Curiosities of Science, Past and Present / A Book for Old and Young

by John Timbs

SERVICES OF SEA-SHELLS AND ANIMALCULES.

Dr. Maury is disposed to regard these beings as having much to do in maintaining the harmonies of creation, and the principles of the most admirable compensation in the system of oceanic circulation. “We may even regard them as regulators, to some extent, of climates in parts of the earth far removed from their presence. There is something suggestive both of the grand and the beautiful in the idea that while the insects of the sea are building up their coral islands in the perpetual summer of the tropics, they are also engaged in dispensing warmth to distant parts of the earth, and in mitigating the severe cold of the polar winter.”