“Of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun’s palace porch, where, when unyoked,
His chariot wheel stands midway in the wave;
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.”
Wordsworth, too, gives a beautiful description of a child applying one of these pearly musical-boxes to his ear.
Many other uses of shells might be mentioned, to show that they perform an important part in the operations of nature, as the means and modes by and in which God sees fit to order the affairs of this world are frequently called; and also promote the ends of science, and the arts of every-day life. By the decomposition of the shells, of which they are partly composed, solid rocks frequently crumble to pieces, and spreading over a considerable surface, form a fruitful soil for the nourishment of vegetation. The character of the testaceous deposits, too, enable geologists, as those who study the nature and structure of the earth are termed, to come to important conclusions on many points connected with the subject of this investigation. And if we include, as the subject of our book allows, the inhabitants of shells, how wide a field of usefulness opens before us. How many thousands of our industrious population depend wholly, or in part, upon the capture and sale of shell-fish for their support. In some parts, as the western and northern Islands of Scotland, they have in times of scarcity afforded sustenance to the dwellers on the bleak and barren shores, who but for them must have perished. But of all this we shall have more to say when we come to describe the different members of the testaceous family. We will now offer a few remarks upon