceeded. 
 
 Leaving the River Thames behind us with all its 
 overhanging murkiness, we first of all crossed over
 
 A RAMBLE THROUGH CATERHAM VALLEY. 135 
 
 a mile or two of Gravel and Alluvium, until at 
 New Cross we met with the London Clay, which 
 extends as far as Croydon. Soon after Croydon 
 was passed, a momentary glimpse was had of the 
 Woolwich and Reading Beds, the lowest members 
 of the Tertiaries. These are made up of sand, 
 pebbles, and clay, and are brought to light in a 
 quarry by the railway side. Then immediately 
 came the chalk, cropping out in all its glory, and 
 forming the most conspicuous geological feature in 
 and around Caterham. The extreme boundaries of 
 the Tertiaries may be observed in many places where 
 the chalk is being quarried as, for instance, near 
 Caterham Junction ; for on the face of the chalk 
 occur sandy patches or outliers, which are really 
 portions of the Eocene deposits that by the pro- 
 cesses of denudation have become almost discon- 
 nected, in many cases quite so, from the main masses 
 of the Tertiaries. In times long gone by how long 
 who shall say ? the sand and gravel were deposited 
 in crevices in the chalk. Then in process of time, 
 as both sand and chalk were worn down, the thicker 
 portions of the Tertiary deposits in the chalk hollows 
 became separated from the principal part of the 
 same formation, being left as Tertiary islands in a 
 sea of chalk. If then the chalk be quarried at 
 right angles to these sandy courses, their fades will 
 seem to be surrounded by the chalk, and so will 
 present the appearance of patches or pipes, as can 
 be seen at Caterham Junction. 
 
 This is not the only evidence that the Tertiaries 
 once extended farther south than they do now.
 
 136 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 The tops of almost all the hills around Caterham 
 are capped with gravelly outliers of Tertiary age. 
 It is this feature which explains the luxuriance of 
 the vegetation where we should naturally look for 
 the barrenness of a typical chalk district. A boring 
 at Caterham shows that there the Tertiaries have 
 maintained a thickness of eighty-nine feet, notwith- 
 standing the wearing down which has been going on 
 for centuries. As these Tertiary deposits agree with 
 the chalk in general direction, being shaped into 
 the same synclinals and anticlinals, it is clear that 
 they must have been laid before the final upheaval 
 of the chalk took place, for otherwise they would 
 have filled up the hollows caused previously by 
 denudation of the chalk, while the higher portions 
 of the chalk would have been without the gravels 
 that now cap them. Thus is the eye trained by 
 geological methods to read the history of the 
 landscape in the furrows and markings upon its face. 
 
 Journeying on in a southerly direction, a number 
 of Secondary formations are encountered. These 
 occur one after the other along the line of route in 
 exactly the same order as that in which they are 
 met with when vertical borings are made into the 
 earth's crust. The Caterham boring already referred 
 to reveals as the order of superposition the Tertiary, 
 the Chalk, the Upper Greensand and Gault, and 
 the Lower Greensand. A boring made in Tottenham 
 Court Road in search of water for Meux' Brewery 
 showed the same order, and was continued into the 
 Oolites. 
 
 The most remarkable circumstance in connection
 
 A RAMBLE THROUGH CATERHAM VALLEY. 137 
 
 with these strata is that, speaking generally, they 
 form a hollow basin, in which lie London and its 
 suburbs, their extremes cropping out in precisely 
 the same order in a northerly direction from London 
 as we have stated they do towards the south. The 
 London Clay which fills the basin stretches from 
 Croydon to St. Albans ; the chalk from Box Hill 
 to Dunstable ; the Greensand from Dorking to 
 Leighton Buzzard ; and the Lower Greensand from 
 Reigate to Ampthill. The Oolites of the north 
 thin off as they approach London, and, though they 
 are met with in the Metropolitan borings, yet they 
 do not appear in the southern region as do the 
 Cretaceous deposits. 
 
 Next in geological age to the Greensand, forming 
 part of the Cretaceous series, is the Wealden Clay. 
 This bed, along with the underlying Hastings Sand, 
 constitutes the bottom of the Cretaceous formations. 
 The Wealden Clay resembles the London Clay in 
 this, that it, also, lies in a basin, the northern and 
 southern boundaries of which agree in respect to 
 the order in which the various beds crop out. A 
 traveller coming from Chichester northwards to 
 Horsham would meet with the same kinds of deposits 
 and in the same order as would a traveller going 
 from London southwards towards Horsham. The 
 beds both would cross are the Lower Eocene (London 
 Clay, etc.), Chalk, Upper Greensand, Gault, Lower 
 Greensand, and Wealden Clay. The advantage 
 which the Londoner would have over the traveller 
 from the south is that he would find the various 
 strata squeezed together more closely in his track,
 
 138 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 and consequently he would have less distance to 
 travel for the same results. In fact, the whole of 
 these interesting beds may be seen in an afternoon 
 between Caterham Junction and Tilburstow Hill, a 
 distance of only some half-dozen miles. 
 
 Let us then pursue the walk from Caterham over 
 the Chalk, leaving the Tertiary outliers behind. In 
 about half an hour we shall meet with some re- 
 markable Greensand quarries, where the workings 
 are carried into the hillsides to a distance of several 
 hundred yards. This Greensand is soft enough to 
 be easily shaped into blocks in the workings, but 
 when brought out into the daylight it hardens in 
 weathering, so as to make durable slabs. Next 
 comes a flat reach of land extending for nearly a 
 mile, on which abound the rushes that at once 
 inform us that we are walking over clay. This is 
 the Gault, seen to greater advantage in the Warren 
 at Folkestone, where the most beautiful fossils, 
 Ammonites, Hamites, Nuculae, etc., may be picked 
 up in numbers when the tide is out. 
 
 Just as we are entering the romantic village 
 of Godstone, the Gault gives place to the Lower 
 Greensand group, which embraces the Folkestone, 
 Sandgate, and Hythe beds. These latter form the 
 southern ascent of the London basin ; and when we 
 have reached the Hythe beds we find ourselves on 
 a considerable elevation, which is a kind of brink 
 to another vast basin. It is in this basin that the 
 Wealden Clay lies, and it stretches away from our 
 feet over to Hurstpierpoint, twenty-five miles 
 distant, where again the Hythe Sand is seen, and
 
 A RAMBLE THROUGH CATERHAM VALLEY. 139 
 
 after it the various beds we walked over in coming 
 from Caterham, though of course in the reverse 
 order to that in which we then observed them. 
 
 Thus much for the physical aspects of the Geology 
 of this district. A few further particulars of a more 
 palseontological character may be added. 
 
 The fossils of the London Clay are very numerous 
 in some localities, but not in the one now under 
 survey. Marine creatures, such as Nautilus, crab, 
 fishes, are found, along with estuarine forms, Voluta, 
 Fusus, etc., and sufficiently indicate the nature of 
 the deposit. 
 
 The Woolwich and Reading beds consist of 
 mottled clays and sand, and in them are found 
 fossils of both salt-water and fresh-water species. 
 The Thanet beds at Croydon do not appear to be 
 fossiliferous. 
 
 Passing on now to the Secondaries, we are at 
 once confronted with the enormous chalk deposits 
 which stretch for a distance of seven miles from 
 Croydon to Caterham, and attaining in some places 
 a thickness of five hundred feet or more. In the 
 quarries and railway cuttings numerous fossils may 
 be obtained with very little labour. Various kinds 
 of sea-urchins (Micrasters, etc.) and ammonites 
 abound. Foraminifera for the microscope may also 
 be got in profusion. These organic remains con- 
 clusively show that the hundreds of feet of chalk 
 were slowly deposited by the dropping of the shells 
 of dead animals upon the bed of a vast deep sea, 
 just as is now going on in the Atlantic, from the 
 depths of which the Challenger naturalists have
 
 I 4 o RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 dredged up globigerina ooze almost identical in 
 composition with the chalk. 
 
 " The dust we tread upon was once alive ! " 
 
 The Upper Greensand is in some parts a calcareous 
 sandstone, known locally as " Firestone " and 
 " Malm Rock," and is largely quarried for hearth- 
 stones, etc. This will also yield Foraminifera. 
 
 The Lower Greensand and "Wealden Clay are 
 usually placed together in what is called the 
 Neocomian Series, a subdivision of the larger 
 Cretaceous group. The Folkestone beds consist 
 of clean, light-coloured sands, intersected with 
 ferruginous bands and ribs. They have yielded 
 Exogyra, Terebratula, and other marine shells. In 
 the Wealden Clay is often found the fresh-water 
 mollusc Paludina, while terrestrial plants as well 
 as marine shells also occur, showing that the strata 
 are the remains of an ancient delta. As the deposits 
 have suffered from denudation, the delta must have 
 originally been much larger than the Weald now 
 is, probably covering an area of at least twenty-five 
 thousand square miles, and including the outlets 
 of a river which came down from the north-west, 
 draining a vast territory, of which the British Isles 
 are only a surviving fragment. 
 
 These are a few of the points of interest with 
 which this district teems, but far more space than 
 we have at command would be needed to do justice 
 to its varied charms. To find clustered together 
 within the compass of half a dozen miles so many 
 formations is quite exceptional, while the facilities
 
 A RAMBLE THROUGH CATERHAM VALLEY. 141 
 
 they offer for studying the features of an extensive 
 tract of country without actually having to traverse 
 it are most remarkable. And to all this is added 
 a diversity of lovely, landscape that cannot but be 
 admired, especially by those who can look intelli- 
 gently upon the scene, deciphering in the gentle 
 undulations and verdant vales, the crumbling sand 
 and overhanging rocks, the fascinating story of 
 Nature's long and unwearied operations, by which 
 she has built up the great hills with the remains 
 of innumerable generations of her offspring, and 
 then has carved and chiselled the material into cliff 
 and valley by the potent agencies at her command, 
 producing by much change and toil the beauty and 
 order that now delight the thoughtful, reverent 
 beholder.
 
 XI. 
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 
 
 ' Slime their material, but the slime was turned 
 To adamant by their petrific touch ; 
 Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives 
 Their masonry imperishable." 
 
 MONTGOMEBY. 
 
 JO much has been written about Corals, 
 from the beautiful though not over- 
 accurate poem of The Pelican, Island 
 to the more profound volumes of Darwin 
 and Dana, that the amateur geologist is sure to 
 feel a strong desire very early in his pilgrimages 
 to become acquainted with such vestiges of these 
 marvellous rock-builders as are accessible to him. 
 It was amongst the limestones of Wenlock and the 
 Peak of Derbyshire that I was led first of all to 
 cultivate a close acquaintance with these interesting 
 structures ; but no account ol them would be of much 
 use were I not to refer to other districts and to 
 draw upon the work and writings of others. 
 
 For many reasons corals have for the geologist 
 charms that few fossils possess. Their beauty of 
 structure alone, especially when examined under the
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 
 
 microscope, would suffice to win general admiration. 
 But their value to the geologist in enabling him to 
 determine ancient physical conditions and the rela- 
 tive ages of the earth's strata is a still stronger 
 inducement to study them. As the coral animal 
 can only fulfil its life functions in water where there 
 are no muddy deposits and which is of a rather 
 warm temperature, the occurrence of fossilised corals 
 in those parts of the earth which are now too cold 
 
 FIG. 32. Favosites 
 GatMandica. 
 
 FIG. 33. Tubes and tabulae of 
 F. Gothlandica. 
 
 for their growth indicates vast climatal changes. 
 As to the evidence they present of subsidences and 
 upheavals of ancient ocean beds, to which Mr. 
 Darwin drew special attention in his account of the 
 formation of reefs and atolls, considerable discussion 
 is now going on, and many differences of opinion 
 amongst authorities exist ; but we must not at this 
 point enter into that question. 
 
 We will first settle upon what we mean by corals, 
 and determine the place to which they are usually 
 assigned in the zoological scale.
 
 144 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 The great sub-kingdom of Coelenterata is divided 
 into Hydrozoa, of which the well-known Hyd/ra 
 may be taken as the type ; and Actinozoa, in which 
 corals are arranged. Actinozoa differ from Hydro- 
 zoa in the fact that while the body cavity of the 
 latter consists of one tube, that of the former is 
 divided into radial chambers. 
 
 Actinozoa consist of the following four orders : 
 
 (1) Zoantharia, sea-anemones and corals 
 
 proper ; 
 
 (2) Rugosa, an indefinite group, made up of 
 
 extinct fossilised corals ; 
 
 (3) Alcyonaria, in which are included the 
 
 familiar dead-man's fingers or Alcyo- 
 nium, the so-called red coral, etc. ; 
 
 (4) Ctenopkora, Venus' girdle, etc. 
 
 Until recently corals were classified mainly by 
 means of their hard stony deposits, and were all 
 regarded as belonging to Zoantharia. This group 
 was sub-divided into 
 
 (1) Tabulata, having horizontal partitions, 
 
 which split them up into compartments, 
 as illustrated by Favosites Gothlandica 
 (Fig. 32, 33), where the polygonal tubes, 
 as well as the tabulae and perforations 
 connecting the tubes, are shown. 
 
 (2) Rugosa, having radiating plates or septa 
 
 in multiples of four, as seen in Litho- 
 strotion, an abundant carboniferous coral 
 (Fig. 34).
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 145 
 
 (3) Aporosa, very similar to the last, but 
 having their septa in multiples of six. 
 These did not appear till the Secon- 
 dary era, and are still abundant. 
 Sometimes madrepores are considered 
 as making up a fourth group called 
 Perforata. 
 
 FlG. M.LitJiostrotion banaltiforme. 
 
 These terms, however, now receive a different 
 interpretation. Professor Moseley thinks most of 
 the Tabulata are really Alcyonarians, and Professor 
 Nicholson says that some of the tabulate corals, 
 such as Millepora, have been shown to be Hydrozoa ; 
 others belong to Aporosa; others again, such as 
 Favosites and its allies, belong to Perforata; 
 others are referable to the Alcyonaria ; while 
 
 10
 
 I 4 6 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 others are of uncertain affinities (Manual of 
 Zoology, p. 189). 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the term Coral has 
 no definite zoological signification, and that as geo- 
 logically used it indicates in general most of the 
 organisms now included in Zoantkaria scleroder- 
 mata (Madrepores), Rugosa, and Alcyonaria. 
 
 The soft parts of the polype which secretes the 
 hard " corallum " do not differ essentially from the 
 sea-anemone. The stony corals of the geologist 
 were secreted by a colony of such polypes, all of 
 which, however, were united by the common flesh 
 (coenosarc). The corallum consists of a number of 
 " corallites," or individual skeletons, these having a 
 common calcareous basis. 
 
 It is possible to study the habits of the living 
 coral polype, for on our warm southern coasts several 
 species may be met with. If one of the simple 
 corals or madrepores, say a Caryophyllia of the 
 Devonshire coast, be placed in an aquarium, it will 
 probably survive. When examined, it will be seen 
 to possess numerous tentacles, in circular sets. 
 The mouth is reddish generally, and has bars of 
 white. The large plates or septa seem to radiate 
 like the spokes of a wheel, dividing the inside basin 
 into chambers. The creature obtains its food by 
 means of cilia which waft the water to the mouth, 
 or by direct capture of its prey with the tentacles. 
 The lime which may form part of the food thus 
 captured goes to construct the "corallite" or 
 skeleton. 
 
 The architects of coral rocks are polypes of many
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 147 
 
 varying species, but they agree in form and structure 
 with the simple polype just described, only they 
 work in colonies, secreting a common stony skeleton. 
 They cannot live at a greater depth in the sea than 
 twenty or thirty fathoms, so that all the vast coral 
 islands and reefs of the Southern seas must have 
 been deposited at that distance from the surface. 
 
 FIG. 35. Halt/sites catenulatus. 
 
 The most important of these organisms are the 
 Porites, which construct large rounded masses on the 
 exposed edges of the reef. Millepora complanata 
 builds up a honeycomb-shaped structure, the thick 
 vertical plates of which are united at their edges 
 at different angles. On less exposed surfaces the 
 brain coral (Meandrina) and the flower-shaped 
 Caryophyllice carry on the work. Dr. Sorby states
 
 148 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 that the ancient tabulate fossils, so abundant in 
 Silurian and Devonian rocks, are composed of calcite, 
 whereas modern corals are formed of Arragonite, 
 a not very different material, though somewhat 
 differently built up. 
 
 Let us now turn our attention to the geological 
 distribution of corals. Their earliest occurrence is 
 in the Silurian rocks, in which Favosites Gothlandica 
 (Fig. 32, 33) and Halysites 
 catenulatus (Fig. 35) are 
 frequently met with. 
 
 Amongst the most ancient 
 and widely distributed of 
 the corals are the Astrcets, 
 so called from the star-like 
 arrangement of the coral- 
 lites. It is remarkable, 
 FIG. 36. Astraa ananus. too, that this genus is one 
 of the most extensively dis- 
 tributed of the modern corals. Astreea rotulosa is 
 abundant in the West Indian seas, while A.favosa 
 is as common in the East Indian waters. An 
 illustration is given of A. ananus (Fig. 36), a very 
 frequent fossil of the Wenlock limestones of the 
 upper Silurian system. In fact, the whole of 
 Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, as Professor Owen 
 first pointed out, is a Palaeozoic coral reef of about 
 thirty miles in length. Here, in the very centre 
 of our land, the haunt of trade and the abode of 
 multitudes, the great sea once rolled and the very 
 dust of the roads was once alive. 
 
 In this interesting and picturesque region of
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 
 
 149 
 
 Wenlock, and more particularly at what is called 
 the Wren's Nest, near Dudley, numerous kinds of 
 corals may be hammered out, among them being 
 Omphyma, Forties, Heliolites, the " chain-coral " 
 (Holy sites), Cyathophyllum, and others. When 
 this luxuriance of sub-tropical life is compared with 
 the few species of our warmer Devon and Cornish 
 coasts, the largest 
 
 phyllia, some idea 
 can be formed of 
 the vast changes 
 which our climate 
 must have under- 
 gone since those 
 remote epochs 
 when coral is- 
 lands and coral 
 reefs occupied the 
 site of Britain. 
 In the quarries 
 round about 
 
 Church Stretton, too, I have found enormous 
 quantities of corals. In this region, made classic 
 by Sir Roderick Murchison's Siluria it is difficult 
 to find a Silurian section without several kinds of 
 coral being seen. The common Cyathophyllum, 
 the " petrified ram's horns " of the quarrymen, as 
 well as Heliolites inter stinctus, which gets into 
 every cabinet of fossils, are abundant. A figure 
 of the latter is given (Fig. 37), and also a magnified 
 portion (Fig. 38), which will illustrate the corallites, 
 
 FIG. ^1. Heliolites interstinctus.
 
 150 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 or skeletons of the polypes, with the common 
 calcareous basis uniting the corallites together and 
 called " coenenchyma," thus corresponding to the 
 ccenosarc which joins the soft polypes to one 
 another. 
 
 Occasionally a coral deposit will be found in a 
 very friable state, and the fossils will occur as casts 
 or impressions only. The lime which originally be- 
 longed to the fossils has been gradually dissolved 
 out by rain-water penetra- 
 ting into the rocks. Many 
 such casts of Favosites, 
 Cyathophyllum, etc., may 
 be got near Windermere. 
 The foregoing remarks 
 will make it abundantly 
 clear that the Silurian 
 period was one of profuse 
 coral development ; indeed 
 FIG. 38.-Magnified corallites no fewer than seventy-six 
 
 of H. interstinctus. f i . V 
 
 species of corals have been 
 described from the Wenlock formation alone. 
 
