less than between one and two thousand feet. It is a mountain ridge, that would reach almost three times from one extremity of England to the other, with the height of Ingleborough, or that of the ordinary and prevailing class of the Scottish mountains.-And this is the work of insects, whose dimensions are less than those of a house fly. It is perfectly overwhelming.

But what is even this. The whole of the Pacific Ocean is crowded with islands of the same architecture, the produce of the same insignificant architects. An animal barely possessing life, scarcely appearing to possess volition, tied down to its narrow cell, ephemeral in existence, is daily, hourly, creating the habitations of men, of animals, of plants. It is founding a new continent; it is constructing a new world.

These are among the wonders of His mighty hand; such are among the means which He uses to forward His ends of benevolence. Yet man, vain man, pretends to look down on the myriads of beings equally insignificant in appearance, because he has not yet discovered the great offices which they hold, the duties which they fulfil, in the great order of nature.

If we have said that the Coral insect is creating a new continent, we have not said more than the truth. Navigators now know that the Great Southern Ocean is not only crowded with those islands, but that it is crowded with submarine rocks of the same nature, rapidly growing up to the surface, where, at length overtopping the ocean, they are destined to form new habitations for man to extend his dominion.

They grow and unite into circles and ridges, and ultimately they become extensive tracts. This process cannot cease while those animals exist and pro

pagate. It must increase in an accelerating ratio; and the result will be, that, by the wider union of such islands, an extensive archipelago, and at length a continent must be formed.

This process is equally visible in the Red Sea. It is daily becoming less and less navigable, in consequence of the growth of its Coral rocks; and the day is to come, when, perhaps, one plain will unite the opposed shores of Egypt and Arabia.

But let us here also admire the wonderful provision which is made, deep in the earth, for completing the work which those animals have commenced. And we may here note the contrast between the silent and unmarked labours of working myriads, operating by an universal and long ordained law, and the sudden, the momentary, effort of a power, which, from the rarity of its exertion, seems to be especially among the miraculous interpositions of the Creator.

It is the volcano and the earthquake that are to complete the structure which the coral insect has laid; to elevate the mountain, and form the valley, to introduce beneath the equator the range of climate which belongs to the temperate regions, and to lay the great hydraulic engine, by which the clouds are collected to fertilize the earth, which causes the spring to burst forth and the rivers to flow.

And this is the work of one short hour.-If the coral insect was not made in vain, neither was it for destruction that God ordained the volcano and the earthquake. Thus also, by means so opposed, so contrasted, is one single end attained. And that end is the welfare, the happiness of man.

If man has but recently opened his eyes on the important facts which we have now stated, his chemistry is still unable to explain them. Whence all

this rock this calcareous earth? We need scarcely say that the corals all consist of calcareous earth, of lime united by animal matter. The whole appears to be the creation of the animal. It is a secretion by its organs. Not only is the production of calcareous earth proceeding daily in this manner, but by the actions of the myriad tribes of shell fishes who are forming their larger habitations, in the same manner, and from the same material.

It is this, which forms the calcareous beds of the ocean; it is this, which has formed those enormous accumulations, in a former state of the world, which are now our mountains, the chalk and limestone of · England, and the ridge of the Apennines. These are the productions of the inhabitants of an ancient ocean. Whence did it all come? We may know some day; but assuredly we do not now know.

Thus it is that we prove, that all the limestone of the world has been the produce of animals, though how produced, we as yet know not. If a polype has constructed the same submarine mountain of New Holland, the thousand tribes and myriads of individuals, which inhabited the submarine Apennine, might as easily, far more easily, have formed that ridge. We prove that this is the case, because we find the shells in the mountains, because we find the mountains made of shells.

THE CORAL INSECT.

TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
Who build in the tossing and treacherous main;

Toil on

-for the wisdom of man ye mock,

With your sand-based structures and domes of rock;
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested wave ;
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear

A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.

Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king;
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold;
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.

But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield;
There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?

With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;-
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold,
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed in their halls of glee ;-
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea for the thronging dead?

Ye build-ye build-but ye enter not in,

Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;

From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye ;-
As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid,
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,

Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.

THE FAMILY BIBLE.

How painfully pleasing the fond recollection
Of youthful connexions and innocent joy,
When, blessed with parental advice and affection,
Surrounded with mercies, with peace from on high,
I still view the chair of my sire and my mother,
The seats of their offspring as ranged on each
hand,

And that richest of books, which excelled every

other

That family bible that lay on the stand;

The old fashioned bible, the dear, blessed bible,
The family bible, that lay on the stand.

That bible, the volume of God's inspiration,

At morn and at evening, could yield us delight, And the prayer of our sire was a sweet invocation, For mercy by day, and for safety through night, Our hymns of thanksgiving, with harmony swelling, All warm from the heart of a family band, Half raised us from earth to that rapturous dwelling, Described in the bible that lay on the stand; That richest of books, which excelled every other The family bible, that lay on the stand.