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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
84
There
are
a
few
other
true
cellepore
corals
round
the
coast.
The
largest
of
all,
Cervicornis,
may
be
dredged
a
few
miles
outside
on
the
Exmouth
bank,
with
a
few
more
Tubulipores:
but
all
tiny
things,
the
lingering
and,
as
it
were,
expiring
remnants
of
that
great
coral-world
which,
through
the
abysmal
depths
of
past
ages,
formed
here
in
Britain
our
limestone
hills,
storing
up
for
generations
yet
unborn
the
materials
of
agriculture
and
architecture.
Inexpressibly
interesting,
even
solemn,
to
those
who
will
think,
is
the
sight
of
those
puny
parasites
which,
as
it
were,
connect
the
ages
and
the
æons:
yet
not
so
solemn
and
full
of
meaning
as
that
tiny
relic
of
an
older
world,
the
little
pear-shaped
Turbinolia
(cousin
of
the
Madrepores
and
Sea-anemones),
found
fossil
in
the
Suffolk
Crag,
and
yet
still
lingering
here
and
there
alive
in
the
deep
water
of
Scilly
and
the
west
coast
of
Ireland,
possessor
of
a
pedigree
which
dates,
perhaps,
from
ages
before
the
day
in
which
it
was
said,
“Let
us
make
man
in
our
image,
after
our
likeness.”
To
think
that
the
whole
human
race,
its
joys
and
its
sorrows,
its
virtues
and
its
sins,
its
aspirations
and
its
failures,
has
been
rushing
out
of
eternity
and
into
eternity
again,
as
Arjoon
in
the
Bhagavad
Gita
beheld
the
race
of
men
issuing
from
Kreeshna’s
flaming
mouth,
and
swallowed
up
in
it
again,
“as
the
crowds
of
insects
swarm
into
the
flame,
as
the
homeless
streams
leap
down
into
the
ocean
bed,”
in
an
everlasting
heart-pulse
whose
blood
is
living
souls—
and
all
that
while,
and
ages
before
that
mystery
began,
that
humble
coral,
unnoticed
on
the
dark
sea-floor,
has
been
“continuing
as
it
was
at
the
beginning,”
and
fulfilling
“the
law
which
cannot
be
broken,”
while
races
and
dynasties
and
generations
have
been
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