 This applies equally to the Devonian rocks of this 
 country. From these strata fifty-two species of corals 
 have been obtained. The Plymouth limestones are 
 regarded by geologists as portions of an ancient 
 coral-reef which fringed the earlier Cambrian and 
 Silurian rocks. Reef-building corals are abundant 
 in them. It is not always easy to determine which 
 are reef-builders, but there is no doubt as to the 
 Astrceae (Fig. 36) being amongst them, for they are 
 still at work in many parts of our globe, and these,
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 151 
 
 along with others, are found in the Devonian rocks 
 about Plymouth. Another very common Devonian 
 coral is Favosites cervicornis (Fig. 39). 
 
 The Devonian corals are difficult to hammer out, 
 as their interstices are filled in with hardened 
 sediment, so that the student will want to cut and 
 polish slices in order to examine their structure and 
 determine their species. Their extreme beauty, 
 
 FIG. 39. Section of Favorites cervioornis. 
 
 however, will repay the trouble or the cost of pro- 
 curing polished slabs and microscopical sections. 
 
 The climax of coral development was reached in 
 the earlier Carboniferous ages. From the limestones 
 of this system over a hundred and forty species have 
 been catalogued. And yet, as Mr. Etheridge has 
 pointed out, of fifty species from the mid-Devonian 
 rocks none have passed to the Carboniferous, so 
 complete are the distinctions between corals de- 
 posited under different conditions. One of the most 
 frequent of the Carboniferous fossils is Lithostrotion,
 
 152 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 a species of which we have chosen as an illustration 
 (Fig. 34). L. basaltiforme is a common rugose 
 compound coral. The lighter portion of the figure 
 shows the transverse structure as it appears in 
 microscopical sections. When mountain limestone 
 is weathered, it often looks as though covered with 
 dead twigs. The twig-like prominences are in 
 reality dense masses of corallites, and will very 
 likely turn out to be species of Lithostrotion. 
 
 The genus Zaphrentis is another very common 
 Carboniferous coral, and may be found in a perfect 
 condition weathered out into relief on the limestone 
 walls. Lonsdalia looks out from the roadside in 
 many places in Derbyshire, North Wales, and Scot- 
 land. It would be impossible and confusing to 
 enumerate even the genera of Carboniferous corals. 
 They occur all through the four thousand feet of the 
 English Mountain limestone, which was probably 
 deposited on the floor of a slowly subsiding sea, and 
 are found in bewildering profusion in the lower 
 Carboniferous strata of Scotland, which seem to have 
 been laid in shallow waters. Besides those already 
 mentioned, it will be easy to obtain Aspidophyllum, 
 R/iodophyllum, Clisiophyllum, from Scotland and 
 elsewhere ; Gyathaxinia from the Lake district ; the 
 pretty Phillipsastrtea from Corwen ; and indeed 
 many kinds from every part of Britain where the 
 Carboniferous limestone occurs. 
 
 The Permian formation follows the Carboniferous 
 system in geological succession ; and as is the case 
 with all other forms of animal life, so with regard to 
 corals, there is an almost complete extinction. So
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 153 
 
 complete is the break in the line of Coral history 
 caused by the Permian cataclysm, that the very 
 nomenclature radically changes. 
 
 A good typical specimen of the Liassic corals 
 is the Isastrcea insignis (Fig. 40). Other genera 
 of the earlier Secondary corals are Leptophyllia, 
 Thamnastrcea, Thecosmilia, Montlivaltia, etc. At 
 Lyme Regis, Cowbridge in Glamorganshire, near 
 
 FIG. 40. Isastrcea insignis (Lower Lias). 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon, and at Marton near Gains- 
 borough, Liassic fossils are plentifully obtained. 
 
 Oolitic corals do not differ very much from those 
 of the Lias. Thamnastr&a, Isastrcea, etc., are still 
 abundant, and may;,be~got easily in the quarries near 
 Scarborough. The Coral Rag, whose very name 
 indicates the character of its fossils, is situated 
 nearly at the top of the Middle Oolitic, just above 
 the Oxford Clay. It is not a very thick deposit,
 
 154 
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 FIG. 41. Thecosmilia 
 annularis. 
 
 reaching only an average of about fifty feet, but it has 
 
 yielded some fifteen species of fossils. Thecosmilia 
 annularis (Fig. 41) is a 
 very pretty, large-branch- 
 ing coral of this zone, and 
 is obtained from the Wilt- 
 shire beds. Oolitic corals 
 are also plentiful at 
 Malton, in Yorkshire, and 
 near Stroud, where there 
 occurs an ancient "barrier 
 reef" crowded with 
 
 Thamnastraa, Isastrcea, Thecosmilia, etc. 
 The Cretaceous System follows the Oolitic, and is 
 
 distinguished for the great number of single corals 
 
 which its various strata 
 
 contain. As an example 
 
 of these we present an il- 
 lustration of Smilotrichus 
 
 granulatus (Fig. 42). 
 The Tertiaries of Britain 
 
 afford very few corals. 
 
 Several kinds are obtained 
 
 at Bracklesham, in the 
 
 New Forest, at High 
 
 Cliff, in the Isle of Wight, 
 
 and in the London Clay 
 
 of Sheppey. Litharcea 
 
 (Fig. 43), an Eocene ex- 
 ample, is very common. 
 
 This brings us to the close of our review of the 
 
 geological history of corals, and it now remains only 
 
 FIG. 42. Smilotrichus 
 granulatus.
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 
 
 155 
 
 to notice the important part which these organisms 
 have had, and are still playing, in the formation of 
 rocks, reefs, and islands. 
 
 Numerous species of polypes contribute to the for- 
 mation of coral structures. Brainstones (Meandrina) 
 form large masses with numerous winding channels ; 
 Astrcece are studded with holes which are filled with 
 radiating, perpendicular plates ; Agaricia have the 
 shape of a mushroom; while numerous others assume 
 the typical shrub-like form. The outside and most 
 exposed portion of a reef is occupied by the genus 
 Porites, which 
 build great round- 
 ed masses. Mille- 
 pora, complanata, 
 of honeycomb ap- 
 pearance, is also 
 able to endure the 
 action of the surf. 
 Deeper down are 
 less hardy species ; 
 while inside are 
 
 quite distinct kinds, such as Caryophyllm and the 
 delicate crimson-coloured Pocillopora verrucosa. 
 
 It has been doubted whether corals are still 
 continuing their building operations, but it is quite 
 certain that in some localities they are perceptibly 
 modifying the reefs. The action of the sea, the 
 presence of sediment, arid the voracity of certain 
 fishes and mollusca explain the apparent inactivity 
 in other places. 
 
 A coral island is singularly beautiful. It rarely 
 
 FIG. W.
 
 156 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 rises more than a yard or two above the water, and 
 is richly clothed with vegetation. Here and there 
 rises above the ground a grove of cocoa palms, 
 waving their graceful plumes in the air. The beach 
 is of pearly lustre, and makes a fine contrast against 
 the deep blue of the surrounding water. Before the 
 islet runs a protecting barrier, against which the 
 billows dash themselves and then sink down into 
 the placid lagoon that lies between the barrier and 
 the islet. The lagoon is not completely shut in, but 
 there is a narrow channel between the two ends of 
 the reef and the points of the curved island which 
 they approach. These give entrances to the lagoon 
 for shipping, and also insure a continued supply of 
 fresh water to the haven. That side of the reef 
 which is most exposed to the action of the trade 
 winds attains a greater height than the other or 
 leeward side. This is explained by the fact that on 
 the windward side there is a more abundant food 
 supply for the polypes, and hence their building 
 energy is greater. Some of these reefs are of 
 enormous dimensions. The great reef of Australia is 
 1,250 miles long, and from ten to ninety miles wide. 
 Dana computes that within the coral region of the 
 Pacific there are nearly three hundred islands, in ad- 
 dition to the reefs that surround other islands, which 
 are of coral formation. When we consider that all 
 these vast accretions are the results of the prolonged 
 and united labours of tiny organisms requiring the 
 microscope for their proper observation, and that 
 the entire materials with which the minute architects 
 carry on their work have been derived from the car-
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 157 
 
 bonate of lime which they are continually secreting 
 from the water of the ocean, the mind cannot fail to 
 be filled with astonishment. 
 
 " Millions of millions thus, from age to age, 
 With simplest skill, and toil unweariable, 
 No moment and no movement unimproved, 
 Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, 
 To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, 
 By marvellous structure climbing towards the day 
 Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought ; 
 Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments, 
 By which a Hand invisible was rearing 
 A new creation in the secret deep. 
 Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them, 
 Hence what Omnipotence alone could do 
 Worms did." 
 
 Formerly it was imagined that these coral struc- 
 tures had been built up from the bed of the sea, 
 and consequently it was predicted that gradually 
 the mighty Pacific would be divided by a vast 
 tropical zone of coral rock, but later on it was 
 ascertained that the polypes cannot live at a greater 
 depth than about twenty to thirty fathoms. Mr. 
 Darwin's well-known treatise on Coral Reefs contains 
 an explanation of the various phenomena concerned 
 which has been universally accepted up to our own 
 day. He supposed that after the polypes commenced 
 to build around the shelving sides of an island at 
 some depth below the surface, the bed of the sea 
 began to subside, the rate of upward growth of the 
 polypes keeping pace with the sinking of the ocean 
 floor. According to this theory, a fringing reef would 
 first be formed rising to within a few fathoms of the
 
 158 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 surface of the water. The action of the surf, hurling 
 up fragments of the rock, shells and various debris, 
 would do the rest, bringing the reef at length above 
 the surface and so forming an islet. Inside the reef 
 there would be a shallow lagoon communicating 
 here and there with the outside ocean. Thus is 
 formed the Atoll or true Coral island with its 
 interior lagoon. 
 
 Humboldt has given such a clear and intelligible 
 outline of Darwin's hypothesis that I cannot do 
 better than quote it : "An island mountain closely 
 encircled by a coral reef subsides, while the fringing 
 reef that had sunk with it is constantly recovering 
 its level, owing to the tendency of the coral animals 
 to regain the surface by renewed perpendicular 
 structures; these constitute, first, a reef encircling 
 the island at a distance, and subsequently, when the 
 enclosed island has wholly subsided, an atoll. 
 According to this view, which regards islands as the 
 most prominent parts or the culminating points of 
 the submarine land, the relative position of the 
 coral islands would disclose to us, what we could 
 scarcely hope to discover by the sounding-line, viz. 
 the former configuration and articulation of the land " 
 ( Views of Nature, p. 262). 
 
 Admirably as this theory fits into the conditions 
 of the case, it is open to the objection that it 
 requires many thousands of square miles of ocean 
 bed to be continually sinking, with consequences 
 that would naturally be looked for in other places. 
 
 Dr. John Murray, of the Challenger, has put 
 forward another explanation. He suggests that
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 159 
 
 coral growth may have started on a platform of 
 volcanic origin. A volcanic cone may have been 
 worn down to the necessary depth by the action of 
 the waves, or raised to the required height by the 
 continued deposition upon it of the shells and 
 remains of dead marine animals. When the cone, or 
 the base, had acquired the proper depth, the polypes 
 brought to it would begin their operations, building 
 upwards and outwards the inner portion, or lagoon, 
 being gradually deepened by the solvent action of 
 the sea-water. The advantage of this theory is, that 
 it applies to areas which are being elevated as well as 
 to stationary or subsiding regions ; and there seems 
 to be more evidence of elevation than of subsidence 
 in coral areas. It also explains the curious fact 
 that reefs expand laterally by the more rapid growth 
 on the seaward side, while they remain always only 
 a few hundred yards wide the inner lagoons be- 
 coming larger and deeper as the result of the 
 solvent action of the carbonic acid of the sea-water 
 upon the calcareous elements of the coral structure. 
 These theories of Darwin and Murray are still 
 being discussed. Not long since, in the Nineteenth 
 Century, a formidable attack was made by the Duke 
 of Argyll, not only on Darwin's hypothesis of coral 
 formation, but also on scientific men in general, for 
 what he described as " a great conspiracy " on their 
 part in ignoring Murray and still clinging to Darwin's 
 early explanation. He went so far as to say that, 
 " with all his conscientiousness, with all his caution, 
 with all his powers of observation, Darwin, in this 
 matter, fell into errors as profound as the abysses of
 
 160 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the Pacific. All the acclamations with which his 
 theory was received were as the shouts of an ignorant 
 mob. The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only 
 beginning to be known. It has been whispered for 
 some time. The cherished dogma has been dropping 
 very slowly out of sight. Can it be possible that 
 Darwin was wrong? Reluctantly, almost sulkily, 
 and with a grudging silence, as far as public dis- 
 cussion is concerned, the ugly possibility has been 
 contemplated as too disagreeable to be much talked 
 about. The evidence, old and new, has been 
 weighed, and weighed again, and the obviously 
 inclining balance has been looked at askance many 
 times. But despite all averted looks, I apprehend 
 that it has settled to its place for ever, and Darwin's 
 theory of the coral islands must be relegated to the 
 category of those many hypotheses which have, 
 indeed, helped science for a time, by promoting and 
 provoking further investigation, but which, in them- 
 selves, have now finally kicked the beam." He then 
 proceeds to state that corals build on a loose and 
 shifting foundation, which Darwin thought could 
 not be done, that by chemical and oceanic operations 
 the coral structure itself fell to pieces in the rear, 
 and that on this debris the polypes continued to 
 build while they kept up their operations in front, 
 thus gradually raising what would become a reef or 
 a lagoon. 
 
 The Duke has probably somewhat exaggerated 
 the reluctance of the scientific world to admit that 
 Darwin was in error, but it is hardly denied by 
 any one that Murray's hypothesis explains some of
 
 TINY ROCK-BUILDERS. 
 
 161 
 
 the coral growths. In this unsettled state we must 
 leave the controversy, with the conviction that the 
 scientific spirit is not likely to do homage long to 
 any theory however august may be the authority 
 which promulgates it that does not harmonise with 
 growing knowledge and accumulating facts. 
 
 11
 
 XII. 
 
 STAR-GAZING. 
 
 " Ye quenchless stars ! so eloquently bright, 
 Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night, 
 While half the world is lapp'd in downy dreams, 
 And round the lattice creep your midnight beams, 
 How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes, 
 In lambent beauty looking from the'skies I " 
 
 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 
 
 the happy, trustful years of childhood 
 how often we looked up with awe at 
 the beautiful stars as they flashed and 
 sparkled " like diamonds in the sky," 
 and thought of them as the homes of angels whither 
 we fain would fly ! We knew those bright orbs 
 better then, perhaps, and loved them more than 
 ever since, for they seemed to bring us near to 
 heaven, and spoke to us of God. But, like many 
 a sweet dream of early days, this vision of a real 
 heaven and an ever-present God has grown sadly 
 dim as the cold mists of rationalism with its pitiless 
 enforcement of bare facts and positive realities have 
 circled round it. Now, alas ! the spirit too often 
 glances into the great lonely sky, and shivers with
 
 STAR-GAZING. 163 
 
 the horrid fear that because no man knows where 
 heaven is, there may be no heaven at all. that 
 the heart of the little child might be ever in us ! 
 Then should we not need to go so far away as the 
 stars to seek for heaven, but it would be the nearest 
 thing of all, shining in our very soul, and making 
 it the abode of God. 
 
 The stars fulfil many important services for man. 
 We dare not say they were created wholly for his 
 sake, though some of the heavenly luminaries we 
 know were ordained " for signs and for seasons, and 
 for days and years." They may, for all we know, 
 be the abodes of other creatures, or perhaps they 
 are embryo worlds in which are to dwell races of 
 beings high in the scale of existence. But, however 
 this may be, they certainly exert a mighty influence 
 upon human activities and thought. 
 
 It is by means of their majestic motions that our 
 chronometers are set, and their transitions and 
 occupations help to make our commerce easy and 
 secure. They light up the path of the benighted 
 traveller with their commingled rays, and chase 
 away his loneliness by inspiring the consciousness 
 that God is near. They appeal to the finer faculties 
 of the human intellect, and supply a thousand 
 fascinating problems for noble thought. Who .can 
 describe the undefinable feeling of elevation and 
 content that swells up in the breast when in some 
 blest hour we stand under the calm, silent sky,~with 
 all the fever of earthly life and human passion 
 lulled to quiet as if the soul had escaped for a while 
 to heaven ? It is worth something in this distract-
 
 164 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 ing world, so fall of hardening and roughening 
 experiences, to have the sense of beauty in us 
 aroused now and again by the exquisite variety of 
 form and colour which the starry heavens display. 
 Life is felt to be better worth having for the power 
 to enjoy the wondrous spectacle of the starlit sky, 
 flecked with the ever-changing cloudlets that fly 
 before the moon, and glittering with the silvery 
 beams of Sirius and Vega, the orange hues of 
 Capella and Procyon, and the lustrous tints of 
 Arcturus. And when one of those rarer phenomena 
 which sometimes glorify our firmament is witnessed, 
 and the comet's spectral train sweeps into vision, 
 or the meteoric shower passes with rain of gold 
 before our eyes, then what depths of awe and joy 
 are opened within us ! 
 
 But beyond all this the stars exercise a moral 
 and spiritual ministry for us, and help to bring us 
 to a bliss that commerce and wealth, intellectual 
 culture and aesthetic refinement, of themselves fail 
 to secure. The contemplation of their glories draws 
 the devout mind into closer sympathy with God ; 
 and, notwithstanding the sobering effect of exact 
 knowledge of Nature's wonders, tends to make us 
 heavenly-minded. It was a pleasing fancy of the 
 ancients that the stars in their courses emitted 
 mystic harmonies, and even in this unpoetical age 
 it may be said by those who are quick to hear their 
 Maker's praise : 
 
 " There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
 But in his motion like an angel sings 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim."
 
 STAR-GAZING. 165 
 
 I. The first thing the stars have to say to those 
 who have ears to hear is, that there is a Creator : 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 firmament showeth His handy work." 
 
 La Place scoured the sky with his telescope, and 
 told his age that he found no God there ; but what 
 the wise men of this world have often failed to 
 discover because they were blinded by the dust of 
 Materialism, babes and sucklings, simple and un- 
 learned, have distinctly seen. Many a child who 
 knows not what the stars may be, and many a 
 devout man to whom astronomy is a sealed book, 
 has gazed with rapture on those bright gems that 
 make the brow of night resplendent, and has felt, 
 with a strength of conviction that no mere argumen- 
 tation could beget, and that no gloomy rationalism 
 could destroy, that there must be a great Being some- 
 where Who made these shining orbs. Napoleon I. 
 once heard a knot of officers stating some objections 
 to the belief in a Creator, and at once, with that 
 common sense for which he was far more remarkable 
 than for his piety, he silenced them by the blunt 
 remark : " It's all very well, gentlemen, but who 
 made the stars ? " Atheism is still without an 
 answer to that question. It traces them back to 
 the primeval fire-mist, and assumes certain physical 
 forces in virtue of which they have become what 
 they are, but the difficulty is only evaded. Whence 
 came that fire-mist, and how were originated those 
 laws ? Who made the stars ? 
 
