From these investigations, we learn that the Pebble, which has formed the subject of our contemplation, had its origin in a living zoophyte that was growing on a rock, in a sea whose boundaries have long since been swept away; that corals, shells, and echini inhabited the bottom of the deep; and that fishes related to existing families, sported in the waters of that ancient ocean. In fine, we have presented to us the scene so exquisitely described by the American poet:—
THE CORAL GROVE.
THE CORAL GROVE.
Deep in the waves is a coral grove.
Where the purple mullet and gold fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with the falling dew.
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift.
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below.
For the winds and the waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air:
There with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag waves through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen.
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There with a light and easy motion
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean,
Are bending like corn on the upland lea;
And life in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amidst those bowers of stone.
Percival.
Lign. 17:—Minute Corals from the Chalk;[R] highly magnified.