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Thus also shells, zoophytes, star-fish, polypi, spirifores, even fish and lizards brought by the water, left on the yet soft coal their exact likeness, "admirably taken off." Pressure seems to have played a considerable part in the formation of carboniferous strata. In fact, it is to its degree of power that are due the different sorts of coal, of which industry makes use.

So also at the bottom of the ocean where no sediment is accumulating, seaweed, zoophytes, fish, and even shells, may multiply for ages and decompose, leaving no vestige of their form or substance behind. Their decay, in water, although more slow, is as certain and eventually as complete as in the open air.

'There was a person, Herr Muhlwausser, that father ordered some scientific plates from of microscopic zoophytes. He said he did not know whether anything would come of it, but, in case it should, he gave my address, and left me a cheque to pay him with. I have it in my desk upstairs. 'Very well, my dear, said Lady Merrifield, 'you shall have the letter when it comes.

The zoophytes of the period of transition in their turn sank into annihilation. The whole panorama of the world's life before the historic period, seemed to be born over again, and mine was the only human heart that beat in this unpeopled world!

"Some were furnished with long palates, and squat, firmly-based teeth, well adapted for crushing the strong-cased zoophytes and shells of the period, fragments of which occur in the foecal remains; some with teeth that, like the fossil sharks of the later formations, resemble lines of miniature pyramids, larger and smaller alternating; some with teeth sharp, thin, and so deeply serrated, that every individual tooth resembles a row of poniards set up against the walls of an armory; and these last, says Agassiz, furnished with weapons so murderous, must have been the pirates of the period.

By this means we learn what terrestrial, fresh-water, and marine species coexisted at particular eras of the past: and having thus identified strata formed in seas with others which originated contemporaneously in inland lakes, we are then enabled to advance a step farther, and show that certain quadrupeds or aquatic plants, found fossil in lacustrine formations, inhabited the globe at the same period when certain fish, reptiles, and zoophytes lived in the ocean.

But what chiefly attracted attention, was the gay tints, and curious shapes, of the innumerable zoophytes, or "flower animals," springing up from the sides and bottom of the basin, and unfolding their living leaves above their limestone trunks or stems which encased them.

"She had a boy to row her," said Frank. "She'd hired the boat. She said she came from the British Museum and was collecting sponges." "Sponges!" said Sir Lucius. "How could she collect sponges here, and what does the British Museum want sponges for?" "They weren't exactly sponges," said Frank, "they were zoophytes." "It's just possible," said Lord Torrington, "that she might Sponges, you say?

Among other zoophytes present in these shallows, there were a few coral tree forms that, according to Sir James Clark Ross, live in these Antarctic seas at depths as great as 1,000 meters; then small alcyon coral belonging to the species Procellaria pelagica, also a large number of starfish unique to these climes, plus some feather stars spangling the sand.

Crabs, too, and zoophytes, sea anemones, and algae, were as keenly my study as if I were a marine zoologist, although I might not perhaps have been able to describe them in scientific language; while, should a stiff south-westerly gale cast up, as it frequently did amongst other wreckage and ocean flotsam and jetsam, fresh oysters torn from carefully cultivated beds further down the coast, none were sooner acquainted with the interesting fact than I, or gulped down the savoury "natives" with greater gusto opening them skilfully with an old sailor's jack-knife, which was a treasure I had picked up amidst the pebbly shingle in one of my excursions.