 ! it is sad to see so many looking around with 
 professed intelligence upon all the marvels of
 
 166 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Natnre, and finding nothing but a " fortuitous con- 
 course of atoms," or the " survival of the fittest " 
 out of an indeterminate number of possible worlds ; 
 while they imagine that they are establishing their 
 superiority of intellect when pouring contempt on 
 the venerable belief that " the Lord by wisdom 
 hath founded the earth ; by understanding hath He 
 established the heavens." What though you cannot 
 find Him, does that demonstrate that He does not 
 exist ? Have you been everywhere in search of 
 Him ? Have you taken " the wings of the morning " 
 and scoured infinite space ? Have you descen led 
 into the lower parts of the earth and explored all 
 her glittering mines ? Have you soared into the 
 sky and questioned all the stars ? In some far-off 
 region whither you cannot go, He may sit enthroned 
 in light. In some subtle form which you, with 
 glimmering intelligence and imperfect instruments, 
 are unable to detect, He may exist. Neither in 
 the ponderous masses that cross the field of your 
 telescope, nor in the tiny specks that you place 
 under your microscope, may you expect to behold 
 any ethereal essence which may be called God ; but 
 yet there are such traces of vast power and wisdom 
 in all directions, in the minutest diatom or protozoon 
 as well as in the most stupendous starry constella- 
 tion, that only the obstinately prejudiced or the 
 incredibly foolish can go on repeating : " There is 
 no God." 
 
 Our faith may be treated with polished scorn, our 
 opinions may be called narrow or benighted, our 
 arguments may be regarded as weak and limping ;
 
 STAR-GAZING. 167 
 
 we may be told again and again that we are not 
 abreast with the times and with modern thought ; 
 yet do we deem ourselves wiser and happier than 
 our critics, in seeing God everywhere and discerning 
 the activities of an Infinite Mind in all the lovely 
 arid wondrous things that Nature discloses before 
 us. For this God is our Father and our Friend. 
 He loves and guards His children, and helps us in 
 our toils and trials. He is a Comforter, soothing 
 us in our griefs and sorrows. He is a Saviour, 
 plucking us out of the grasp of sin and Satan. He 
 gives peace to our troubled conscience, and rest to 
 our wearied, tempted soul. He supports us through 
 all the rough pilgrimage of life, and will uphold us 
 in the trying hour of death. And so the convictions 
 of the devout heart harmonise with the teaching of 
 the gentle stars, which, though voiceless, yet are, in 
 their own way, 
 
 " For ever singing, aa they shine : 
 ' The Hand that made us is Divine.' " 
 
 II. Not only does the contemplation of the starry 
 heavens confirm our belief in the existence of the 
 Creator, but it tends also to exalt our conceptions of 
 His Sovereignty. 
 
 Consider the vastness of God's domain, and how 
 it displays the majesty of Him Who sustains and 
 governs it. Even to those who are accustomed to 
 astronomical measurements, it is bewildering to 
 contemplate the extent of the universe, and the 
 magnitude and velocity of the myriad worlds of 
 which it is composed. Language, and even imagi-
 
 168 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 nation, are miserably inadequate to express the 
 grandeur and massiveness of the heavenly host, 
 or the amplitude of those remote firmaments which 
 are only dimly seen with the highest telescopic 
 powers. 
 
 The great globe on which we live has not been 
 folly explored, and yet it is only a speck of dust 
 amid the crowds of worlds that coruscate in the 
 lustrous concave of the sky. The bulk of Saturn 
 is a thousand times that of the earth, while the 
 mighty Jupiter is fifteen hundred times as large 
 as our planet. But the sun himself is five hundred 
 times as great as all his satellites put together, and 
 is equal in cubic measurement to a million and a 
 quarter of such globes as ours. 
 
 When we turn our attention from the magnitude 
 of the planets to the dimensions of their orbits, we 
 are utterly incapable of grasping the stupendous 
 distances that confront us. A locomotive which 
 would travel round the earth in a month would 
 require over two thousand years to traverse its 
 orbit, and the incredible space of sixty thousand 
 years would be necessary in order to accomplish 
 the journey round the orbit of Neptune. 
 
 But these measurements even, although far 
 beyond the scope of our faculties, dwindle into 
 nothing when compared with the extent of the 
 innumerable worlds that shine like glittering specks 
 upon 
 
 ' ' That broad and ample road 
 Whose dust is gold and pavement stars." 
 
 Our sun is in reality one of the fixed stars, and
 
 STAR-GAZING. 169 
 
 is the nearest of them. His next neighbour, Alpha 
 Centauri, is twenty millions of millions of miles 
 away ; while of the few which are near enough 
 to permit of their distances being calculated, some 
 are so far from us that their light, which darts 
 along at the rate of over one hundred and eighty 
 thousand miles in a second, requires fifty thousand 
 years to reach our earth. Of these remote worlds 
 some are known to be several thousand times larger 
 than our sun, and so numerous are they that twenty 
 millions of them are made visible by the telescope, 
 while there are besides vast clusters of systems too 
 distant to be separated into distinct points of light. 
 
 " Awake, my soul, 
 
 And meditate the wonder ! Countless suns 
 Blaze round thee, leading forth their countless worlds ! 
 Worlds in whose bosoms living things rejoice 
 And drink the bliss of being from the Fount 
 Of all-pervading Love. What mind can know, 
 What tongue can utter all their multitudes ? " 
 
 How great is He Who metes out these heavens 
 with the span, and fills with His presence and His 
 power this illimitable realm ! that our thoughts 
 of Him could be as great ! 
 
 Some, however, in meditating upon the vastness 
 of God's domain have feared that man might 
 seem so insignificant to Him as to be beneath 
 the reach of His love and care, and they have 
 repeated with tremulous doubt the old soliloquy : 
 " When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou 
 hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mind-
 
 170 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 fal of him ? and the son of man, that Thou visitest 
 him?" 
 
 But nothing that God has made can be unworthy 
 of His regard. Great and small are relative terms, 
 and derive their meaning mainly from man's imper- 
 fection. We are awed by bigness. The sight of 
 a surging crowd thrills us, and we travel over 
 continents to gaze upon a mountain. But we 
 must not think that our vulgar emotions have 
 any counterpart in the character of God. Every- 
 thing is of importance to Him that affects the 
 welfare of His creatures. We degrade God by 
 supposing that the busy multitudes of mankind 
 that inhabit our earth in successive generations 
 are of no more account to Him than clouds of 
 dust sweeping through the air, or swarms of 
 ephemerae dancing for the short hour of their life 
 over the dark pool which, in the same day, is both 
 their cradle and their grave. Our poor standards 
 of greatness are not used in heaven. 
 
 When once we have learned to regard God as 
 our Father, we shall not be tempted to think that 
 He can look down upon our woes and disasters 
 through stony eyes and with heart unmoved. 
 Even the dim reflection of His Fatherhood which 
 we see in our family relationships teaches us that 
 to a parent nothing can be of greater interest than 
 the happiness of the child. The smallest detail 
 of food or dress is thought worthy of attention. 
 Caresses and endearing words would be valueless 
 to a child if it were allowed to go unfed. But 
 is there any love of earthly parent so unselfish
 
 STAR-GAZING. 171 
 
 or so wise as the goodness of our Heavenly Father 
 manifested in the arrangements of Nature and 
 emphasized in the revealed Word? How, then, 
 should He remain content and cynical, absorbed 
 in the contemplation of His own perfections and 
 the adoration of angels, while countless myriads 
 of His offspring are weltering in tears and anguish, 
 ready to perish for lack of the light and strength 
 which He alone can impart ? 
 
 Besides, it may be that the redemption of our 
 race is an element in the happiness of other beings, 
 and is necessary to the moral equilibrium of all 
 worlds. Let but one star slip from its orbit and 
 every other will eventually be affected. So man's 
 apostasy is perhaps related to other disturbances 
 in God's realm in such a way as to make his 
 salvation an essential factor of universal holiness 
 and bliss. 
 
 But however this may be, the earth is a portion 
 of the Creator's dominions, and it is not incredible 
 that He should desire it to be governed by His 
 laws. Kings and nations concentrate all their 
 energies upon winning back provinces that have 
 rebelled, or that have been wrested from them. 
 A few years ago I witnessed a touching spectacle 
 in Paris, when she was still suffering from 
 the wounds of the German conquest. Close by 
 the spot where the palace of her last emperor 
 used to rear its majestic facade, stands the statue 
 of Strasbourg, more dear to France than ever now 
 that the city of which it is the emblem is lost. 
 Around the neck and arms of that sculptured figure
 
 172 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 are hung wreaths and immortelles, and upon a 
 set day each year thousands of Frenchmen in its 
 presence utter vows of undying remembrance and 
 love. Shall kings and people cherish the memory 
 of their lost territories, and the King of kings take 
 calmly the spoliation of His domains by enemies 
 whose bad ambition would impel them, Titan-like, 
 to wage war upon God ? Infinite as is the great- 
 ness of the Deity, He is glorified by His solicitude 
 for man's happiness ; and lowly as man may be, 
 he has a soul which, under the inspiration begotten 
 by the consciousness of God's love, may rise to 
 angel-like perfections. 
 
 III. Another fact to which the starry heavens 
 bear emphatic witness is the unity of the Author of 
 Creation. 
 
 It is to the Scriptures that we must go for clear 
 and final declarations that the universe is the work 
 of one infinitely wise and powerful Being, but many 
 striking confirmations of this doctrine are furnished 
 by astronomical phenomena. To whatever part of 
 the stellar region the attention is directed, there is 
 discovered, amid great diversity of detail, a complete 
 uniformity of plan, evidencing the presence and 
 supremacy of one intelligent Will. Just as Columbus 
 opened out a new world in which the laws of nature 
 were identical with those of the old world, so the 
 discovery of one planet after another, one star after 
 another, has but furnished illustrations of what 
 applies also to our earth. It was a thrilling 
 moment for Galileo when through his newly con- 
 structed telescope he gazed for the first time upon
 
 STAR-GAZING. 173 
 
 the satellites of Jupiter, and fonnd in that far-off 
 region the same kind of movements as those which 
 he affirmed, in spite of persecution, were characteristic 
 of our planet. And ever since that day, astronomy 
 has continued to produce fresh evidences of the 
 uniformity of nature and the oneness of nature's 
 Original. The silvery Venus, showing by her phases 
 that she passes through transitions like those of the 
 moon ; the ruddy Mars, reflecting from his polar 
 snows the light which upon the same principles 
 glorifies our sky ; the mighty Jupiter, belted with 
 fleecy clouds that tell of atmospheric influences like 
 those with which we are familiar ; the many-ringed 
 Saturn, testifying offerees which operate all through 
 our world ; and the remote Uranus, trembling in 
 its orbit in obedience to gravitation, and so leading 
 to the discovery of its remoter neighbour Neptune, 
 all these are held in their places by the same 
 conditions as those which rule the earth. And in 
 the depths of space are detected by means of the 
 magical spectroscope the identical elements which 
 compose our globe, and the laws of light and colour 
 which determine the hues of our many-tinted flowers. 
 The Father's house has " many mansions," but they 
 all stand in some essential relation to each other 
 and bear the impress of one presiding Intelligence. 
 
 The most remarkable instance, perhaps, of uni- 
 formity of law is the revolution of the heavenly 
 bodies round others greater than themselves. This, 
 like many another discovery of modern science, is 
 seen to be referred to in the Scriptures, now that 
 a better understanding of nature has supplied the
 
 174 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 key with which to unlock the meaning of the sacred 
 language. In all parts of the sky are binary, triple, 
 multiple stars, vast systems and constellations kept 
 in unchanging association with each other by the 
 same forces that govern the falling mote. " The 
 bands of Orion," which awoke the wonder of the 
 patriarch Job, present the precise aspect now that 
 they did when he beheld them ; still hanging like 
 a triplet of diamonds upon the belt of the giant who 
 gropes along the track of the sun. These distant 
 worlds which, by reason of their remoteness, seem 
 to be but stationary points of light, are in reality 
 journeying rhythmically around some invisible centre, 
 so far away that from the Creation till now only a 
 minute arc of the vast circle has been traversed. It 
 used to be thought that this phenomenon was re- 
 ferred to in the question in Job : " Canst thou bind 
 the sweet influences of Pleiades ? " The Chaldean 
 word used here is Chimak, which means a pivot, or 
 axle, and it was affirmed by astronomers that 
 Alcyone, the brightest star of the group, was the 
 actual spot upon which the heavens were hinged as 
 they swept round in a stupendous orbit requiring 
 for its completion over eighteen millions of years. 
 This is now known to be not quite correct, but 
 there is a far-off centre towards which our solar 
 system is approaching. What is that centre? we 
 may ask. Is it the City of Light, whose Founder 
 is the living God ? Do some faint rays shine upon 
 our dull eyes from that glorious throne which is 
 more brilliant than a thousand suns ? And do we 
 need only an instrument subtle and powerful enough
 
 STAR-GAZING. 175 
 
 in order to behold " the saints' abode " ? This we 
 may never obtain, but we have spiritual vision 
 which penetrates far beyond the reach of the most 
 elaborate telescope, and enables us to realise some- 
 thing of heaven's holy light. " Faith is the substance 
 of (the giving substance to) things hoped for." 
 
 This uniformity of Nature, which is here taken as 
 showing that ' the Lord our God is one Lord,' is 
 sometimes spoken of as being nothing more than 
 the persistence or unchangeableness of Law. But 
 what is law without a Lawgiver ? " What do we 
 mean," asks Paley, " by the Law of Nature, or by 
 any law ? Effects are produced by power, not by 
 laws. A law cannot execute itself. A law refers 
 us to an agent." Uniformity of law, then, demon- 
 strates the existence of a single supreme Mind in 
 Nature. " The Lord He is God ; there is none else 
 beside Him." 
 
 The great danger attending this false interpreta- 
 tion of the uniformity of Nature is that it begets 
 gloomy and erroneous views concerning the character 
 of God. We ought not to suppose that the Creator 
 has no power to mould or suspend or overrule by 
 higher laws those ordinary methods of His procedure 
 which we call the Laws of Nature. These fixed 
 principles of the Divine government are arranged in 
 the interests of God's creatures, and they encourage 
 foresight and prudence, the highest of the virtues ; 
 but to say that the Deity will never interfere with 
 them is simply to make one of those sweeping and 
 unwarrantable inferences which are the bane of 
 much that goes by the name of philosophy.
 
 176 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 There are, of course, laws which, like their Author, 
 are immutable, and it is for the good of the whole 
 universe that these laws should never fail. But 
 even here there is room for the Divine tenderness 
 to show itself in giving us help in our feeble 
 endeavours to live in harmony with what is true 
 and right. It is this feature in God's character 
 which touches most deeply the universal heart of 
 mankind, and awakens in us the holiest aspirations. 
 In one of the principal cathedrals of Europe I 
 witnessed a simple act which thrilled me as many 
 a more illustrious deed would have failed to do. 
 Vast crowds of people had thronged to the temple 
 to take part in one of the chief religious festivals 
 of the year, and through the multitude a prince 
 of the Catholic Church, followed by a long line of 
 dignitaries all magnificently arrayed, walked in 
 solemn procession. But not even the gorgeous vest- 
 ments of the ecclesiastics, or the swelling cadences 
 of the organ and choristers which reverberated 
 through the edifice, had such an effect upon the 
 congregation as was produced when the stately 
 cardinal paused for a moment on his march, and 
 stroked the hair of a chubby-faced child that knelt 
 close by upon his father's knee. Every eye moistened 
 as it beheld that gracious act, the most beautiful 
 and natural thing in the whole service. And yet 
 what condescension of man's can be so great as that 
 of God, " Who became poor, that we through His 
 poverty might be rich," and Who still dwells with 
 the " humble and contrite," that He may destroy 
 within their souls all that is discordant with His
 
 STAR-GAZING. 177 
 
 holy law ? And is He not ever the same, like His 
 bright, unchanging stars ? Then, my sonl, fix thine 
 unfaltering gaze upon Him as thou dost seek re- 
 lease from all thy sins and griefs that fetter thee, 
 and like the trembling fugitive from the house of 
 bondage, who never paused while he could gild his 
 face with the beams of the blessed star which hung 
 over the land of liberty, thou shalt find emancipation 
 from the galling tyranny of sin, and shalt dwell for 
 ever in the abode of truth and righteousness. Thou 
 shalt rise above the stars, for thou art greater than 
 they, and God thy Strength and Saviour shall shine 
 in thy sight with a glory that shall surpass thy 
 sweetest visions upon earth.
 
 XIII. 
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 "The very meanest things are made. supreme 
 With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 
 But moves a bright and million-peopled land, 
 And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem." 
 
 L. BLANCHABD. 
 
 OCCASIONALLY I am honoured with a 
 visit from some of my friends who 
 .come to see whatever microscopical 
 wonders I may chance to have. In a 
 small aquarium I endeavour to keep a few, at least, 
 of the tiny plants and animalculae which I have 
 managed to fish out of the ponds and ditches and 
 brooks of the neighbourhood. Tangled water- weeds, 
 floating scum, prolific duckweed, dripping bog-moss, 
 bedraggled reeds and rushes, anything and every- 
 thing that could be hauled out and squeezed into 
 my jars, have been promiscuously collected, and, 
 after a cursory examination and rough clearing, 
 tossed into this miniature world which is bounded 
 on all four sides by glass, and covered at the bottom 
 with pebbles, loam, and, water-plants. Sometimes, 
 no doubt, my friends feel bored with my prolix
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 179 
 
 descriptions of the tiny creatures exhibited, but not 
 seldom I am rewarded by observing an enthusiasm 
 that answers to my own, as some more than 
 ordinarily lovely organism has been brought up by 
 the pipette from that not very attractive-looking 
 aquarium. 
 
 I want to describe in a simple, non-technical way 
 a few of the more familiar objects obtained in this 
 way. I shall have but little to say to those who 
 are accustomed to work of this kind, for I wish to 
 write now exclusively for younger and comparatively 
 inexperienced disciples of the microscope. I am 
 continually hearing it affirmed that writers on 
 scientific subjects never seem to think that students 
 of nature must begin at the beginning, and that by 
 plunging all at once into the intricacies and tech- 
 nicalities of zoology they usually repel the inquirer 
 and lead him to the conviction that all natural 
 science consists of nothing but dry facts and unpro- 
 nounceable names. There is, perhaps, some truth 
 in such remarks, but on the other hand it should 
 be borne in mind that while it may be well to try 
 to make the alphabet of knowledge attractive, yet 
 the marvels of nature can be fully appreciated by 
 those only who are willing to take some trouble to 
 study them accurately and systematically. 
 
 Let us now take a dip into the aquarium and see 
 what will come up. Selecting a minute portion of 
 the jungle-like mass of water-weeds, I place it in a 
 small glass trough or in the live-box. Having fixed 
 the one-inch objective in position, I lay the trough 
 on the stage of the microscope and proceed to focus
 
 l8o RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the lens. In a moment or two all is in readiness 
 for the inspection of my visitors. And what a 
 spectacle it is which they gaze npon ! It will not 
 be long before all sorts of ejaculations and expres- 
 sions of amazement and delight will be uttered. 
 All round the field, and interlacing every part of it, 
 are microscopic water-weeds, while clinging to what 
 look like thick stems and silvery twigs, or darting 
 about through the microscopic jungle, are weird and 
 wondrous creatures which rivet the attention of the 
 observer. In these few drops of water in which to 
 the naked eye there seemed to be almost nothing, 
 there is now seen to exist a crowded population. 
 There is the exquisitely beautiful Bell-animalcule 
 (Vorticella), the elaborately organised Rotifer or 
 Wheel-animalcule, the Hydra, hanging on to the 
 white root-fibre of the duckweed (Lemna) with its 
 tentacles spreading out like a tuft of branches, the 
 whole not very dissimilar in appearance to a minia- 
 ture palm-tree, while, here and there, flitting about 
 with extraordinary velocity, may be caught a glimpse 
 of the slipper-shaped Paramcecium, the pink-eyed 
 Euglena, or the restless water-flea, which keeps up 
 its incessant evolutions like an untiring acrobat. 
 
