Just before we arrive at Barricane, the road makes an abrupt bend around the head of a deep and narrow cove, called Combe's-gate; and I ran down the intervening slope of meadow-ground, to look at it. At the seaward edge I found a loose broken cliff, copiously fringed with the lilac spikes of the lavender-thrift-beautiful, but scentless

"The sea lavender which lacks perfume." (CRABBE.)

It was now in full blossom, as was also the samphire, which was growing in large bushy masses, of deepest green, about these rocks. Below was a beach of smooth yellow sand, environed by ledges of that peculiarly rough and black rock that I have already spoken of; but towards its head, the cove narrows to a deep gloomy gorge, into the extremity of which pours perpendicularly a slender cascade, about thirty feet high, slightly broken and interrupted, but most picturesque. The narrow cleft down which it fell was fringed with various kinds of ferns and mosses, preserved in the brightest verdure by the spray which continually sprinkled them; and grasses and other herbaceous plants around the bottom were nourished into a rank luxuriance by the same cause. Some of our party, who were familiar with Shanklin Chine, said that the whole scene reminded them of that spot, so celebrated for its romantic beauty.

And thus we came to Barricane. A steep footpath leads down to an area of what you would suppose to be minute pebbles; but which, when you come down to them, you find to be almost entirely composed of shells. The greater part, indeed, are broken by the waves into minute fragments, but a good number are found in a state sufficiently entire to be worth pre

serving. A group of women and girls may always be seen, raking with their fingers among the fragments for such specimens. They usually lie at length upon the beach, to work with greater ease; but when a visitor comes down, they throng round him like bees; and he must be a skilful tactician if he be not at least sixpence the poorer when he leaves the cove. Sometimes they offer the shells for sale just as they are found; but more commonly they make with them ornamental baskets, inkstands, &c., by gluing the smaller shells on the pasteboard or stone-bottle, in some kind of regular arrangement, scattering pounded glass upon the work to give it a sparkling appearance.

Among the shells found in great abundance here there are several which I have not met with in any other part of this coast. Besides two or three little kinds of whelk, and the common murex, and purpura, which are everywhere abundant, and the beautiful little cowry, which cannot be considered rare, there is the elegant wentle-trap (Scalaria communis), the elephant's tusk, or horn-shell (Dentalium entalis), the cylindrical dipper (Bulla cylindracea), called by the local collectors, "maggot," and the beaded nerite (Natica monilifera), a large and beautiful shell, to which the women have given the euphonious appellation of "guggy.' The comparison of the little white Bulla to a maggot is by no means unapt, but the meaning of "guggy" I do not pretend to have fathomed. These " guggies" are frequently tenanted by the soldier-crab, a little rogue of a fellow, strongly armed, that takes possession of any suitable shell that he can find on the beach, insinuating his hinder parts into its whorls, and crawling nimbly about with it, as if he had made it instead of stolen it. One of the girls brought me a "guggy" so inhabited, as a great curiosity, assuring me that the crab was a young lobster. My zoological lore was here all in vain what is theory compared with practice? The girl had been gathering "guggies" all her life; ought not she to know?

:

"But," said I, "the lobster lives free out in the deep sea, and does not creep into shells, or crawl about on the beach."

"O yes, he does, when he's young."

Then I thought of an irrefragable argument. I broke the shell, and pulling out the intruder, pointed triumphantly to the soft, inflated, and distorted hinder parts. "There! did you ever see a real lobster with a tail like that?"

"O yes, he's always so, when he's young. When he gets old, he gets hard."

What could I say? I knew that metamorphoses far more extensive and more startling, both in structure and habits, do really occur in the history of the Crustacea, and as I had only my bare word that this was not an example of a similar change, I was dumb-foundered. In confidence to you, however, gentle reader, I will again just say, that he of the "guggies" will never live long enough to become a lobster.

Leaving the shell-collectors, I strolled down the long narrow inlet to the tide-pools at the water's edge. This was a long way out, and as I walked between the walls of rock, I observed that the shells were accumulated only about high-water mark; below this all was yellow sand to the sea.

The rock-pools were deep, narrow, wall-sided, and dark; all which qualities rendered them first-rate exploring ground for a naturalist. Finding I could not rifle their treasures from without, I stripped and jumped in, working away with my hammer and chisel as long as I dared, with the water as high as my breast.

Among the sea-weeds there were two growing in this deep pool far under water, which I had not before met with. One was Cladostephus verticillatus, consisting of stalks much branched, no thicker than threads, but set round at short intervals with close whorls of minute olive-coloured hairs. The other was a rare species, though sufficiently abundant here,Taonia atomaria, resembling a thin yellowish leaf, split into several divisions, and cut to somewhat of the shape of a fan. The whole leaf is crossed by many dark-brown lines, which on being magnified are seen to be composed of dots clustered together in this manner. These are the spores, or seeds of the plant.

Antiopa cristata (magnified); a, viewel from above; b, viewed from beneath.

