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These convulsions of the earth affect the form and elevation of buildings, which are rarely more than two stories high and lightly built, while translucent sea-shells replace glass in their windows. While Java is the most prolific in volcanoes of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, other islands of the group possess active cones, including Sumatra, Bali, Amboyna, Banda and others.
I have said that within the period of existing sea-shells, Patagonia has been upraised 300 to 400 feet: I may add, that within the period when icebergs transported boulders over the upper plain of Santa Cruz, the elevation has been at least 1500 feet. Nor has Patagonia been affected only by upward movements: the extinct tertiary shells from Port St.
Here we observe the native women strangely decked with cheap jewelry thrust through the tops and lobes of their ears, in their lips and nostrils, while about their necks hang ornaments consisting of bright sea-shells, mingled with sharks' teeth.
All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the time of day, for Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret, Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells.
Earth with an envy is moved: Sea-shells and roses she brings, Gems from the green ocean-springs, Fruits with the fairy bloom-dews, Feathers of Paradise hues, Waters with jewel-bright falls, Ore from the Genii-halls: All in their splendour approved; All; but, match'd with my beloved, Darker, and denser, and duller.
Reflecting on the stratification of the deposit on Bald Head, on the irregularly alternating layers of substalagmitic rock, on the uniformly sized, and rounded particles, apparently of sea-shells and corals, on the abundance of land-shells throughout the mass, and finally, on the absolute resemblance of the calcareous casts, to the stumps, roots, and branches of that kind of vegetation, which would grow on sand-hillocks, I think there can be no reasonable doubt, notwithstanding the different opinion of some authors, that a true view of their origin has been here given.
We here see at the bottom of the cliffs, beds containing sharks' teeth and sea-shells of extinct species, passing above into an indurated marl, and from that into the red clayey earth of the Pampas, with its calcareous concretions and the bones of terrestrial quadrupeds.
Woodward has shown that the same law holds good with sea-shells, but from the wide distribution of most genera of molluscs, it is not well displayed by them. Other cases could be added, as the relation between the extinct and living land-shells of Madeira; and between the extinct and living brackish-water shells of the Aralo-Caspian Sea.
And do not forget the little treasures that go in May's pocket, the bits of coral, the tinted sea-shells, and ruby- colored mosses; and nested among them all, and chief in her regard, a little five-fingered star, spiny and dry, but still showing a crimson coat, and dots which mark the places of five eyes, and a little scarlet water-strainer, now of no further use to the owner.
But besides this general grace diffused over nature, almost all the individual forms are agreeable to the eye, as is proved by our endless imitations of some of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat-ear, the egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion's claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, as the palm.
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