 But all these wonders cannot be fully described 
 in the comparatively short space of time that my 
 friends can give me at one visit. I proceed, there- 
 fore, to single out two or three of the objects seen, 
 and separate them as far as possible from the 
 rest. 
 
 We will first of all look at the minute vegetable 
 organisms contained in the selected drop of water.
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 181 
 
 The one-inch objective has given us a magnification 
 of about fifty, but now let us turn the nosepiece 
 round and bring the quarter-inch lens into position. 
 This is a glass constructed by the eminent opticians, 
 Messrs. Powell & Lealand, and it will give a 
 magnification of over three hundred linear with 
 -the B eyepiece of Ross. 
 
 The first of these microscopic plants to which I 
 shall draw attention is a Desmid. Here is one, of 
 which an illustration is given (Fig. 44), called 
 Closterium. It is a familiar object, but in this case 
 
 FIG. 44. Closteriwm striolatwm. 
 
 familiarity does not breed contempt. Being of a 
 bright green colour and full of chlorophyll, which 
 requires the action of sunlight, it follows that the 
 proper time for collecting desmids is during summer 
 and autumn, and they are generally found near the 
 surface of the water, where the sun can get at them. 
 These pretty little plants lie almost at the very 
 bottom of the botanical scale. They belong to the 
 natural order Algce, of which seaweeds are the best 
 known types. But they are one-celled Algae and as 
 individuals are invisible to the naked eye. They are 
 exclusively fresh-water organisms, and are never 
 found in the sea. In this they differ from their
 
 1 82 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 allies the Diatoms, which thrive in both fresh and 
 salt water. My experience leads me to the con- 
 clusion that they are most easily found in shallow 
 ponds on open moors and on damp bog-moss. If a 
 bit of this bog-moss (Sphagnum) feels slimy to the 
 touch, the probability is that we have come upon a 
 crop of desmids. When found it is as well to wash 
 them into a glass bottle filled with clean water, 
 where they will soon settle on the sides and bottom, 
 from which they should be detached by a camel's- 
 hair brash, and deposited on a slip of glass for 
 inspection. Most desmids are free cells, but in 
 some cases several individuals are grouped together 
 in the form of a star or disc ; others, again, take the 
 form oflong threads or ribbons, and are consequently 
 called filamentous desmids. 
 
 Desmids possess a transparent membranous 
 envelope or case, entirely destitute of silica, the 
 flinty material which accompanies diatoms. This 
 case contains the chlorophyll, or green colouring 
 matter, which renders these tiny plants so con- 
 spicuous. They, no doubt, constitute the chief 
 food of fresh-water animalculae, and almost every 
 observer of them has seen the rotifer greedily suck 
 out the contents of the envelope and cast away the 
 empty, but still beautiful, case. While living they 
 have the power of gliding through the water with 
 an even graceful motion, while their hyaline cover- 
 ing, sparkling with emerald points, and filled with 
 diamond-like granules, helps to make up a vision 
 of beauty surpassing that which AlaJdin's lamp 
 revealed.
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 183 
 
 What gives to the plant this power of independent 
 movement ? Does it possess tiny hairs, or cilia, with 
 which it lashes the water or rows itself along, or is 
 the cause to be found in the generation and ex- 
 halation of oxygen ? Here is a question which I 
 have to confess I am unable to answer, although 
 I have peered at these fairy-like organisms with 
 prolonged and tireless curiosity through almost the 
 best optical apparatus that science can supply, and 
 I could wish my readers no better fortune than that 
 they might hit upon this well-guarded secret of 
 Nature. For those who possess good appliances I 
 would suggest this problem for their study. The 
 desmid should be carefully observed on a dark 
 background, with and without a condenser, in a 
 natural condition, and also stained with aniline dyes. 
 But these are details into which I have promised 
 not to enter now. 
 
 It is not difficult to cultivate desmids. They 
 should be kept in a watch-glass filled with their own 
 native water, and covered over with a plate of glass 
 to keep out dust and prevent too rapid evaporation. 
 If absolutely necessary to renew the water, a little 
 rain-water should be added. There are two methods 
 by which desmids reproduce themselves. The first 
 is by cell-division or fission. The clear space in the 
 centre of the desmid may be seen gradually en- 
 larging, without, however, the fracture of the 
 membrane. In the course of two or three hours 
 the two halves are separated, each commencing to 
 grow and continuing till the parent form is reached. 
 Another method of production is that called con-
 
 184 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 jugation. Two individuals approach each other, 
 and at length mingle their contents together, after 
 which a circular body makes its appearance, 
 called a Sporangium, that is, a spore-vessel. 
 Ultimately a cloud of spores is poured out, and 
 from them a multitude of desmids ultimately 
 develop. 
 
 Unfortunately, no medium has yet been discovered 
 in which these lovely objects can be preserved as 
 mounts, so as to retain their colour. Hantzsch, 
 of Dresden, has got as near to this desirable end 
 as any one, but complete success has never been 
 attained. He used a mixture of pure alcohol, dis- 
 tilled water, and glycerine, which, being nearly of 
 the same specific gravity as water, retards the con- 
 traction of the cell. I have had several specimens 
 in my cabinet for some years which have not 
 appreciably altered. But even this method of 
 mounting does not meet the difficulty of providing a 
 perfectly air-tight cell, which is, of course, absolutely 
 indispensable to the prevention of evaporation for 
 an indefinite period. 
 
 Another object now claims our attention, and is 
 one that will richly repay careful inspection. This 
 is the ever-beautiful Volvox, familiar enough, but 
 enshrining deep mysteries that even the restless 
 eagerness of nineteenth-century science has not 
 solved. This is an object well worthy of being 
 sought after, and fortunately it can be obtained 
 at almost any time in the year. It is, however, 
 somewhat fickle in its attachments, for in localities 
 where it has been found repeatedly, it will at
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 185 
 
 another time be sought in vain, although there is 
 apparently no reason for its disappearance. 
 
 Now look at it through this half-inch objective. 
 Did you ever see anything more lovely? Watch 
 that gracefully rolling sphere as it slowly revolves 
 on its axis across the field of view ; notice its 
 delicate tracery forming the boundary lines of six- 
 sided cells ; observe the profusion of pear-shaped 
 dots from whose apices are projected those very 
 
 "V 
 
 FIG. 45. Volvox globator. 
 
 fine gossamer-like hairs, or cilia, which penetrate 
 right through the outer envelope, and with swift 
 movement row the volvox along, and tell me whether 
 even Nature's casket contains any gems; more won- 
 drously fair. Within the globe are smaller globes. 
 With a higher magnification these are seen to be 
 growing vol voces, and -not infrequently there may 
 be found within these a third generation, all carrying 
 on their marvellous gyrations within the parent 
 cell. After a while the mother, or the grandmother,
 
 1 86 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 will grow weary with age and cease her activities 
 she will lose her fresh greenness and perish, and the 
 young, panting for liberty, will break through her 
 ruptured sides, and escape into the tiny water-world 
 where they were born. 
 
 Under still higher powers and with the help of 
 a weak staining agent such as iodine and diluted 
 sulphuric acid, it will be seen that the green spots 
 are united by extremely fine protoplasmic threads 
 which pass through the sides of the hexagonal 
 cells. There may also be detected minute atoms of 
 colourless protoplasm, which is probably the agent 
 of cell-division. When the cell is ripe it opens 
 without abruptness, as if there were a natural vent 
 which is gradually prepared for this crisis, and the 
 ensphered young glide out. At first they are tied 
 to the parent by long filaments which prevent 
 revolution, but soon the threads give way and the 
 sweets of perfect liberty are tasted. Whether there 
 is actual revolution of the young within the parent 
 globe, or whether the apparent revolution is due 
 to au optical illusion caused by the motion of the 
 mother-cell, is a point on which authorities differ, and 
 is one about which I am not prepared to pronounce 
 dogmatically. 
 
 There is, however, another reproductive process 
 which may be witnessed in the later part of the year. 
 Two distinct kinds of cells are developed within 
 some of the larger globes, the one an egg-sphere 
 (Oospkere), and the other a sperm-sphere (Anther -o- 
 zoid). In higher plants these correspond to pollen 
 and ovules. The egg-spheres are fertilised by the
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 187 
 
 antherozoids, and a kind of spore is the result. 
 These escape from the decaying parent and lie 
 dormant till their vitalities are quickened by re- 
 
 FlG. 46. Daphniapulex (Male). 
 
 turning spring, when they will at once start upon 
 their new career and develop into perfect volvoces 
 endowed with the powers essential to cell-division. 
 
 FlG' 47. Daplmia pulex (Female). Natural size and magnified. 
 
 Now we must leave this fascinating object, though 
 much more might be said, and look at one or two 
 of those other curious organisms that lie about or
 
 1 88 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 move with slow and laborious efforts or else with 
 quick and jerky movements within the microscopic 
 field. 
 
 There is an object which for a long time has 
 seemed to be inviting attention by frisking across 
 the field, and sometimes remaining for a moment 
 within vision: what can it be? If fleas lived in 
 water, one might jump to the hasty conclusion that 
 it really was a young flea. Its antics are certainly 
 quite as fantastic as those of the " lively flea." This, 
 no doubt, explains why it is called the water-flea. 
 We must not, however, be misled by names. These 
 tiny creatures are very different from the ordinary 
 flea, as may be seen by looking at both objects 
 under a low power through the microscope. The 
 flea is an insect proper, with rudimentary wings, and 
 breathes the air like other insects. But if you 
 closely observe this nimble dweller in the water, you 
 will see that it has delicate appendages to the head, 
 like branched antlers. Moreover, its body is soon 
 perceived to be encased in an almost transparent 
 shell, having two valves, and its feet are prolonged 
 into plates, very much like the gill-plates of fishes, 
 only, of course, very minute. 
 
 Water-fleas belong to a group of animals called 
 Entomostracans, which form a sub-division of Crus- 
 taceans, so that they are really related to shrimps 
 and lobsters. They are very ancient animals, and 
 can be traced back at least to Carboniferous times, 
 and seem to have been as numerous in the standing 
 pools of those vast forests which produced our coal, 
 as they are now. The covering, or carapace, of these
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 189 
 
 lowly Crustaceans is very similar in nature to the 
 substance called ckitine, which composes the outer 
 portions of insects. The head of Daphnia is not 
 covered by the shell, and the creature has but one 
 eye a bright, inquisitive-looking organ it is, too, 
 and apparently quite capable of doing duty for two. 
 There are very few males compared with the vast 
 number of the females. The contractile organ whose 
 working can easily be seen, acts as a kind of heart, 
 and there are five pairs of legs. The female pro- 
 duces two kinds of eggs. The " summer eggs," from 
 ten to fifty in number, are deposited in an open space 
 between the valves of the carapace, and are kept 
 there till the young are ready to be hatched ; but the 
 " winter eggs," which are only two in number, are 
 placed in what is called the saddle, on the back of 
 the carapace, where they remain till hatched by the 
 returning warmth of spring. 
 
 The evening is wearing on, and we must not 
 permit ourselves any further diversion in watching 
 this frolicsome creature, for there is still another 
 tiny animal that I am anxious to prepare for the 
 inspection of my visitors, whose presence I had 
 already detected in a cursory and preliminary exam- 
 ination of the material with my pocket lens. This 
 is the Hydra. On one of the long white fibrils or 
 roots as they may be called, only they hang free in 
 the water of the duckweed in the aquarium I 
 observed a specimen of this most interesting group 
 of animals. To those accustomed to its appearance, 
 it can be detected even with the naked eye, for it 
 measures at least an eighth of an inch, quite a
 
 19 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 respectable size compared with the creatures we 
 have already been looking at. We must treat this 
 animal with great care, lest in arranging it for the 
 microscope we should despoil it of all its beauty. 
 At first it looks like a mere speck of greenish jelly. 
 But wait a moment, and you will see it protrude its 
 tentacles from the lengthening body and throw them 
 out like the graceful leaves that surmount the 
 beautiful palm. 
 
 Ms? 
 
 Fio. 48. Hydra mridis. 
 
 We must just say a word or two respecting the 
 place which this wonderful creature occupies in the 
 animal kingdom, for nothing is more interesting 
 or instructive to the student of zoology than to find 
 out the similarities or affinities between the various 
 creatures that he is trying to understand. 
 
 The Hydra is one of the so-called fresh-water 
 polypes which really means a many-footed animal. 
 Properly speaking, it applies only to corals, but is
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 191 
 
 usually made to refer also to other Coelenterata or 
 hollow-bodied creatures. At the bottom of this 
 great class stand the Hydroid Zoophytes, of which 
 the hydra is the typical example. It consists of 
 a tubular or cylindrical body, which expands into 
 
 FIG. M.Stwgs of Hydra. 
 
 tentacles surrounding the mouth, its other end 
 terminating in an adherent disc or foot. The ten- 
 tacles are capable of great extension, and are used 
 as organs of prehension. The hydra has an extra- 
 ordinary power of multiplying, for even when 
 divided by any injury into a number of pieces, each
 
 1 92 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 portion will develop into a perfect polypite. The 
 usual method of reproduction, however, is by budding, 
 an example of which is seen on the left of our 
 illustration (Fig. 48), and also by means of eggs 
 which are deposited in winter. 
 
 Perhaps the most curious fact about the hydra is, 
 that it possesses certain arrow-headed stings, by 
 means of which it is able to benumb such minute 
 organisms as it wishes to capture for food. 
 
 These stinging threads may be got for examination 
 by cutting off one of the tentacles, and looking at it 
 through an objective of one-sixth or one-eighth focal 
 length, giving a magnification of, say, three to four 
 hundred diameters. Then let the light pass through 
 it obliquely, and there will be seen all around the 
 edge a number of small cells or capsules, from which 
 a very fine thread will be emitted. These stinging 
 organs are similar to those possessed by sea- anemones; 
 and bathers have occasionally been -made aware of 
 the fact that the Medusa jelly-fish has the same 
 kind of weapons. 
 
 The hydra is remarkably simple in structure 
 and in organisation. The whole body is composed 
 of similar substance called sarcode, in which is 
 enclosed a colouring matter. Every part has a high 
 contractility, and though the creature is eyeless it 
 is very sensitive to light, as the microscopist soon 
 discovers. The outer portion of the sarcode is 
 probably a trifle denser and harder than the inner, 
 and hence the two words ectoderm and endoderm 
 are used to denote the two integumentary layers. 
 
 The hydra being done with, it was time to stop
 
 AN EVENING AT THE MICROSCOPE. 193 
 
 our pleasant occupation, though many other objects 
 quite as beautiful and instructive might have been 
 fished up out of the water and weeds that I had 
 brought home. Indeed, even while we were actually 
 engaged in looking at the specimens specially singled 
 out for study, there were other creatures lying or 
 crawling about, or occasionally flitting across the 
 field of vision. Minute algee or water-weeds, spores 
 and embryos, the flower-like vorticella, eel-like 
 worms wriggling about in the water, and glistening 
 as though made of silver, the frustules of dead 
 diatoms, and I know not what besides : for a few 
 drops of pond-water and a small fragment of star- 
 weed, or duckweed, constitute a thickly populated 
 world. None of our crowded cities are so filled 
 with life as these tiny water-worlds through which 
 the enraptured microscopist delights to travel. 
 There they are born or are germinated, there they 
 develop, there they spend their fairy-like life, 
 there they perform the useful offices of cleansing 
 away all manner of impurities, or, like creatures far 
 higher than themselves in the scale of organisation, 
 supply food for animals even more useful than 
 themselves. Thus are we taught by such studies 
 that in Nature nothing is insignificant, nothing with- 
 out its uses and its beauties of form and structure. 
 And in regard to all these minute organisms nothing 
 impresses the mind more deeply than the beautiful 
 adaptation of all their parts to the conditions of 
 their existence. Whatever their place in the animal 
 series, whatever the nature of their environment, 
 they have evidently been so conditioned by a 
 
 13
 
 I 9 4 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Being possessed of perfect knowledge and infinite 
 benevolence. 
 
 " The minutest throb 
 That through their frame diffuses 
 The slightest, faintest motion 
 Is fixed and indispensable 
 As the majestic laws 
 That rule yon rolling orbs."
 
 XIV. 
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 
 
 " You may trace him oft 
 By scars which his activity has left 
 Beside our roads and pathways 
 He who with pocket -hammer smites the edge 
 Of every luckless rock or stone that stands 
 Before his sight by weather stains disguised, 
 Or crusted o'er with vegetation thin, 
 Nature's first growth, detaching by the stroke 
 A chip or splinter, to resolve his doubts." 
 
 WOBDSWOKTH. 
 
 7^ geologist is ever likely to forget his 
 first trilobite " find." Amongst my fossil 
 treasures too rarely visited, alas ! 
 there lies a fragment of one of these 
 curious crustaceans which, imperfect as it is, possesses 
 a charm for me that many far more elegant and 
 valuable objects lack, for it takes me back to a 
 sunny holiday in Shropshire when, amid most 
 beautiful natural surroundings, and in company of 
 enthusiastic friends, I enjoyed my first real trilobite 
 hunt. I have been to more prolific grounds since 
 then, and have knocked out more perfect specimens, 
 but not one of them has dislodged from its supreme
 
 196 
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 place in my regard that cmmpled eyeless Trinucleus 
 of the Salopian bank of Caradoc 
 shale. 
 
 Nowhere are trilobites more abun- 
 dant in this country than in the 
 well-known Wenlock limestone near 
 Dudley, although it is not easy to 
 chip out a perfect specimen. Here 
 are found the Calymene Blumenbachii, 
 
 F , IG - ?'T?i* " so long 
 
 clem fimbnatit*. , 
 
 known as 
 
 the "Dudley locust," the 
 Phacops caudatus 
 (Fig. 16), and scores of 
 other species. But there 
 are many other places 
 where numerous species 
 have been obtained. The 
 Menevian beds of St. 
 David's have yielded 
 large quantities of tri- 
 lobites, amongst them 
 being the magnificent 
 Paradoxides, which is 
 sometimes a couple of feet 
 in length. In the more 
 northerly districts of 
 Wales, as, for example, 
 at Port Madoc, these 
 
 fossils are abundant, FJG m ._ Paradoxidet Teggini . 
 and the Olenus literally 
 crowds the lower Lingula flags at Maentrog. The
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 
 
 197 
 
 whole of this district is classic ground for the 
 geologist. Exquisite scenery affords additional at- 
 tractions to the delights which the Knight of the 
 Hammer never fails to experience when pursuing his 
 favourite hobby. All along through the wild, weird 
 valleys, and over the rugged mountains, there are 
 ever-changing and most fascinating panoramas. 
 When Dolgelly is reached it will be found as good 
 a centre for the trilobite hunter as for the tourist 
 who is in search of bewitching scenery. In this 
 neighbourhood may easily be obtainedthe Concoryphe 
 
 FIG. 52. 
 
 Agnostus pit&emit 
 (Upper side). 
 
 FIG. 53. 
 
 Agnostus pisiformis 
 (Lower side). 
 
 and the Agnostus (Figs. 52, 53), which, as we shall 
 see, is of great importance for the light it sheds 
 on the subject of the development of the trilobite, 
 while the Llandeilo flags of the locality never fail 
 to yield the pretty Ogygia. The Silurians near 
 Llangollen contain numbers of Phacops, Calymene, 
 etc., and here, too, the most enchanting landscapes 
 are spread out in all directions. It is one of the 
 charms of geology that its practical study brings 
 us into the presence of natural beauties which the 
 average tourist never discovers, while at the same 
 time it adds to these attractions of scenery a love-
 
 198 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 liness which only appears to those who perceive the 
 hidden meaning that lies beneath the surface of 
 Nature's works. 
 
