CHANGE OF SURFACE CREDIBLE.

187

tremors and slight wave-like motions of the ground were felt. Indeed, the general movement of this earthquake is said to have been of that rolling kind-it travelled at the rate of twenty miles in a minute; the swiftness of its motion being calculated by the intervals between the time when the first shock was felt at Lisbon, and that of its occurrence in distant places.' "*

"I am very much obliged to you for this account, but more glad than ever that we do not live within the volcanic regions. Till now I had a very faint, indistinct idea of the effects of subterraneous fire."

"I think," replied his mother, "that after all the examples I have given you of its agency in elevating and depressing the earth's surface, as well as in raising up new islands from the bottom of the sea, you will not feel any difficulty in believing that the whole of the present land has, in ancient times, been covered by the ocean: I do not mean by the temporary waters of the Deluge, but by the sea existing just before the time of that inundation. I mentioned this once before, and I recollect you thought the idea of 'the sea and land changing places' very extraordinary."

*Lyell, p. 438-440.

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CHANGE OF SURFACE CREDIBLE.

“I did, mamma; but since you have clearly shown that, in different parts of the earth, this has actually happened, though it still appears very wonderful, I feel satisfied that it may be true. But you said something stranger still-that the bottom of that ancient sea, which has become our present land, had at some former period been dry, and inhabited by land animals. Now this is going such a long, long way back, that it seems like looking into the large end of a telescope: the objects are so distant and confused, I can distinguish nothing."

"Well then, Harry, have patience; we will endeavour to turn the telescope round, and set it to a proper focus. You will then, I hope, have a clear glimpse of the ancient earth; and perhaps in time you may be able to see the animals that inhabited it. But put them out of your thoughts for the present."

CHAPTER VI.

Tell how resistless waters swept away

The infant Flora of the ancient earth;
How, buried deep, through countless years she lay,
While Time prepared her for a second birth.

No more she clothes the rock with graceful flowers-
Her balmy groves no more the senses charm:

She gives the social hearth to evening hours,

And nerves with giant strength a mortal's feeble arm.

OLD FRAGMENT.

It happened one afternoon that Mrs. Beaufoy was engaged at the usual hour of walking, and Harry took a long ramble by himself. He did not return till his mother had nearly finished drinking tea, and then made his appearance with his pockets stuffed quite full, and a bundle of fern under his arm. "I have been to Kingley Bottom, mamma,” said he," and gathered some moss of every kind that grows there. They are so squeezed up in my pockets, (pulling hard to extricate his treasures as he spoke,) that you cannot see what beautiful

specimens there are amongst them; but when I have shaken them out they will look quite another thing; and I mean to get up very early to-morrow, and make your moss-seat look as well as ever, before you come down stairs."

"Thank you, Harry; it is very shabby at present, certainly, and I am glad you thought of reviving it; and also that you are come back in time to have some tea. I was just intending to ring for the table to be cleared. But what are you going to do with the bundle of fern you have thrown down upon the carpet ?"

"Oh, nothing particular; but they are very fine plants, and I happened to notice them as I came through one of the lanes. Just as I saw them, it came into my mind that there was some superstition about gathering fern-seeds making people invisible. You will not suppose I was silly enough to believe that; however, I thought there might be something connected with the story that I should like to know, and I brought a few branches away with me. But I dare say it is all nonsense."

Why, Harry, I believe the saying is pretty much on a par with another, which you may have heard, about putting salt upon a bird's tail in order to catch it—that is, gathering fern-seed was

supposed to be equally impracticable. The old botanists did not believe that ferns produced fruit Afterwards it was thought

or seed of

kind. any

that these little protuberances, which you see are ranged with such exactness on the under side of the leaves, were the seeds; but later observers have discovered that they are capsules—that is, cells containing seeds. When these are ripe, the vessels that have sheltered them burst open, and the seeds, which are so minute as to resemble the pollen of flowers, escape, fall upon the ground, and give birth to another race of plants like that which produced them.”*

"But look here, mamma; only look at the number of capsules, as you call them, on the back of this leaf! If these are all filled with seeds as small as pollen, what thousands and millions I must have brought home; and how astonishingly ferns must increase, when they happen to grow in a favourable situation."

"Very true; and on this account ferns, mosses, lichens, and other plants of the same class, were peculiarly fitted for the place which seems to have been assigned them in the order of vegetation. Botanists regard these plants as occupying the

* Loudon's Ency. of Plants, p. 876 and 1090.