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On another hill, some miles distant, and 648 feet high, I found shells of the Concholepas and Trochus, perfect, though very old, with fragments of Mytilus Chiloensis, all embedded in reddish-brown mould: I also found these same species, with fragments of an Echinus and of Balanus psittacus, on a hill 1,000 feet high.
Imagine a brittle tennis ball stuck full of long slender needles, many tapering to microscopic keenness at the points, climbing stiffly along the edges of rocks by a few of the stilt-like needles, and a very fair figure of the ECHINUS is presented. As a curious and beautiful creature he is full of interest, and as an adjunct to one's diet he is, in due season, full of excellent meat.
Then the young Crania adhered to the bared shell, grew and perished in its turn; after which, the upper valve was separated from the lower, before the Echinus became enveloped in chalky mud." A specimen in the Museum of Practical Geology, in London, still further prolongs the period which must have elapsed between the death of the sea- urchin, and its burial by the Globigerinoe.
But there is no doubt that besides removing dirt of all kinds, they subserve other functions; and one of these apparently is defence. With respect to these organs, Mr. Mivart, as on so many previous occasions, asks: "What would be the utility of the FIRST RUDIMENTARY BEGINNINGS of such structures, and how could such insipient buddings have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus?"
The height of the capital is to be such that, of the nine and a half parts, three parts are below the level of the astragal at the top of the shaft, and the rest, omitting the abacus and the channel, belongs to its echinus. The projection of the echinus beyond the fillet of the abacus should be equal to the size of the eye.
It may be that they remove from the surface of the animal's body foreign substances which would be prejudicial to it, and which it cannot otherwise get rid of. But granting this, what would be the utility of the first rudimentary beginnings of such structures, and how could such incipient buddings have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus?
The projection of the bands of the cushions should be thus obtained: place one leg of a pair of compasses in the centre of the capital and open out the other to the edge of the echinus; bring this leg round and it will touch the outer edge of the bands.
On the other hand, the more slender and feminine columns of the Parthenon glide into the echinus with gentleness and sweetness, crown themselves with a diadem of chastity, as if it grew there by Fate, preordained from the base of the shaft, like a flower from the root. It was created as with "the Dorian mood of soft recorders."
Then they began to pass around the dusky, piquant, Arlesian sausages, and lobsters in their dazzling red cuirasses, prawns of large size and brilliant color, the echinus with its prickly outside and dainty morsel within, the clovis, esteemed by the epicures of the South as more than rivalling the exquisite flavor of the oyster, all the delicacies, in fact, that are cast up by the wash of waters on the sandy beach, and styled by the grateful fishermen "fruits of the sea."
Daisy proposed to carry the specimens at once to Bankside, where she wanted to see Leonard's prime echinus; and Aubrey readily agreed, neither of the young heads having learnt the undesirableness of a morning visit in a house preparing for a dinner-party too big for it. However, Leonard made them extremely welcome.
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