 Silurian trilobites occur in large numbers also 
 near Hereford, where Pkacops, Homalonotus, and 
 other genera may be found. 
 
 The Devonian strata furnish trilobites, but not in 
 anything like the profusion that characterises the 
 Cambrian and Silurian beds. Dr. Taylor refers to 
 Newton Abbot as being a good hunting-ground for 
 them, but I was not fortunate enough to obtain any 
 when I visited that romantic district. 
 
 The carboniferous limestone of the Derbyshire 
 Peak is pretty sure to reward the searcher after 
 trilobites. At Castleton I met with Phillipsia, 
 which along with Griffithsides is frequently to be 
 obtained from the shales and belts of limestone in 
 that locality. These are of great interest as pre- 
 senting the last scions of a noble race which in 
 earlier geological times enjoyed a sort of supremacy 
 over the less richly endowed, though in some respects 
 more highly developed, Molluscan fauna. 
 
 In geological range, as just intimated, the tri- 
 obites are confined to the Primary rocks. They 
 were exceedingly prolific in the Cambrian seas, 
 having reached almost their zenith of size and 
 development in early Cambrian times ; rapid varia- 
 tion proceeded during the Silurian age, while distinct 
 degradation marked the Devonian history of these 
 creatures ; and in the next period, the Carboniferous, 
 they became rare and small, ultimately passing out 
 of existence altogether before the advent of that
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 199 
 
 transitional age of confusion and catastrophe which 
 closed the Primary epoch and prepared the way for 
 the Secondary. Hence, whenever a specimen of the 
 easily identified trilobite is met with we may at once 
 feel certain that the bed in which it occurs is older 
 than the Permian or the Coal. 
 
 There is perhaps no chapter in the volume of 
 Creation more complete in itself, or less related to 
 other chapters, than this which gives us the history 
 of the trjlobite. Page by page as we turn from one 
 tablet to another of Nature's great Stone-book we 
 see old organisms becoming extinct and new ones 
 gradually taking their place, all witnessing to the 
 continued existence of creative energy. Coming in 
 along with the very oldest of terrestrial creatures for 
 it is not demonstrated that Eozoon of pre-Cambrian 
 times is organic this remarkable animal goes 
 through its cycle of existence, from the eyeless 
 Agnostus on to the huge Paradoxides by a rapidity 
 of development almost startling for both belong to 
 the earlier Cambrian deposits and then on through 
 long centuries of slow variation and deterioration to 
 the comparatively insignificant Carboniferous genera 
 which were unable to hold their own in the fierce 
 struggle for existence with the mighty Vertebrates 
 that were by this time taking possession of both 
 land and sea. Whence they came, from what root- 
 stock they sprouted, and whither they went, into 
 what surviving forms they transmitted their expiring 
 energies, can be conjectured, but not conclusively 
 determined. 
 
 Scientific classification is based on the nature,
 
 200 , RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 structure, and affinities of the objects concerned. 
 For a long time naturalists were quite undecided as 
 to the precise position which on these grounds ought 
 to be accorded to the trilobite, owing to the fact 
 that they knew next to nothing concerning its 
 structure. It seemed so utterly different from every 
 creature now known, and furnished so little of 
 suggestion in its necessarily defective fossilised form 
 that it was only recently that anything like a final 
 and authoritative opinion was arrived at as to its 
 true position in the animal kingdom. The very 
 names of the more familiar genera show how ready 
 the earlier naturalists were to confess their ignorance 
 in regard to these singular fossils. Calymene, the 
 hidden, Agnostusi the unknown, Asapkus, the un- 
 certain, Paradoxides, etc., all reflect the attitude of 
 mind of those who were first called upon to deal 
 with these perplexing creatures. As to their general 
 Crustacean characters there has been but little doubt 
 since the time of Brongniart, and their partial re- 
 semblance to the Isopoda (or wood-lice) as well as to 
 Limulm (or king-crab) is now definitely agreed upon. 
 Even a superficial comparison between the fossil 
 king-crab shown at Fig. 57 and a typical trilobite will 
 demonstrate the accuracy of this conclusion, and 
 when we come to compare the larval forms of the 
 two creatures this will be made still more clear. In 
 Haeckel's Systematic Survey trilobites are placed 
 amongst the Branchiopoda or " gill-footed" crus- 
 taceans, and so are regarded by him as relatives of the 
 water-fleas. But as no traces of breathing organs, 
 either aquatic or aerial, nor any vestiges of feet have
 
 TRILOBI7E HUNTING. 201 
 
 been observed, that arrangement, to say the least, is 
 
 FIG. 54.- -Under side of King-Crab (Limulits). 
 
 somewhat unsatisfactory. Some kind of breathing
 
 202 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 organs the trilobite of course possessed, and Dr. 
 Henry Woodward believes he has found traces of 
 legs ; but these are matters of so indefinite a char- 
 acter that they are not sufficient for the purposes of 
 scientific classification, and, as our readers will be 
 aware, the very term " gill-footed " is unfortunate. 
 Moreover, the highly organised compound eyes of 
 the trilobite demand that it should be placed much 
 higher in the Crustacean scale than that in which 
 the lowly water-fleas are ranged. Nicholson puts it 
 in an order by itself a little lower than the Meros- 
 tomata (king-crab, etc.), and both are regarded by 
 him as lower than the Isopoda (wood-lice). Here 
 for the present it remains, although, if the struc- 
 tures met with in some recent American specimens 
 should turn out to be legs, which Dr. Woodward 
 thinks really are so, but which others regard as only 
 calcic arches, it would probably be necessary to place 
 it in some other position. 
 
 A very large number of species of trilobites have 
 been made. It would be as well if many of them 
 could be unmade, a process which happily seems 
 very probable. Darwin has written an account of 
 the Origin of Species, but who shall give the 
 history of the Manufacture of Species ? Geology, 
 of all the natural sciences, has suffered most from 
 this needless and confusing multiplication of species- 
 This, of course, has partly arisen from the fact that 
 when only fragments of a creature were obtained it 
 was not always possible to determine its characters, 
 and yet it was necessary to give it a name ; but the 
 evil has been aggravated in consequence of the eager-
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 203 
 
 ness to name fossils which has been displayed by 
 many geologists, some of whom were but poor natura- 
 lists. Now and then, from no better ambition, we fear, 
 than to perpetuate the name of the finder, and still 
 oftener from his ignorance of zoology, new genera 
 and species have been made, to the utter bewilder- 
 ment of those who now set out to study the 
 particular creature concerned. Differences of the 
 most insignificant kind, such as would hardly be 
 sufficient to constitute a variety, and some of which 
 were certainly not permanent, have been taken as 
 sufficient reason for the starting of a new species. 
 Owen has pointed out that the trifling differences 
 between Asaphus caudatus and Asaphus longi- 
 caudatus, chiefly in respect of the tail-spines, may 
 only mean that the one is male and the other 
 female. Then again, so much evidence has of late 
 been procured to show that trilobites, like other 
 Crustaceans, moult and go through various stages 
 of metamorphosis, that very likely a considerable 
 number of so-called genera and species are really 
 nothing more than different links in the life-chain 
 of the same individual. Who knows whether the 
 lowly, eyeless Agnostus may not after all be only, 
 as Owen hints, " the larval form of some large 
 trilobite " ? When we come to deal with the detailed 
 structure of the trilobite, we shall be confronted 
 with many other suggestions of this sort. Mean- 
 while we still have fifty genera and four hundred 
 species of trilobites, awaiting, we hope, some diminu- 
 tion, as fresh knowledge is obtained concerning 
 their embryology and life-history.
 
 04 ' RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 The structural details of trilobites furnish a means 
 whereby palaeontologists are enabled to arrange the 
 numerous species in well-defined groups or families. 
 
 The AgnostidaB are eyeless and small, having 
 not more than two body-rings, the shields of the 
 head and tail being nearly equal. (Figs. 52, 53.) 
 
 The Olenidce or Paradoxidae are characterised 
 by their long bodies, which are divided into many 
 segments. The tail-shield is small, and curved 
 spines are often found along the sides. (Fig. 51.) 
 
 The Asaphidce are mostly made up of large oval- 
 shaped trilobites, having about eight body-rings, 
 and being covered with a smooth carapace. 
 
 The TrimtcleidfBj containing some of the prettiest 
 of trilobites, have the head-shield large, with a 
 long process or spine hanging from each side of it. 
 (Fig. 50.) 
 
 The Ckeiruridee consist of seven genera. The 
 number of segments is eleven, and they are free at 
 their ends. 
 
 The Calymenidce have rough carapaces, and the 
 body usually contains thirteen segments or rings. 
 
 Another family called Phacopidae had large 
 facetted eyes and eleven body-rings. (Fig. 16.) 
 
 The Lickades, consisting of only one genus, have 
 small heads and a tail with a broad limb. 
 
 The Prcetidce are interesting as embracing the 
 last of the trilobites, the Carboniferous Phillipsia 
 and Griffithsides. Although these are of small 
 size, the number of the body-rings is usually nine. 
 The carapace or body-covering of Phillipsia is 
 generally rough or granulated, and seems to have
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 205 
 
 contained more living matter than was the case 
 with the others. (Fig. 55.) 
 
 The Acidaspidce have from eight to ten body- 
 segments, the sides of which (pleuras) are turned 
 backwards. 
 
 There are also the Bronteidce with large ex- 
 panded pygidium or tail, the Harpeidte with 
 horseshoe-like head-shield and numerously seg- 
 mented body, and lastly, the 
 head-shield of which is prolonged 
 into spines. 
 
 It is from the structure of the 
 trilobites, moreover, that it has 
 been found possible to determine 
 the conditions of their existence 
 and their general habits. 
 
 The chemical composition of the 
 carapace affords a sufficiently ac- 
 curate indication of the character 
 of the habitat of the creature ; as, Fl iel 
 for instance, the living and granu- shield of Phil- 
 lated covering of Pkillipsia, just i - psla " 
 referred to as living in the carboniferous seas. In 
 other cases the carapace seems to have been more 
 chitinous, like the wing-cases of insects. 
 
 The fact that the body-covering is so often found 
 in separate portions makes it certain that trilobites, 
 like crabs, underwent the periodical process of 
 moulting. The head-piece or cephalic shield is 
 generally found alone, the thorax or ringed part 
 often so, and the pygidium also frequently occurs 
 separately. The moultings of Phillipsia are always
 
 206 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 found in two parts, the head by itself and the body 
 and tail joined together. (Fig. 55.) In the case of 
 Calymene the ringed thorax is often met with by 
 itself, while not unfrequently the rings are separated 
 from one another. 
 
 The month of trilobites, by the simplicity of its 
 structure and the absence of antennas, warrants the 
 inference that these creatures were "bottom-feeders," 
 that is, they fed from the ground. Mr. Salter, 
 who made trilobites his special study, arrived at 
 the opinion that they lived in the mud and even 
 found their food in the organisms which it con- 
 tained, very much after the manner in which the 
 earthworm derives its nutriment from the soil. 
 They could, however, swim, and probably were not 
 averse to making a meal off any dainty mollusc that 
 might come in their way. 
 
 No traces of legs have been found, save those 
 very indefinite structures already referred to, but 
 it is supposed that they had fleshy or cartilaginous 
 feet, like the footstalk of the Lingula, and which of 
 course has left no fossilised remains. It is certain 
 too that some species could coil themselves up like 
 the wood-louse ; others, as the Homalonotus, were 
 probably not able thus to protect themselves against 
 their foes. 
 
 But the most remarkable feature in the morphology 
 of the trilobite was the eye (Fig. 56) ; this varies 
 with the species. In Homalonotus it is small and 
 protuberant like that of the lobster. The eye of 
 the Bumastus Barriensis, a common fossil of the 
 Woolhope beds, ^ems to have been protected with
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 207 
 
 a strong lid. In many species, the eye is compound, 
 like that of the house-fly or dragon-fly. As already 
 observed, some trilobites were eyeless, these being 
 generally the simplest in structure, such as the 
 Agnostus. They are, however, found in company 
 with more highly developed forms. 
 
 The compound eyes of the trilobites in their 
 fossilised condition present the appearance of a 
 crescentic ridge, on which the numerous facets, 
 in some cases as many as four hundred, are 
 geometrically arranged (Fig. 56). Dr. Buckland 
 
 FIG. 56. Compound eye of Trilobite (Asaphus caudatus) 
 and Ocelli ; of ditto magnified. 
 
 described these ridges as being "like a circular 
 bastion, ranging nearly round three-fourths of a 
 circle, each commanding so much of the horizon 
 that when the distinct vision of one eye ceased that 
 of the other began." Their particular form and 
 position he regarded as " peculiarly adapted to the 
 uses of an animal destined to live at the bottom 
 of the water ; to look downwards was as much 
 impossible as it was unnecessary for a creature 
 living at the bottom ; but for horizontal vision in 
 every direction the contrivance is complete." 
 It follows then that the environment of the
 
 208 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 trilobite, so far as physical conditions are concerned, 
 did not greatly differ from what we now see in 
 natnre. These primeval seas and the atmosphere 
 above them acted as media of light, just as water 
 and air now do. The Limulus or King-crab has 
 compound eyes that bear the same relationship to 
 light as did those of the trilobite, and the same 
 optical laws were evidently in operation. To quote 
 again from Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, 
 " The earliest marine animals were furnished with 
 instruments of vision in which the minute optical 
 adaptations were the same that impart the percep- 
 tion of light to crustaceans now living at the bottom 
 of the sea. . . . With regard to the atmosphere, we 
 infer that had it differed materially from its actual 
 condition, it might have so far affected the rays of 
 light that a corresponding difference from the eyes 
 of existing crustaceans would have been found in 
 the organs on which the impressions of such rays 
 were then received. Regarding light itself also, we 
 learn from the resemblance of these most ancient 
 organizations to existing eyes, that the mutual 
 relations of light to the eye, and of the eye to the 
 light, were the same at the time when crustaceans 
 endowed with the faculty of vision were first placed 
 at the bottom of the primeval seas, as at the present 
 moment." 
 
 Having dealt with the geological distribution of 
 trilobites and their structure and classification, it now 
 only remains to consider the question of their descent. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the evolution theory 
 as an explanation of the mode of creation, the efforts
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 209 
 
 to substantiate that theory have certainly proved 
 fruitful in bringing to light many homologies of 
 structure in the vegetable and animal world that 
 had previously been overlooked. There are, it is 
 true, many respected students of Nature who fail 
 to see in homologous structures an invincible argu- 
 ment in favour of community of origin, and who 
 therefore regard evolution as unproved, but who 
 nevertheless accept it provisionally or as a valuable 
 working hypothesis. 
 
 In any inquiry bearing on the origin of au animal 
 form, Geology of course must be heard. But in 
 regard to the ancestry of the trilobite Geology is 
 singularly deficient in supplying suggestions. When 
 trilobites had already reached their zenith there 
 were but a few phyllopod crustaceans in existence, 
 and these were far removed from the trilobite in 
 structure, while no contemporaneous mollusc throws 
 the least light on the subject. Darwin says (Origin 
 of Species, p. 286) : " It cannot be doubted that'all 
 the Cambrian and Silurian trilobites are descended 
 from some one crustacean which must have lived 
 long before the Cambrian age." If the evolution 
 theory be true, this of course is so ; but it ought to 
 be pointed out that an ipse dixit of this sort is 
 entirely destitute of argumentative value. It is an 
 admission that palaeontological records fail to reveal 
 the ancestry of the trilobite. Barrande, than whom 
 no one can speak with greater authority on trilobites, 
 went so far as to say that their evolution was " un 
 produit de Fimagination, sans aucun fondement 
 dans la realite." 
 
 14
 
 2io RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 The imperfection of the geological record may be. 
 pleaded as an excuse for the absence of transitional 
 forms, but then, as Prof. St. George Mivart says, "it 
 is an excuse." When we reflect that the trilobite was 
 built up after an entirely different pattern from any 
 older or contemporaneous creature whose fossil re- 
 mains have come down to us, that it had essentially 
 different nervous, digestive, and circulatory systems) 
 and that it possessed highly complex eyes and other 
 organs of sense, it is certainly very extraordinary 
 that there should be no geological record of transi- 
 tional forms of even the minutest character to enable 
 us to trace the descent of this curious animal or to 
 discover its generic alliances with any previously 
 existing creatures. Sir J. W. Dawson does not 
 exaggerate when he observes in reference to trilobites 
 that " nothing short of a very large faith in the 
 imperfection of the geological record can suffice 
 to account for their evolution." (Chain of Life, 
 p. 80.) 
 
 When we turn to the consideration of the after 
 history of the trilobite, we find that both Geology 
 and Biology afford a little help in discovering 
 structural relationships with other crustaceans. As 
 to the value of these similarities and affinities in 
 evolutionist speculations different readers will pro- 
 bably entertain different opinions. 
 
 I have already pointed out the striking resemblance 
 which Belinurus, a fossil king-crab from the coal 
 measures, bears to a typical trilobite (Fig. 57). It was 
 during this geological period that trilobites became 
 extinct, and it is interesting to find a king-crab of
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 211 
 
 the same age so much like them. King-crabs are 
 very peculiar creatures, and seem to be connected 
 with other crustaceans in only a remote sort of way. 
 
 IfFI 
 
 FIG. 57. Fossil King-Crab FIG. 58.Prest?vickia. 
 
 (Belinurus triloHti aides). 
 
 Before leaving the egg, the embryo acquires all its 
 main features, and at that early stage shows a 
 remarkable resemblance to the Prestwichia (Fig. 58), 
 
 FIG. 59. 
 
 Larva of recent King-Crab. 
 
 FIG. GO. Larva of Trilobite. 
 
 a trilobite found in the " Penny-stone nodules " of 
 Shropshire. This resemblance may be seen by 
 comparing the larva of a recent king-crab with a 
 larval trilobite (Figs. 59, 60). A reference to Figs.
 
 212 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 54, 57, 58, 59, and 60, will show that the resemblance 
 is maintained through succeeding stages up to the 
 adult condition. 
 
 Crustacean metamorphosis has of late years been 
 a most fascinating study for many naturalists. Just 
 as we have the pupa and chrysalis of insects, so 
 we have various stages in the development of 
 crustaceans, and many members of this class are 
 strikingly alike in their early condition. There is 
 the Nauplius stage, a term derived from the name 
 of one of the lowliest crustaceans, the Zoca or water- 
 flea stage, the Mysis or opossum-shrimp stage, and 
 others. The lobster passes through half-a-dozen of 
 these stages, and the trilobite, according to Barrande, 
 who enjoyed exceptional opportunities for studying 
 it, passed through even more, resembling in its 
 earliest stage the Ostracoda in having no joints to 
 the body. Not that all crustaceans pass through 
 every one of these metamorphic stages, but some go 
 through one and some through another, and thus 
 their place in the zoological tree is determined. 
 
