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This mixed construction tells us that the rustic stacker of wooden beams excels, when occasion offers, in making elegant shell pavements and that it practices rough carpentry and delicate mosaic work indifferently. In the latter instance, the scabbard is made, above all, of Planorbes, selected among the smaller of these pond snails and laid flat.
Wishing to ascertain what had become of them he turned up the earth at the base of several trees, and invariably found the shells buried from an inch to two inches below the surface." Lieut. Hutton adds that the Ampullariæ and Planorbes, as well as the Paludinæ are found in similar situations during the heats of the dry season. Phil.
In the stagnant waters of our grassy ditches, the flat shells, the humble Planorbes, sometimes no bigger than a duckweed, vie with the Ammonite and the Nautilus in matters of higher geometry. At least one of them, Planorbis vortex, for example, is a marvel of logarithmic whorls. In the long-shaped shells, the structure becomes more complex, though remaining subject to the same fundamental laws.
Whether formed wholly of fibrous remnants or of mixed materials, not one of them floats. The scabbards made of shells go to the bottom with the swiftness of a bit of gravel; the others sink gently. I experiment with the separate materials one by one. No shell remains on the surface, not even among the Planorbes, which a many-whorled spiral ought, one would think, to keep afloat.
The big is joined to the small, the exaggerated suddenly stands out, to the great detriment of order. Side by side with tiny Planorbes, each at most the size of a lentil, others are fixed as large as one's fingernail; and these cannot possibly be fitted in correctly. They overlap the regular parts and spoil their finish.
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