It would take up too many pages of the Home Friend if I were to attempt descriptions of all the curious animals that I found during the half-hour that I spent in the water of this rock-pool. They afforded me matter for observation and study for many days afterwards, and in all I found fresh displays of the glory of Him whose Name is above every name. One of them, however, a creature of exquisite beauty, I must just mention. It was the Crested Antiopa, one of a numerous tribe of animals allied to the slugs of our gardens, but formed to live and breathe beneath the sea, by means of organs which are exterior to the body. The accompanying figures from a drawing which I made of my captive will give an idea of its general appearance. The breathing organs are very numerous; they consist of oval bags delicately pellucid, arranged all round the sides and front of the animal, and have an extremely elegant appearance. Each one has a brown line running through its transparent substance, and is tipped with silver-white. The general colour of the animal is pellucid grey, with spots and lines of opaque white that have the lustre of silver. It is about an inch in length. The tribe of animals to which it belongs is known as the Nudibranchiate (that is, naked-gilled) Mollusca: about a hundred species are enumerated as natives of the British coasts, and these

are now in the course of being described and delineated in a very splendid work by Messrs. Alder and Hancock, published by the Ray Society.

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! .... For of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." (Rom. xi. 33, 36.)

GROUP OF SHELLS.

P. H. GOSSE.

BUXTON.

"Scenes must be beautiful which daily viewed
Please daily, and whose novelty survives

Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years."-CowPER. MINERAL waters occur in every part of the world, differing in the ingredients which they contain, according to the channel over which they have flowed, and also varying considerably in temperature. Most of them are of the temperature of the surrounding medium, the others vary in degree, from the moderate heat of Matlock, Buxton, and Bristol, to the hot Geysers of Iceland, which, the Philosophical Transactions state, will "in a quarter of an hour boil a large piece of beef." Springs of a very high temperature also exist in the vicinity of subterraneous fires and volcanoes, and are frequent on the Continent, especially in the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples. The hot springs at Aix-la-Chapelle have long been celebrated, and one of these, the Borcette spring, is of such high temperature that it may almost be termed a boiling one. The women of the village constantly employ it for the purpose of washing, and the large smoking cauldron which is open in the middle of the street at Borcette has a very strange appearance, the vapour rising and spreading up and down it to a considerable distance. At Wiesbaden is a most remarkable spring, or rather assemblage of springs, the temperature of which is 140° at all seasons of the year, and which retains its heat longer than any other water of the same temperature. The fuming waters have been compared "to

very hot chicken broth," and are used both as drink, and bath. In the latter form they present to the bather a surface of "dirty-white thick froth," which is by no means inviting; but they have an invigorating effect on the frame, and are even sent bottled, as a cosmetic, into various parts of Europe. The boiling spring of the Geyser, and some hot springs of India, contain a considerable quantity of siliceous earth in solution.

The mineral and medicinal waters of Derbyshire are, as might be expected in a country abounding with fossils, very numerous. All those of a chalybeate and sulphureous nature arise in beds of shale, and probably derive their impregnation from this substance; the warm springs also are observed to appear near these beds, though they break out in the stratum of limestone almost exclusively.

Amongst the sulphureous waters of the county, that which is highest in repute rises in the park of Lord Scarborough, at Kidleston; this in temperature is about 47°, and is principally valued for its antiscorbutic properties. In a glass, it looks clear and transparent; but in the well, it appears of a blackish-blue tint, and any substance thrown into it assumes the same hue. Waters of this kind are distinguished by rendering metallic silver black, or causing a brownish-black precipitate, with a solution of acetate of lead or nitrate of silver. This arises from the union of the sulphur with the metallic silver, or lead. It acts in this way on several of the metallic oxides, one of which constitutes the "pearl powder" of the perfumers; and a lady who employed this cosmetic found, to her horror, after taking a sulphureous water bath, that her complexion had become of a dingy brown colour.

Sir Francis Head mentions a very remarkable spring of this kind, at Langen Schwalbach, in Nassau, from which a suffocating gas constantly ascends; in spite of which, however, the Jews residing in the village constantly drink, cook, and wash with the water.

The chalybeate springs of Derbyshire are, as we have remarked, very numerous, but the most celebrated waters are those of Buxton and Matlock, warm springs which have attained such celebrity, from their medicinal virtues and picturesque locality, as to be the annual resort of a crowd of visitors, who flock to them as much for pleasure as for health.

The tepid waters of Buxton were held in great estimation from a very early period, and an interesting confirmation of this fact was discovered about a century since, when the remains of a Roman bath, near the source of one of the springs, was brought to light. In 1571, Dr. Jones wrote a treatise on the virtues of the waters, which greatly added to their celebrity, and from that period to the present they have preserved their reputation and popularity.

The town of Buxton is situated in a deep valley or basın, surrounded by the bleak hills and extensive tracts of moorland which form that part of Derbyshire called the High Peak; and but for the narrow ravine through which the river Wye flows on its way to the Derwent, and parallel to the high road leading to Bakewell, would be entirely environed with mountains. Axe-edge, three miles from Buxton, is, next to Kinderscout, the highest mountain in the N.W. of Derbyshire, being 1,000 feet above the valley in which Buxton-crescent stands, and 2,100 feet higher than the town of Derby.

From this mountain, four rivers rise in opposite directions, the Wye, the Dove, the Goyte, and the Dean. Chee Tor, a perpendicular and stupendous rock of limestone 360 feet in height, is about five miles distant; and a