 It is upon these principles that a line of descent 
 has been drawn, which connects the trilobite with 
 the king-crab. The Belinurus, one of the ancient 
 king-crabs, appeared at about the geological time 
 when trilobites were dying out, as has just been 
 observed, while the young of the Limulus, the king- 
 crab of our day, is similar to the adult trilobite ; 
 hence it has come to be a widely received opinion 
 that Limulus has the best right to be considered 
 the descendant and representative of the ancient and 
 noble race of trilobites.
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 213 
 
 There is another creature which has a distinct 
 likeness to some of the lowlier trilobites ; this is 
 the Bopyrus (Figs. 61, 62), 'a parasite of the shrimp. 
 As it is probable that all parasites are degraded 
 forms, it is regarded by some as not at all unlikely 
 that one branch of the older crustacean class, 
 possibly a section of the trilobite group, has found 
 its present resting-place in this diminutive parasitica 
 creature. The illustrations are of the female, which 
 
 FlQ. 61. Shrimp Parasite FlG. 62. Shrimp Parasite 
 
 (Ropyrus crangorum) (Bopyrus cranffontni) 
 
 Upper side. Lower side. 
 
 seems to be more degraded than the male, having 
 lost its eyes altogether, while the male preserves 
 them in a rudimentary condition. This has perhaps 
 arisen from the different habits of life which belong 
 to the female, and it is instructive to observe that 
 it is this more degraded form which most nearly 
 approaches the trilobite in appearance. 
 
 Dean Buckland and others have regarded the 
 Serolis (Fig. 63) as being very closely related to 
 the trilobite. Certainly this creature has an old- 
 world look about it, and presents a remarkable
 
 214 
 
 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 similarity of form to that of the typical trilobite 
 of the Cambrian age. The principal trilobites of 
 this geological period were characterised in general 
 by having the thorax divided into a larger number 
 of segments than is the case with those of later 
 ages, while the tail portion is not so well developed, 
 and the side lobes are profusely fringed, as may be 
 seen in Paradoxides (Fig. 51). The Serolis, which 
 is a crustacean isopod plentifully occurring in the 
 seas around Tierra del 
 Fuego, possesses all these 
 features, and, in addition, 
 has compound sessile eyes 
 arranged in crescentic lobes, 
 just as many trilobites 
 have, while it also resembles 
 the Silurian Phacops 
 caudatus (Fig. 16) in hav- 
 ing a movable tail-shield. 
 There are differences of 
 structure in regard to the 
 mouth organs and antennae, but these are fragile 
 appendages, and would not easily be preserved as 
 fossils, even if trilobites possessed them, which it is 
 thought was the case with some species. 
 
 The Apus productusj a common denizen of our 
 ponds, has also been suggested as being related to 
 some species of trilobite. The Apus in passing 
 through the Nauplius stage takes on a trilobite 
 appearance, and when it is fully developed, its sixty 
 pairs of legs cannot but remind us of the marginal 
 fringes which adorn so many of the older trilobites 
 
 FIG. 63. Scrolls Fabricii, 
 with eye magnified.
 
 TRILOBITE HUNTING. 215 
 
 These many slight resemblances to other animals, 
 whatever they may suggest as to descent and modifi- 
 cation, do certainly show how large a portion of the 
 crustacean area was occupied by trilobites all through 
 the vast ages of palaeozoic time. From the king- 
 crab to the shrimp-parasite is a long distance, and 
 yet trilobites by their varied functions and organs 
 evidently stretched out over that distance; and 
 though nothing absolutely conclusive can be inferred 
 in regard either to the origin or the descent of the 
 trilobite, yet these numerous affinities afford a field 
 extensive enough for the speculations of the most 
 imaginative and the inquiries of the most in- 
 dustrious.
 
 XY. 
 
 WHAT 18 CREATION? 
 
 Through knowledge we behould the World's creation, 
 How in his cradle first he fostred was, 
 And judge of Nature's cunning operation, 
 How things she formed of a formless mass." 
 
 SPENSER. 
 
 " Creation is great and cannot be understood." 
 
 CABLYLE. 
 
 'HERE have been at different times and 
 still are many theories of Creation. The 
 word " theory " is very ambiguous. It is 
 necessary, therefore, to lay down what 
 we mean by it. Amongst the older philosophers 
 it denoted speculation. It is now very frequently 
 used in opposition to " practice," as signifying the 
 principles or doctrines underlying and determining 
 art. In scientific discussions it is often taken as 
 equivalent to " hypothesis," that is, a suggestion, or 
 even inference, for which, it is admitted, there is 
 not sufficient evidence, but which, on account of its 
 agreement with a greater or less number of circum- 
 stances, we are led to adopt provisionally as a law 
 or an explanation of a certain series of facts. This
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 217 
 
 is the sense in which we shall use the term, as it 
 corresponds accurately enough with its ordinary 
 signification in modern philosophy and science. 
 
 It is obvious that in inquiries which are concerned 
 in the discovery of natural law, it is highly service- 
 able, nay, absolutely necessary, to generalise or to 
 make inferences of a more or less sweeping character 
 for the purpose of giving definiteness and directness 
 to further observations or experiments. Faraday 
 speaks of the hosts of such deductions that he was 
 continually fashioning and slaying in his magnificent 
 researches. The value of a theory framed thus will 
 of course be determined by the number of facts that 
 it harmonises. A mere figment of the imagination 
 may serve to guide observation, but it will not, 
 ordinarily, be so fruitful in results as the hypothesis 
 which is suggested by some fact or phenomenon 
 that it seems to explain. Occasionally a happy 
 guess may turn out to have hit upon a universal 
 law, but that will be a very remarkable exception. 
 The old saying that "Nature abhors a vacuum" gives 
 no reason why water rises in the pump. But the 
 theory that the phenomenon results from the pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere upon the water outside the 
 piston or sucker of the pump is so closely allied 
 with many other similar phenomena, such as the 
 rise and fall of the mercury in the thermometer 
 and barometer, and the changes in the level of the 
 mercury as the instrument is carried up a mountain, 
 that no one now thinks of disputing the accuracy of 
 this explanation. 
 
 John Stuart Mill made it the chief aim of his
 
 2i8 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 logical writings to show the insufficiency of the 
 Baconian method of collecting facts and drawing 
 from them conclusions of a continually widening 
 scope. These empirical laws, as the inductions of 
 the Baconian method are called, will usually be safe 
 and accurate, but they may also be barren. 
 
 In the search for Nature's laws, we must some- 
 times go before her complete revelations, though 
 we must allow her to point the way. Bacon's 
 doctrine was the heroic remedy for the venerable 
 tyranny of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, but the 
 true method of scientific discovery lies between the 
 Aristotelian deduction and the Baconian induction. 
 All theories, however, must be based upon ascer- 
 tained facts, and must be verified by comparison 
 with other related facts, before they can be considered 
 as worthy of confidence. Newton's emission theory 
 of light was seen to be inconsistent with the fact 
 that atoms, however infinitesimal, could not be 
 projected from vast distances upon the delicate 
 structures of the eye without injuring them. Young's 
 undulatory theory, although emanating from a far 
 more obscure source, was found to harmonize so 
 completely with all such phenomena as reflection, 
 refraction, and colour, that it quickly drove Newton's 
 hypothesis from the field. 
 
 It follows, then, that while it is scientifically 
 legitimate and useful to formulate theories of 
 Creation, yet such theories must be based upon 
 well-understood and indisputable facts, or they 
 hardly deserve serious attention. They must also 
 be capable of verification by comparison with other
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 219 
 
 facts. Until the discovery of the four moons of 
 Uranus, it was believed that all the satellites of 
 planets in our system revolved around their primaries 
 from west to east. An explanation of this might 
 have been furnished which should have had all the 
 force and authority of what is usually called a law 
 of nature, but such an explanation would have 
 utterly broken down when it was ascertained that 
 the satellites of Uranus revolved from east to west. 
 Theories of Creation, no matter under what 
 favourable auspices they may have been advanced, 
 or by how high authorities they are advocated, 
 may yet be destined to perish under the stress of 
 accumulating facts ; unless, indeed, it can be de- 
 monstrated that no facts ever could occur which 
 should be inconsistent with them. In many cases 
 it is to be feared that the remarkable words of 
 Goethe are only too accurate an explanation of the 
 way in which hypotheses are begotten and pro- 
 pagated: " Good, intellectual, and courageous heads 
 adorn their minds with such an idea for the sake of 
 its popularity ; they gather followers and pupils, 
 and thus form a literary power ; their idea is finally 
 worked out, exaggerated, and with a passionate 
 impulse is forced upon society." Such theories, how- 
 ever, do not live. They may survive the criticism 
 of a generation or two for want of a full comprehen- 
 sion of their meaning, from a desire to court the 
 influential, or on account of the diffidence of earnest 
 seekers after truth, who forbear to attack what 
 is urged by men of deserved respect until they have 
 tested it in every possible way. But no theory can
 
 220 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 enjoy immortality that does not continue to bring 
 into line with itself all facts and phenomena with 
 which it has any affinity. 
 
 Now, we are brought face to face in Nature 
 with facts whose existence cannot be denied, with 
 phenomena whose recurrence is regular and con- 
 tinuous, with processes or laws which appear at 
 any rate to operate uniformly. The problem as to 
 how these phenomena originated is a totally distinct 
 question from that of their reality. That is to say, 
 the existence of things, the constitution and course 
 of Nature, are accepted by all as realities, while 
 there is an almost endless variety of opinions as to 
 the processes or stages by which these realities 
 came to be what they are. It is usual to describe 
 the stages by which the universe reached its present 
 condition as a Creation. Even Haeckel, at the time 
 when he believed in spontaneous generation, called 
 his great book The Natural History of Creation. 
 The method or methods of Creation, which have 
 operated in bringing about the present state of the 
 universe, suggest an altogether distinct idea from 
 that of Creation itself. The moment we begin to 
 make suggestions as to how Creation has proceeded, 
 we leave the region of fact and are starting theories, 
 more or less plausible ; theories which by the or- 
 dinary logical and scientific methods establish 
 their right to be regarded as based on uniform 
 laws of nature, or which, under stress of advancing 
 knowledge and improved methods of observation 
 and experiment, may manifest their incompetency 
 and vanish.
 
 WHAT fS CREATION? 221 
 
 From this indisputable fact that the universe 
 exists, we are led on by the logic of necessity to 
 seek for an explanation of its existence. The 
 existence of things implies that they had an 
 original cause. Hume, as is well known, sought to 
 undermine the conception of causality by resolving 
 it into invariable sequence. Positivists regard it 
 as vain to inquire into the causes of phenomena. 
 Many modern scientists, while holding to the 
 universality of causation, yet, with a positivism 
 that even Comte knew nothing of, shut out of 
 the proper field of scientific inquiry the search for 
 all causes that are not physical. The only objects 
 of human knowledge, they are never tired of telling 
 us, are phenomena which may be perceived by the 
 senses, and that everything else is vague, uncertain, 
 transcendental, and can neither be observed nor 
 verified. 
 
 This we should readily admit, if by science is 
 meant only material or physical science. But has 
 not science a far wider import ? Is it not tautology 
 to say that science is that which deals with what 
 is cognized by the senses, and then to say that what 
 cannot be examined by the senses is not science ? 
 It is an altogether arbitrary assumption to say that 
 science has only to do with matter, or with matter 
 and its assumed inherent force. That it is con- 
 cerned only with matter and force, we need not 
 object to admit ; for force is what we call mind 
 and will. "Words are poor things at the best, but 
 force which moves, or begets motion, which affects 
 matter, which produces modifications of life and
 
 222 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 thought, that surely is mind. It is a mere 
 question of words. But if force be defined so as 
 designedly to exclude mind, then it is not a 
 sufficient or exhaustive classification of things to 
 say that matter and force are all. Even Professor 
 Huxley, in a somewhat jaunty way, but with truth, 
 says : " It seems to me pretty plain that there is a 
 third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, 
 which, in the hardness of my heart or head, I 
 cannot see to be matter, or force, or any conceivable 
 modification of either, however intimately the mani- 
 festations of the phenomena of consciousness may 
 be connected with the phenomena known as matter 
 and force." (Fortnightly Review, December, 1886.) 
 
 Whatever philosophers may mean by force, 
 therefore, it seems there is consciousness or mind, 
 for consciousness is mental or nothing. On what 
 ground, then, can we ignore mind, or refuse to 
 admit the validity of its demand for an original 
 cause ? 
 
 These attempts to shut out mental phenomena from 
 science and to deride them as belonging to a vain 
 and unprofitable metaphysic are most unscientific. 
 Mind will be heard. Its instincts, intuitions, con- 
 victions, cannot be permanently stifled. It knows 
 itself to be greater than matter. It has the con- 
 sciousness of power, and it postulates in a perfectly 
 scientific manner a Supreme Original, the First 
 Cause of all that is. 
 
 The absurdity of excluding from the purview 
 of science all that seems to transcend the senses 
 of man will be seen still more distinctly when
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 223 
 
 it is remembered that there is no universal agree- 
 ment as to what senses and sensations are. To 
 many they involve mind. Here again the Positivist 
 meets us with the dogmatic declaration that sensa- 
 tion can only be that which is concerned with 
 material things. Seeing, hearing, and so forth, these 
 are the only modes of sensation. The cerebral or 
 nervous modifications, aided by telescope, microscope, 
 chemical reactions or spectroscopic observations, 
 these are the only channels of human knowledge. 
 But this is just what cannot be made out. The 
 mind may be conscious of things that stand in no 
 relation to our material senses. The recent ad- 
 vances in telescopic photography have enabled our 
 astronomers to prove the existence of celestial 
 bodies which never have been and perhaps never 
 may be seen through any telescope. Edison's 
 phonograph will repeat to generations unborn the 
 sound of voices never heard by them. Illustrations 
 are not arguments, of course, but intuition is 
 certainly a medium of consciousness, it may be 
 a sensitive plate on which truths are written, a 
 diaphragm which conveys vibrations to the mind, 
 that otherwise would not have been brought into 
 any relation to it. 
 
 Such intuitions or convictions, it may be said, 
 cannot be trusted. Neither can the sight, nor the 
 ear, nor the brain. Illusions and hallucinations 
 come to every one. No day passes but we are 
 reminded that things are not what they seem. 
 The microscopist has to go through a long ap- 
 prenticeship before he can interpret aright the
 
 224 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 revelations presented in his wondrous instrument, 
 and there are appearances about whose meaning 
 all but the tyro are uncertain. The senses need 
 education, they need constant supervision, and 
 their impressions have frequently to be corrected. 
 
 But whatever definition of science may be adopted, 
 it must be admitted by all that Nature cannot be 
 perfectly understood until all her relations are 
 studied, of which the causal relation is one. This 
 must be considered or our science is defective. An 
 efficient Cause of the beginning and continuance 
 of the universe is asked for, and there can never 
 be mental satisfaction or repose till this is found. 
 
 We are met with another objection in under- 
 taking this inquiry, and one, as we think, quite as 
 unreasonable as that which we have been combating, 
 notwithstanding that it is urged sometimes by those 
 who are as deeply impressed with the importance 
 of the inquiry as we ourselves. It is said that the 
 question is a theological one, and therefore does not 
 belong to the domain of scientific thought. But 
 it is not exclusively theological. Causality we 
 have shown is a relation of positive existences, 
 it has to do with matter, as well as with life, mind, 
 spirit. It is not purely a problem of metaphysics, 
 still less of theology. If the logical necessities 
 of the case compel us to a belief in God, that does 
 not necessarily imply that the whole subject is a 
 theological one. The fact is, this is a mere device 
 to shelve the question, and mainly on anti-theo- 
 logical grounds. This makes it regrettable that 
 Christian scientists should so easily admit that all
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 225 
 
 such investigations are no legitimate part of science. 
 If to seek for the causes of things is not science, 
 then what is ? If one thing more than another has 
 built up modern science into the splendid monu- 
 ment to man's untiring industry and intellectual 
 greatness that it now is, assuredly it is the very 
 fact that men have not been content to remain 
 in ignorance of the causes of things or of any of 
 their inter-relationships. What is gravitation, what 
 are the laws of motion, what is natural selection, 
 but the majestic generalisations of scientific minds, 
 and professedly based upon scientific phenomena 
 or the facts of nature ? The sublime generalisa- 
 tion that there is a Deity is a scientific inference, 
 and is the logical consequence of scientific facts. 
 Without that belief nature cannot be explained, 
 the mind of man is unsatisfied. God is a postulate 
 of the scientific mind, and would be conceived even 
 in the absence of the Bible. The existence of God 
 does not belong solely to the supernatural, it is a 
 necessary corollary of the natural. There is a 
 supernatural in theology, but there is a theology 
 which is not outside of the natural. A very 
 weighty sentence from Dr. Dallinger's Fcrnley 
 Lecture emphasizes this : " Science has removed 
 whole regions and seons of phenomena from what 
 was considered the supernatural to the natural ; 
 but to believe that this is so much lost to theology 
 is a feeble and faithless fallacy." 
 
 To sum up, then, we hold that the argument 
 for the existence of a Creator falls within the 
 natural as well as the supernatural, for it proceeds 
 
 15
 
 226 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 along lines laid down by the facts or phenomena 
 of Nature. By demanding an adequate and efficient 
 cause for every effect, science has taught us how to 
 demonstrate, for that is not too strong a word, the 
 existence and even some of the attributes of Deity. 
 In our time it is not active, dogmatic Atheism 
 in science that the Christian philosopher has to 
 contend with so much as that more negative form 
 of Atheism known by the name of Agnosticism. 
 There are few Atheists now. The name has an 
 unpleasant savour. It is admitted, at length, that 
 the old Psalmist was right in the description he 
 gives of the man who says in his heart, " There is 
 no God." Men accustomed to close reasoning are 
 conscious that so huge a negation cannot be proved. 
 To demonstrate the non-existence of God a man 
 must go everywhere to see, he must question every 
 star and explore limitless space, he must descend 
 into the bowels of the earth and examine all her 
 caverns, he must analyse every atom of the universe 
 and inspect every mode of existence. Till he has 
 done all this he has no right to affirm that there 
 is no God. In some remote system or far-off world, 
 which the most powerful telescope fails to reach, 
 the Deity may sit enthroned in unapproachable 
 splendours ; in some subtle form of essence which 
 no microscope can reveal God may exist ; in some 
 unknown, imperceptible union with all nature, 
 transcending and eluding all human powers of 
 investigation, the Creator may subsist, guiding, 
 sustaining, and delighting in all the works of His 
 hand.
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 227 
 
 The philosophical Atheist feels the force of these 
 difficulties, and with a prudence that would be 
 admirable did it not raise a suspicion of mental 
 cowardice or prejudice, he adopts the easier method 
 of simply ignoring the whole question. The reality 
 of a primal Cause is not denied, it is declared to 
 be of no importance. The belief in a Creator is 
 superfluous, the universe can be adequately explained 
 without it. But what an impotent conclusion to 
 arrive at, and how unscientific the position of him 
 who reaches it ! Here he stands in the midst of 
 order, beauty, life, without seeking any Author of 
 all this. Here are magnitudes compared with which 
 he is a pigmy ', here is a mechanism in the presence 
 of whose intricacies he seems a child ; around him 
 are forces and energies before which he is helpless ; 
 all existing before he came to look upon them, 
 unfading when he dies. Yet he is content to gaze 
 upon all these marvels and never to consider whence 
 they came or how they originated. Is this a 
 scientific attitude to occupy? And yet it is the 
 great boast of Agnosticism that it is scientific. It 
 is astonishing how words can be abused and per- 
 verted. 
 
