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I am persuaded that the origin of those cavities may have been some hollow shells, such as echini or some marine object; but that calcareous body has been so changed, that it is not now distinguishable; therefore, at present, I hold this opinion only as conjecture.
I have seen a conglomerate limestone from Devonshire like a conglomerate now forming on the shores of the Maldiva atolls. The calcareous sandstone and coral-rock would almost necessarily contain innumerable shells, echini, and the bones of fish, turtle, and perhaps of birds; possibly, also, the bones of small saurians, as these animals find their way to the islands far remote from any continent.
I cannot dwell upon the narrative of our many walks: to the Espalamarca, with its lonely telegraph-station; to the Burnt Mountain, with its colored cliffs; to visit the few aged nuns who still linger in what was once a convent; to Porto Pim, with its curving Italian beach, its playing boys and picturesque fishermen beneath the arched gateway; to the tufa-ledges near by, where the soft rocks are honeycombed with the cells hollowed by echini below the water's edge, a fact undescribed and almost unexampled, said Agassiz afterwards; to the lofty, lonely Monte da Guia, with its solitary chapel on the peak, and its extinct crater, where the sea rolls in and out; to the Dabney orange-gardens, on Sunday afternoons; to the beautiful Mirante ravine, whenever a sudden rain filled the cascades and set the watermills and the washerwomen all astir, and the long brook ran down in whirls of white foam to the waiting sea; or to the western shores of the island, where we turned to Ariadnes, as we watched departing home-bound vessels from those cliffs whose wave-worn fiords and innumerable sea-birds make a Norway of Fayal.
Not long after, he published in the Memoirs of the Helvetic Society his descriptions of fossil Echini peculiar to Switzerland, and issued also the first number of a more extensive work, "Monographie d'Echinodermes." During this year he received a new evidence of the sympathy of the English naturalists, in the Wollaston medal awarded to him by the London Geological Society.
But, if pearls and bright shells be rarely found there, surely waifs, better than echini and sting-rays, are to be gathered on the "shores of long ago." Ah, cynic! you are strong enough to be merciful just this once. Spare us the string of examples that would overwhelm us utterly. Does it not suffice that we confess the truth of that saddest adage, tolled in our ears by every passing bell,
The cemented mass is generally of a white colour, but in some few parts reddish from ferruginous matter; it is very hard, and is sonorous under the hammer; it is obscurely divided by seams, dipping at a small angle seaward; it consists of fragments of the corals which grow on the outer margin, some quite and others partially rounded, some small and others between two and three feet across; and of masses of previously formed conglomerate, torn up, rounded, and re-cemented; or it consists of a calcareous sandstone, entirely composed of rounded particles, generally almost blended together, of shells, corals, the spines of echini, and other such organic bodies; rocks, of this latter kind, occur on many shores, where there are no coral reefs.
We at length reached the spot I had proposed, a small sandy bay, with cliffs on either side, out of which bubbled a stream of sparkling cold water, with rocks running out into the sea. "This will do capitally," said Harry. "See, the whole beach is covered with beautiful shells, and there may be sea anemones and echini, and star-fish, and all sorts of marine creatures."
Eagles, golden, new mates found by. Ear, motion of the; external shell of the, useless in man; rudimentary point of the, in man. Ears, more variable in men than women; piercing and ornamentation of the. Earwigs, parental feeling in. Echidna. Echini, bright colours of some. Echinodermata, absence of secondary sexual characters in. Echis carinata.
Some fossil shells, even if simply attached to the OUTSIDE of others, bear full testimony to the conclusion above alluded to, namely, that an interval elapsed between the death of the creature to whose shell they adhere, and the burial of the same in mud or sand. The sea-urchins, or Echini, so abundant in white chalk, afford a good illustration.
Globeshaped jelly-fish as big as oranges, great cuttlefish bones flat and shining and white, shark's teeth, spines of echini; sometimes a dead scarus fish, its stomach distended with bits of coral on which it had been feeding; crabs, sea urchins, sea-weeds of strange colour and shape; star-fish, some tiny and of the colour of cayenne pepper, some huge and pale.
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