 The position of the Agnostic is that of a man 
 who walks through a well-ordered garden, admiring 
 the perfection of the agriculture, delighting in the 
 perfumes and tints of the flowers, refreshing himself 
 with the luscious fruits, and then exclaiming : " I see 
 no evidences here that this place belongs to anybody; 
 I can enjoy all these charms without troubling over 
 the supernatural question as to who is the owner ;
 
 228 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 I can explain the whole matter without vexing my 
 mind with the transcendental inquiry as to whether 
 this garden has a gardener, these flowers a horti- 
 culturalist, these pastures, lawns, and conservatories 
 a proprietor." Such a man would be laughed at or 
 pitied. But if he should go further, and assert that 
 all who did see in the beauty and symmetry around 
 him the traces of originating and presiding intelli- 
 gence were superstitious or imbecile, then he would 
 become contemptible. He alone is truly scientific 
 who goes beyond the material and seeks to rise 
 through Nature up to Nature's great Original. The 
 search for a new planet suggested by Bode's Law, 
 or by the perturbations of Uranus, was no more 
 rational or scientific than is the belief in a Creator 
 based on Nature's teachings and facts. It is a 
 sober, rational argument, the force of which can 
 be resisted only by the most obstinate prejudice : 
 " Every house is builded by some man ; but He that 
 built all things is God " (Heb. iii. 4). 
 
 We have endeavoured to argue this question of 
 the existence of a Creator without any detailed 
 reference to what may be regarded as exclusively 
 theological or Biblical. With the intention of using 
 only such evidences as would appeal to those who 
 would not tolerate the importation of Scriptural 
 statement into the discussion, we have passed 
 over many considerations familiar enough to the 
 Christian. It is a distinct gain to us to demonstrate 
 that we have not to rely solely on Revelation for 
 testimony to the existence of Deity, and that such 
 a belief is in line with the strictest philosophy and
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 229 
 
 the facts of natural science. Even if we have got 
 no farther than to show that the abstract idea of 
 the Creator's existence is a logical necessity, essential 
 to the scientific and satisfactory explanation of 
 Nature, we have placed that doctrine in the same 
 category with all other great dominant ideas of 
 science which are accepted as true and immutable, 
 because, without them, the phenomena which they 
 account for would remain unexplained. Space, Time, 
 Gravitation, all the fundamental principles that 
 underlie astronomy, chemistry, and indeed every 
 natural science, are abstract ideas, vast inferences; 
 and yet they are believed in, and regarded as indis- 
 pensable to the superstructure of doctrine and law 
 which has been reared upon them. The existence 
 of a Creator having been shown to be a phase of 
 the universal law of causality, cannot be disregarded 
 as being non-scientific. Those who evade the force 
 of our argument by denying the necessity of an 
 efficient cause of phenomena and maintaining the 
 feeble and exploded dogma that causation is mere 
 sequence, must take the responsibility of explaining 
 how the first atom began to be, or else of solving 
 the dense mysteries surrounding the belief in the 
 eternity of matter. 
 
 It follows then from what has been advanced 
 that what may be called a doctrine of Creation, or 
 a belief in the fact of Creation, implies a complete 
 negation of the views of the Materialist, the Atheist, 
 
 1 the Agnostic, and is an absolute antithesis to 
 their conception of Nature. To hold any doctrine 
 of Creation is to accept the existence of a Mind in
 
 230 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Nature, intelligent, supreme, directive, authoritative. 
 There may be various opinions as to the modes or 
 laws by which that Supreme Power effected the 
 origin and development of existing things, but there 
 cannot be, consistent with a doctrine of creation, 
 any doubt as to the reality of such a Power. There 
 may be equal diversity of notions concerning the 
 essence and character of the Creator, but that He 
 does exist there is no room to doubt in the case 
 of those who maintain that a Creation has taken 
 place. 
 
 Now, having cleared out of the way much that 
 tends to obscure the question, are we in a position 
 to say what Creation is ; or, to put it in another 
 form, and one more in harmony with what we have 
 already said, can we decide how Nature, the sum 
 and constitution of all material things, came to be 
 what it is ? Have we any evidence that shall throw 
 light on the inquiry as to what processes or laws 
 the Creator adopted in producing the universe, and 
 bringing it to its present condition ? 
 
 Such a question opens up a field of speculation 
 and investigation far too vast for anything but a 
 fragmentary treatment here. To give an adequate 
 answer to it would involve a complete exposition of 
 all physical and biological science. The principles 
 and laws which constitute the sciences bearing 
 on matter and life are in reality the methods of 
 Creation. Whether they be described as natural 
 phenomena, the Laws of Nature, physical facts, 
 or by any other equivalent expression, they are 
 nothing more nor less than the modes of Creation,
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 231 
 
 the processes of Divine activity, the expressions and 
 results of the Creator's power. 
 
 The simplest and the oldest history of Creation 
 is that which is given in the earlier portion of the 
 Book of Genesis ; the prevalent modern theory of 
 Creation is that which goes by the familiar name of 
 Evolution. Passing by other records or theories, as 
 being of interest only because curious or on account 
 of their being stages in the advance towards the 
 position now held by the majority of scientific men, 
 we wish to fix our attention awhile on these two 
 philosophies. 
 
 The question naturally arises, Are they in agree- 
 ment ; or, if not, which is true ? 
 
 It is of course open to the inquirer to ask what 
 is meant by evolution. Materialistic or atheistic 
 evolution, we have already stated, is a conception 
 of Nature with which we are not now dealing. 
 The evolution of Carl Vogt, and the not very 
 different agnosticism of Huxley, Tyndall, and 
 Spencer, are not here taken into consideration ; 
 they require a very different method of treatment, 
 and arguments of quite another sort. What we 
 seek is a clear and distinct definition of Theistic 
 evolution, such as is held by the bulk of scientific 
 men to-day. 
 
 Taking Darwin as the most authoritative ex- 
 ponent of evolution, we may regard as a sufficiently 
 accurate idea of it his doctrine of natural selection, 
 involving the emergence of the fittest from the 
 struggle for existence, and under indefinite varia- 
 tions or modifications of structure and environment.
 
 232 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 Darwin nowhere affirms the eternity of matter, nor 
 the spontaneous generation of the living out of 
 the non-living, nor the blind, fortuitous action of 
 law. Darwin's theory was concerned in the origin of 
 species, and he begins with the assumption of life. 
 
 But creation covers the material or inorganic as 
 well as the living or organic ; and hence we are 
 led on to the nebular hypothesis as a part of 
 modern evolution. La Place taught that the solar 
 system arose from the gradual condensation of a 
 diffused incandescent gas or vapour. Norman 
 Lockyer's recent modification of this is too new 
 and too little considered by the scientific world to 
 make it necessary for us to take it into account. 
 La Place probably wished the inference to be drawn 
 that all other systems or worlds which exist in the 
 remote regions of space were similarly developed. 
 But even he does not show how the primary 
 nebula originated, nor does he demonstrate that 
 the development was anything but the effect of 
 a Supreme Will acting everywhere throughout 
 space. The origin of matter and of force and the 
 beginning of life are vital elements in the case, 
 and are attributed by the majority of evolutionists 
 to the action of some external Power. 
 
 With these data, evolutionists start out to explain 
 how Nature came to be what it is. Through all the 
 aeons of the geological -realm, into all the intricacies 
 of biological science, Darwin travels with a keenness 
 of vision and a strength of intellect almost super- 
 human, and at length arrives at what he considers 
 the universally applicable law of evolution.
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 233 
 
 Arid now, without attempting to follow him into 
 all the details of his vast investigation, and accept- 
 ing as true all that is involved in the nebular and 
 evolution hypotheses, can we also give credence 
 to what we find in Genesis ? In a word, are 
 Creation and Evolution synonymous terms? May 
 we affirm that what the author of Genesis calls 
 Creation is practically and in principle the same 
 thing as Evolution ? 
 
 In order to answer this question in the affirmative, 
 we should have to make many demands in regard 
 to details ; we should have to point out that abrupt- 
 ness of change, as well as those gradual modifications 
 which he postulates, have transpired in the advances 
 which geological and biological science records, 
 and especially that mighty upheavals in life and 
 organization have seemed to occur where ordinary 
 conditions appear quite inadequate and incommen- 
 surable. But leaving all this out of consideration, 
 is there anything in the Mosaic narrative incon- 
 sistent with the doctrine that Creation is an 
 evolution, a process, a law ? 
 
 The idea, once common, that each star, each 
 species of plant and animal, was made separately 
 by a sort of mechanical process, is, we think, quite 
 obsolete, and deserves to be. It never had a better 
 foundation than a gross misinterpretation of the 
 language of Genesis. And although it is to science 
 that we owe the explosion of the error, now that 
 it is exploded we wonder it could ever have been 
 maintained. The utmost that can now be affirmed 
 with regard to the Mosaic language is that one
 
 234 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 of the words used to denote Creation means to 
 produce from nothing, while the other implies to 
 modify what was already in existence. If that 
 be so, it is no more than is required by a rational 
 evolutionist, for he must admit that matter and life 
 were new creations so far as our earth is concerned. 
 We are justified in concluding, therefore, that 
 Creation, as described by the writer of Genesis, 
 means a process or method, or a law, which may 
 as well be called evolution as anything else. 
 
 There is, we need hardly say, an extreme school 
 of evolutionists who would demur to our putting of 
 the case. But nothing is easier than to show how 
 they refute themselves. Haeckel, for example, de- 
 clares that if the primordial cells did not originate 
 spontaneously, they must have been produced super- 
 naturally, an alternative we readily accept, seeing 
 that Haeckel has recently given up the theory of 
 spontaneous generation. Huxley, again, in his 
 article on Biology in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
 says : " If the hypothesis of evolution is true, living 
 matter must have arisen from not living matter : 
 for by the hypothesis the condition of the globe 
 was at one time such, that living matter could 
 not have existed in it, life being entirely incom- 
 patible with the gaseous state." And yet in the 
 same article he declares that " at the present 
 moment there is not a shadow of trustworthy direct 
 evidence that abiogenesis (i.e., spontaneous genera- 
 tion) does take place, or has taken place, within 
 the period during which the existence of the globe 
 is recorded."
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 235 
 
 Such are the inconsistencies and contradictions 
 which the greatest minds are capable of when they 
 seek to bolster up theories at the expense of facts, 
 to maintain evolution without an Evolver, a law 
 without a Lawgiver, a creation without a Creator. 
 But Darwin's evolution is not Huxley's, and, so far 
 as regards its ruling idea, is, we think, not in 
 opposition to the Mosaic narrative, may, indeed, 
 if we please, be taken as explanatory of it. 
 
 It only remains to refer to some minor objections 
 which have been based on the supposed contra- 
 dictions in Genesis of the facts of geology and some 
 other sciences. These objections mainly bear upon 
 the Mosaic use of the word " day," the order in 
 which the various types of plants and animals were 
 introduced upon the earth, and the antiquity of the 
 human race. 
 
 First let me make a brief reference to the bearing 
 of the facts of Geology on the Mosaic "days of 
 Creation." 
 
 While men remained ignorant of the marvellous 
 records written upon the stone tablets of the earth, 
 it mattered but little what view was taken with 
 regard to the length of time occupied in Creation ; 
 but when it began to appear that myriads of 
 creatures in all stages of growth and development 
 had been preserved in the rocks, the majority of 
 which no longer exist, then it was suspected that 
 the yom of Genesis might mean something different 
 from twenty-four hours. It was felt that six days 
 of twenty-four hours each could not suffice for the 
 growth of many thousands of feet of limestone,
 
 236 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 chalk, and clay, crowded with the shells and 
 bones of animals which had lived and died. Hugh 
 Miller propounded the theory that the days of 
 Moses corresponded with the geologic periods, and 
 he identified the third, fifth, and sixth days, during 
 which plants and animals were created, with the 
 Primary, or more precisely the Carboniferous, the 
 Secondary, and the Tertiary epochs. Plant life he 
 referred to the Carboniferous, as exemplified in coal ; 
 sea-monsters and creeping things characterise the 
 Secondary age, as is seen from the great Saurians of 
 that time ; while cattle and beasts are the dominant 
 creatures of the Tertiary period, at the close of 
 which man appeared. This theory has had to be 
 greatly modified under the strain of geological 
 research, but it evidently contains the germ at 
 least of the truth. 
 
 Moses himself frequently uses the word yom to 
 denote an indefinite period. He does so in the 
 account of the Creation, for he speaks of " the day 
 in which the Lord made the earth and the heavens," 
 and in many other passages of Scripture the same 
 thing occurs. We need not here pursue the argu- 
 ment, for it has already been stated in detail in a 
 former chapter. 
 
 As to the order in which the various kinds of 
 plants and animals were introduced upon the earth, 
 the Mosaic narrative does not go into particulars. 
 It merely affirms that first came plants, then fishes, 
 birds, mammals, and man. 
 
 It is generally admitted that graphite or plumbago 
 is carbonised vegetable matter, and that iron-ore
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 237 
 
 testifies to plant life. The pre-Cambrian rocks 
 contain deposits of this nature. Again, Moses 
 merely describes the origin of things, not their 
 whole after history and development. The first 
 vegetables he calls deshe, which signifies lowly 
 plants in general, i.e., seaweeds, lichens, etc., in 
 fact, flowerless plants (Cryptogams), which botanists 
 place at the bottom of the scale. Herbs yielding 
 seed, and trees bearing fruit, the higher botanical 
 division of Phanerogams or flowering plants, appeared 
 in later times, when the earth's condition had be- 
 come more favourable to their survival. 
 
 On the fifth day Moses says that " the waters 
 brought forth the moving creatures," or sheretzim, a 
 word which in Leviticus xi. is applied to insects, 
 creeping things, and small creatures generally. The 
 proper word for "fish" does not occur till verse 
 twenty-six, which refers to man's dominion over 
 terrestrial things. The word sheretzim, then, pro- 
 bably refers to lowly marine life and insects, many 
 of which pass their larval condition in water. No 
 better word than tanninim could have been used 
 by which to denote the great sea-monsters of the 
 Secondaries, and so Moses, like the geologist, puts 
 reptiles before birds. With regard to the higher 
 class of mammalia there is no dispute. Nothing 
 can be clearer, therefore, than that the writer of 
 Genesis, when interpreted correctly, is in perfect 
 accord with the demonstrated facts of Geology. 
 
 The subject of man's antiquity is a vast one, and 
 can only be alluded to briefly. The whole point of 
 the objection turns upon the rate at which certain
 
 238 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 deposits in which human relics are found were laid. 
 The geological chronometer is itself so unreliable 
 that apparent discrepancies between its indications 
 and the statements of Moses need cause but little 
 concern. Scripture chronology is also a very com- 
 plex problem, and there is room for very great 
 differences of opinion in regard to the age of man. 
 We require to know a great deal more about the 
 conditions of stratification in primeval times, and 
 we also need more accurate methods of determining 
 the dates of Biblical events, before any final judg- 
 ment can be arrived at as to whether or not there 
 is any inconsistency between the Scripture history 
 and Geology on the subject of man's antiquity. 
 
 But now, reverting to the main question of this 
 chapter, although we have endeavoured to show that 
 Creation and Evolution may be synonymous terms, 
 and that there is nothing in the Mosaic narrative 
 inconsistent with the idea of a progressive creation 
 by process or law, yet we are not therefore bound 
 to believe that the prevalent views concerning 
 evolution are true. There is much in Nature to 
 show that evolution has a good deal of truth in it ; 
 but not even its adherents claim that it contains 
 the whole truth. Indeed, the theory is undergoing 
 constant criticism and modification at the hands 
 of scientific experts. There is much to be investi- 
 gated yet before any complete and final scheme can 
 be systematized which shall give a full account of 
 all the laws of development. When Science has 
 finished its " Genesis," if ever that day should 
 arrive, it will be time enough to consider what
 
 WHAT IS CREATION? 239 
 
 its relationship is to the Genesis of the Bible. 
 And if it should turn out that Creation is Evolution, 
 there will be no shock sustained by the venerable 
 beliefs of those who maintain that "the heavens 
 declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
 His handiwork." 
 
 "His parent Hand 
 
 From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore 
 To men, to angels, to celestial minds, 
 For ever leads the generations on 
 To higher scenes of being ; while, supplied 
 From day to day with His enlivening breath, 
 Inferior orders in succession rise 
 To fill the void below."
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 
 
 " To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language." 
 
 BBYANT. 
 
 ; AS Nature any ministry higher than that 
 which seeks man's material welfare ? 
 Has she any revelations of her Author 
 to make, to us, or can she throw any 
 light, however feeble, upon our relationship to 
 God ? In the principles of the Divine government, 
 in the processes of God's providence, in the working 
 out of His vast purpose to make all sentient beings 
 happy, in our Heavenly Father's plan for the re- 
 demption of the human race, is there room, or is 
 there need, for Nature's teaching? Those who 
 interpret the phenomena and laws of the universe, 
 can they peaks to men on these vast themes with 
 words that are intelligible^enough to be understood 
 and wise enough to be accepted ? 
 
 The human conscience needs all the light it can 
 get wherewith to make the path of duty clearer ;
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 241 
 
 the heart of man, under its mighty burdens of 
 sorrow, is thankful for every alleviation of its 
 anguish ; the immortal spirit within us eagerly 
 throws out its tendrils of love and trust in search 
 of whatever promises to bear it up into a healthier, 
 diviner air. What is there for us to read in this 
 wonderful many-paged volume, which lies wide 
 open and inviting everywhere around us, that shall 
 illumine the conscience and guide the judgment, 
 that shall give fortitude to stricken hearts and 
 inspiration to labouring souls ? 
 
 To the devout and thoughtful, Nature has much 
 to say concerning God and duty and immortality. 
 It is worth while to pause, now and then, and listen 
 to this many-tongued preacher that discourses with 
 such sweet and varied eloquence upon the deep 
 problems of life and eternity. 
 
 Some there are, no doubt, to whom our invoca- 
 tion is vain babbling. Their mind being at enmity 
 against God, all revelations of God, of which 
 Nature is one, are but as the shining of the sun 
 to the weak-eyed owl or the feeble-winged bat ; 
 but there are others to whom the universe is ablaze 
 with the glory which awed Moses in the presence 
 of the burning bush. Frigid and unspiritual men 
 there are who view everything around them in the 
 beam of dry light which originates from the human 
 intellect, and who discover only physical facts or 
 inexorable laws or unmeaning and incalculable con- 
 tingencies ; but the best and wisest scholars in 
 Nature's school are those who discern in creation 
 the footsteps of a Creator, and see in the works of 
 
 16
 
 242 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the Lord the irradiation of His wisdom and love. 
 Such as these 
 
 " Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
 
 What we wish to do, then, in this chapter, is to 
 claim for Science that its highest function is to dis- 
 play the presence and operations of God in the 
 natural world : " The works of the Lord are great, 
 sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." 
 
 I. And what a pleasure this is which Nature 
 offers to the devout and spiritual ! It is the rapture 
 which was experienced in Eden, and it is among 
 the purest of our gratifications ; it is given to the 
 poor and the rich. This starry sky, this flower- 
 bedecked earth, this grove ringing with the songs 
 of birds, are all ours without purchase and without 
 rent. How vain are sensual delights, ending in 
 weariness and disgust, compared with the lofty 
 pleasures of the reason and the soul which the 
 contemplation of God's great works inspires ! Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison, the apostle of Positivism, has 
 declared that raptures are out of place where religion 
 is concerned, for they disturb the intellectual vision ; 
 yet the soul that never mounts up " with wings as 
 eagles " is not likely to run without weariness or 
 walk without fainting on the difficult path of duty. 
 
 The pleasure we derive from devout contemplation 
 of God's works is not such as to pamper conceit or 
 pride, but it tends to deepen our reverence for all 
 that is Divine, and cultivates humility ; as Lord 
 Bacon said : " The kingdom of men found in science
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE 243 
 
 is like the kingdom of God. It can be entered only 
 in the character of a little child." The tiniest insect 
 has problems connected with its vital functions 
 which the greatest minds have not been able to 
 solve. Who can explain how the thousands of 
 minute lenses which make up the eyes of the dragon- 
 fly flash but one image along their numerous nerves 
 to the centre of sensation ? What man has ever 
 explained how it is that the suspended vitality of 
 the chrysalis, so far from ending in death, does but 
 prepare it for the more glorious life of the butterfly 
 which bursts forth from the clod to roam through 
 the garden and the glade ? Those myriads of 
 systems which the telescope discovers, those busy 
 worlds in atoms which the microscope reveals ; who 
 is able to compass the majestic meaning or penetrate 
 into all the profound mysteries which are here 
 involved ? 
 
 This pleasure, moreover, refines and ennobles 
 man ; for only to look upon the beauty which glad- 
 dens him in all the diversity of hill and vale, of 
 gleaming river and ocean, of radiant garden and 
 many-coloured forest, of sparkling sunlight and 
 lustrous cloud, of peaceful evening and starry night, 
 brings a consciousness of nobility. And when 
 we "look through Nature up to Nature's God," 
 how calm and trustful do intelligent Christians 
 become, and with what ardour they awake all their 
 powers to praise that beneficent Being to Whom we 
 owe all these possessions and delights I A puny 
 soul has he who never feels inspired to glorify our 
 Heavenly Father Who has placed us amid this
 
 244 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 scene of magnificence, where all things are conducive 
 to our highest welfare. Not upon some gigantic 
 cinder, as the moon is said to be, porous with the 
 vents and craters left by desolating fires as the 
 evidence of their dreadful forces, now gaping for 
 showers and dew that can never come out of an arid 
 sky ; but in a veritable Paradise though slimed 
 with the trail of sin has God placed His children of 
 the earth. And they who are wise enough to con- 
 template the Divine benevolence in Nature's laws 
 and arrangements do themselves become more like 
 God, and realise a foretaste of that "fulness of joy," 
 which, we may hope, will be ours when our know- 
 ledge of God's works shall no longer be incomplete, 
 but we shall "know even as also" we are "known." 
 
 Are we not right, then, in saying that to bring to 
 man the delight of communion with God in Nature 
 is the highest function of science ? The truest glory 
 of a painting does not lie in the pigments that cover 
 the canvas, but in its power to speak as from the 
 soul of the artist to the soul of him who admires 
 the thought of which the picture is the embodiment. 
 And while it is good to admire scientific method 
 and natural law, it is better to worship the Mind 
 which that method discloses, and which made that 
 law. Thus are we touched at our noblest points, 
 and our truest humanity is awakened to sublime 
 soarings of thought and instinctive yearnings for 
 holiness. 
 
 II. The suggestion is common in these days that 
 the proper domain of science is the positive or 
 material, and that Nature ought to be studied apart
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 245 
 
 from any consideration of the supernatural. But 
 Nature and the supernatural cannot be separated by 
 any clear-cut line of distinction. Paradoxical as the 
 assertion may seem, they are one. Who can possibly 
 examine the lowest vegetable forms, the diatoms, 
 whose elaborate and delicate tracery, as delineated 
 in the microscope, no weaver's skill could rival, and 
 yet not ask what wondrous Artificer moulded and 
 fashioned them, and decorated the marge of the 
 stagnant pond or the rocky ocean-pool with such 
 perfect though minute beauties of structure, thus 
 gratifying the vision as well as satisfying the wants 
 of those tiny creatures whose food they mainly 
 constitute ? And how could any intelligent being 
 watch the Protean transformations of the lowest 
 animal organisms, the Amoebae, whose pseudo-fingers 
 shoot forth from every part of them when they 
 desire to grasp their prey, and are drawn back into 
 the slimy substance of the creature as soon as 
 its victim has been absorbed, without being led to 
 wonder from what Source of life these vital functions 
 were derived ? But questions like these involve 
 the introductiou of the supernatural, and hence 
 Nature cannot even be observed properly without 
 quitting the narrow shore of visible fact for the 
 boundless sea of the Divine. Every line of investi- 
 gation along which the scientist proceeds must lead 
 him sooner or later to inquire concerning the supreme 
 First Caa&e of all that is ; and if at that point these 
 questionings of the intellect are stifled by the answer 
 that they are beyond the province of the student 
 of Nature, then assuredly the mind is degraded, its
 
 246 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 most splendid powers are paralyzed, and its crown 
 is thrown recklessly into the dust. Great and ador- 
 able Creator ! can that reason with which Thou hast 
 endowed us as the glory of our being be put to nobler 
 exercise than to search for the vestiges of Thy great- 
 ness and wisdom in the things which sprang from 
 Thy creative energy, and are sustained by Thine 
 unceasing benevolence ? 
 
 Yet there are those who, " professing to be wise, 
 become fools ; " and, failing to perceive, " through 
 the things that are made, His everlasting power 
 and Godhead," glorify not God, and even gloat over 
 the belief that He is at length banished out of His 
 own universe. But when we recollect that the 
 belief in God has constituted the brightest hope of 
 the sad and wearied of all generations, that it has 
 quenched the violence of martyrs' fires and inspired 
 timid women and even children to die rather than 
 offend their conscience or disobey the sacred voice 
 of duty, that it has restrained the natural passions 
 of the most sensual, and fanned in them the 
 flickering desire for a holier character and life, 
 what words but those of fervent indignation can 
 we utter against those who would teach us all to 
 say : " There is no God " ? 
 
 The man who is possessed of every comfort, 
 and is surrounded by tender friends who watch 
 solicitously for his safety and hasten to anticipate 
 his slightest want, and who should yet with his 
 own rash hand apply to his beautiful home the 
 torch that shall burn it down and destroy the lives 
 of those who are devoted to him, would rightly be
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 247 
 
 judged a madman ; and surely it can be called 
 nothing but moral insanity when men set them- 
 selves to expel from human beliefs the doctrine of 
 a loving Father Whose compassion for His creatures 
 is boundless, and Whose resources of grace for our 
 security from sin and misery are infinite. Wherever 
 the knowledge of God has been cast off, moral 
 degradation has been the result, and the human 
 heart has sunk under the fearful conception of 
 irresistible destiny. 
 
 Not that we need fear that the world will ever 
 come to this. The consolations that spring from 
 trust in God in hours of woe and perplexity are 
 too many and too precious to be given up at the 
 bidding of a dreary Materialism. Many a dreaded 
 rival of Christianity, assuming the garb of truth 
 or philanthropy, has been found to contain nothing 
 but the marsh-born elements of an intellectual 
 ignis fatuus; a very slight examination has sufficed 
 to detect in it the exhalations of stagnant error and 
 a degraded moral life ; while this venerable belief 
 in a good, wise God has a firmer hold upon the 
 conscience and the heart of men to-day than ever 
 it had. " They are dead which sought the Child's 
 life;" the Child has continued to grow "in stature, 
 . . . and in favour with . . . man." 
 
 III. But there is another and a worse error 
 against which we must be upon our guard the 
 notion that Nature is by itself a sufficient revelation 
 of God. Nature cannot answer all the questionings 
 of the human spirit, nor can the perturbations of the 
 conscience and the heart be lulled to rest by any
 
 2 4 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 response which science has to give. These hiero- 
 glyphics that are stamped on the page of creation 
 are not easy to decipher, and even those who spend 
 their whole time and strength in the study of them 
 spell out the words but slowly, and are often in 
 doubt as to what they mean. Vague and Sphinx- 
 like at the best are the answers which are returned 
 to the grave and anxious inquiries of thoughtful 
 men by the great Oracle that is enshrined in the 
 material universe. Of Law it speaks, but gives no 
 help to those who fain would obey ; of suffering it 
 tells, yet reveals its alleviations and remedies but 
 slowly ; of death it prophesies, but gives no promise 
 of immortality. To a few cultivated children of 
 genius it has something to say, but to the mass of 
 helpless seekers after happiness it is dumb. It 
 discloses truth to the patient student, but not all 
 the truth, nor yet the highest truth. Its light is 
 the trembling glimmer of a star, not the radiance 
 of the sun ; nay, it is like some dim and remote 
 nebula, invisible even through the astronomer's 
 telescope, and whose existence can only be shown 
 from the faint rays which are caught upon the 
 highly-sensitized plate of the photographer. We 
 need a distincter voice and a clearer light than 
 Nature owns, if we are to find our way to the 
 Temple of Truth. This voice we have ; this light 
 gilds our path. " God hath at the end of these 
 days spoken unto us in His Son ; " He " hath shined 
 in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 IV. From the foregoing considerations it follows
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 249 
 
 that Science is most worthily pursued when our 
 aims are in harmony with the Scriptures, and 
 our investigations transfigured and controlled by 
 reverence for true religion. This involves no 
 sacrifice of freedom in the use of our intellectual 
 powers, nor will it produce mental stagnation or 
 paralysis by imposing unnatural restraints or de- 
 grading limitations upon thought. That so-called 
 free-thought, the temerity of which is its only 
 excellence, and which is displayed chiefly in un- 
 provoked assaults upon whatsoever is holy and 
 venerable, is more remarkable for its freedom than 
 for its thoughtfulness. All thought that deserves 
 the name has its necessary laws, to offend against 
 which is unsafe. If the processes of reasoning 
 have to be conducted in harmony with certain 
 forms of thought, it is not inconsistent with true 
 intellectual freedom to carry on the study of nature 
 along those lines which are laid down in the Sacred 
 Volume, the evidences of whose Divine origin and 
 authority are so numerous and overwhelming. The 
 proper aim of science is to establish truth upon 
 secure foundations, not to buttress fascinating 
 theories. When men of science, therefore, permit 
 themselves to revel in mere speculations that they 
 know to be unfriendly to religion, they leave their 
 rightful sphere and violate the laws of thought. 
 The scientific method of seeking truth is not the 
 bending of facts to upset what has already been 
 sufficiently demonstrated, but it is the observation 
 of phenomena for the purpose of inferring new 
 generalizations. For example, the naturalist who
 
 250 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 inquires into the principles of animal and vegetable 
 growth, begins by examining individual plants and 
 animals, observing their transformations of structure, 
 and noting the modes of their development and re- 
 production. The conclusions he draws from such 
 investigations are not at once accepted, but he pro- 
 ceeds to verify them by other instances, until at 
 length he reaches a position which is assailed by 
 no fact so far as he knows, and then he believes he 
 has discovered a scientific truth or law. Now, 
 there are moral and spiritual phenomena which 
 demonstrate the cardinal truths of Christianity 
 quite as conclusively as natural and physical facts 
 establish the laws of nature. They, therefore, are 
 as truly scientific who by means of a clear and 
 philosophic method seek to explain the facts of 
 Christian experience or consciousness, the problems 
 of duty, of moral responsibility and spiritual life, 
 as are those who confine their investigations to 
 material things ; and consequently the principles 
 and beliefs of the former cannot be ignored or 
 contemned by any who pretend to maintain a 
 scientific attitude. 
 
 V. We are far from affirming that positive science 
 ought not to inquire into facts that may seem to be 
 unfriendly to some cherished Christian beliefs. All 
 we urge is that mere theories unsubstantiated by 
 evidence shall not be brandished against the Scrip- 
 tures rightly interpreted. It is well both for science 
 and faith that everything in nature, whatever may 
 be its apparent bearing upon religion, should be 
 thoroughly investigated. Only thus can science be
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 251 
 
 freed from error, and false interpretations of the 
 Scriptures be superseded. The history of science 
 records the overthrow of many a false and anti- 
 religious notion as the result of continued and more 
 accurate examination. An instance of this sort is 
 presented by the theory of spontaneous generation. 
 Haeckel, one of the most laborious of scientific men, 
 albeit somewhat speculative, bent his strength to 
 the task of demonstrating that the non-living 
 became by its own inherent qualities a living 
 organism ; and Professor Huxley went so far as 
 to suggest that the ooze dredged up from the deep 
 sea-bottom was the identical protoplasm on its way 
 from death to life, calling the substance, in honour 
 of his continental collaborates, Bathybius Haeckelii. 
 Strauss at once took hold of these speculations and 
 used them against the Christian faith. Recent ex- 
 periments, however, have shown that the theory of 
 spontaneous generation has not a single fact to rest 
 upon, and Professor Huxley now laughs at his 
 former error, while even Haeckel has materially 
 modified his opinions. This shows the value both 
 to religion and science of earnest, serious efforts to 
 discover truth in every direction. 
 
 There are other theories before the world just 
 now which have provoked the opposition of a large 
 number of intelligent Christians on the ground that 
 they militate against the teaching of the Bible. 
 Some of these hypotheses bear upon the develop- 
 ment of living things and the origin of man. We 
 may be sure, however, that the same course will be 
 pursued in these cases as in those already referred
 
 252 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 to. Some are unwisely imitating the example of 
 Strauss, and they will experience a similar dis- 
 comfiture. The evolution theory will be tried by all 
 the facts that men of science are now assiduously 
 collecting, and if it fail to fit in with those facts, it 
 will have to give way to some better doctrine ; but 
 if it should be shown to present a satisfactory inter- 
 pretation of all the conditions involved, it will of 
 course take its place among the laws of nature ; 
 and Christianity will no more suffer from the es- 
 tablishment of a true theory of Creation than it 
 did from the establishment of the truth in re- 
 gard to the earth's revolution by Copernicus and 
 Galileo. But it is too soon to be flourishing so 
 incomplete an hypothesis as that of Darwin as 
 an argument against the immediate agency of 
 God in creation, especially as there are forms 
 of evolution which are held by many prominent 
 Christian scientists. 
 
 Of true science, cultivated in the spirit for which 
 we contend, the Christian need have no fear. If 
 a few unimportant dogmas, whose only claim to 
 acceptance is that they were pronounced ex cathedra, 
 have not been able to survive the test of scientific 
 progress, then they deserved to die. Theological 
 statements which threaten to smother the truth 
 they were intended to protect are sure to perish 
 before advancing knowledge, and no one is poorer 
 for the loss. It is the glory of real science that 
 it fearlessly pushes aside all preconceived ideas ; 
 and, like the huge beast of the forest or jungle, 
 which tramples under foot the tangled brushwood
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 253 
 
 which bars its way, makes a clear path through 
 error and confusion into the open spaces of truth. 
 
 VI. Even in regard to our study of the Scriptures, 
 we owe much to the friendly offices of science. 
 The Bible is inspired, but not so all its readers ; 
 and the most diligent among these will be the 
 readiest to admit that with regard to Biblical 
 criticism, grammar, and rhetoric, the customs of 
 the times in which the various books of Scripture 
 were written, and the state of knowledge to which 
 the peoples had attained who first received those 
 books, the researches of Christian scientists have 
 been of the utmost value. The old-world forms 
 of speech which the inspired writers used as their 
 vernacular, and as the only expressions which 
 would be understood by the men of their times, 
 need to be transfused with the fuller knowledge 
 which we now possess. There is a wide distinction 
 between the real significance of a word or doctrine 
 and its human interpretation ; hence there are 
 passages of Scripture in which there lies a divinely- 
 born truth, perfect and unchanging in its essence, 
 but presented to the mind of man under varying 
 forms in successive ages, just as the beautiful 
 water-insect is unchanged in form although its 
 outline appears distorted from the refraction of 
 the rays of light which make it visible. No one 
 now thinks that the Bible teaches us to believe 
 in the existence of a metal firmament around the 
 confines of our atmosphere. Here, and in many 
 other instances, we owe it to science that now we 
 have truer and more beautiful interpretations of
 
 254 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 the Scriptural terms which at one time seemed to 
 favonr false views. 
 
 Moreover, there are innumerable lessons of 
 importance in God's Word that must have for ever 
 lain hid but for the vigilance and industry of men 
 of science. " There are two books," said Sir Thomas 
 Browne, "from which I collect my divinity ; besides 
 that written one of God, there is another of His 
 servant Nature that universal and public manu- 
 script which lies expansed unto the eyes of all." 
 
 Take the passage already quoted, " The works of 
 the Lord are great," and consider how much scientific 
 researches have done to flood it with a meaning 
 it could never have had if men had not deeply 
 studied "the works of the Lord." What rich 
 treasures of thought are opened, what genuine 
 admiration of God's power and skill is awakened 
 in the soul, as we contemplate the wonders of sky 
 and earth and sea, the beauties of form, and the 
 inexpressible adaptation of life to environment, in 
 the light shed upon Nature by the lamp of the 
 Christian philosopher ! 
 
 Again, when we remember what modern physio- 
 logy and anatomy have taught us concerning the 
 marvels of the human body, the admirable ad- 
 justments of bones and joints so as to secure 
 the greatest strength with the least weight, the 
 elaborate arrangements for the digestion and as- 
 similation of food, the intricate methods by which 
 the various secretions are collected in the glands, 
 or, if injurious, ejected from the system ; the 
 perfect machinery by which the blood, the current
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 255 
 
 of life, is purified, and conveys by means of its 
 corpuscles the necessary oxygen to every part of 
 our frame, while the carbonic acid is carried back 
 to the lungs and exhaled ; and, above all, the 
 exquisite organisation of the nerves and brain, 
 connecting in some secret, subtle manner, which 
 has eluded all man's efforts to discover it, the 
 sentient, thinking soul with the external world, 
 how much more expressive and intelligent does 
 the old cry become : " 1 will praise Thee ; for I am 
 fearfully and wonderfully made." 
 
 Once more, we may point to recent meteorology 
 as helping the devout soul to enter into sympathy 
 with the ecstatic outburst of the Psalmist : " Thy 
 mercy, Lord, is in the heavens ; and Thy faith- 
 fulness reacheth unto the cloudsi! " There also, 
 where all seems confusion, law prevails ; there, 
 where lurid storms breed, mercy reigns. The 
 mildest colours and the most beautiful hues meet 
 the eye as we look into the slumbering purple of 
 heaven's vault ; the sun's fierce heat and dazzling 
 brilliance are tempered by soft, fleecy clouds which 
 float with fairy form before his face ; the most 
 marvellous arrangements are continually being 
 discovered for the distribution of the fertilising 
 dew and refreshing rain over the thirsty earth, as 
 well as for the removal from the atmosphere of 
 those poisonous gases and fluids which would prove 
 destructive to living things. 
 
 Thus does science carry on its divine ministry 
 in man's behalf. In a myriad ways it illumines 
 and emphasises the testimony of the written Word
 
 256 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 
 
 to the greatness of God's works ; it adds to the 
 sum of human happiness by unlocking treasures 
 of thought and beauties of, form which might 
 otherwise have remained for ever hid ; it teaches 
 us to discern the sources and nature of many ills, 
 and lays at our feet alleviations and remedies ; it 
 redeems the pure Word of Life from the obscura- 
 tions caused by the poverty or the falsity of human 
 interpretations ; and, above all, it purifies and 
 ennobles man's spirit by leading him into com- 
 munion with his Maker, humbling him before the 
 unfolded magnificence of nature, evoking his grati- 
 tude in the presence of that Divine benevolence 
 which characterises all creation, and begetting in 
 his heart deep longings for that complete and 
 restful harmony with God's laws which suffuses 
 the whole universe with sweet and hallowed peace, 
 the outshining of God's own blessedness, to con- 
 template which inspires the soul to exclaim 
 
 ' ' Thine this universal frame 
 Thus wondrous fair ; Thyself how wondrous then ! " 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury
 
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