It is well that, to console us under such apparent poverty as to the gems, we possess the treasure an hundred-fold in other shapes, though derived from the same sources. Clay gives us no sapphires; but it floors our ponds and canals, furnishes our earthenware, and yields the bricks which have built the ribs of London. Carbon refuses to flash upon us in the rays of an indigenous “brilliant,” but it feeds our furnaces, propels our steamers and locomotives, and cheers a million of household hearths under the well-known form of Coal. And Iron is our national sceptre: it reddens here no jacinth or ruby; but it supplies us with spades and ploughshares, lays down thousands of miles of railway, and has made England the forge and workshop of the known world for giant engines and massive machinery. If our wealth be less dazzling than that from Golconda or Peru, it is, we may hope, more durable; flowing to us through a healthier channel, by the honest labour and steady perseverance of the sons of the soil. * * * * * This is somewhat of a digression from the subject of Sea-side pebbles. But then, as was said, the magnificent crystals are their near kindred; and in society the custom is to bring in any great connections we may have, on the first fair opportunity: that once done, our _respectability_ is supposed to be established. [2] On the banks of Newfoundland, and to the south of the Cape of Good Hope, extraordinary exceptions occur to this rule; the sea being there agitated to a vast depth, perhaps as much as five hundred feet. But this is probably connected with the current of the great gulf-stream. CHAPTER II. THE LAPIDARY’S BOARD; AND HIS WORKSHOP. In some of our provincial towns along the coast, the open door and cheerful bow-window of the lapidary, generally situated in the best street, form a _coup d’œil_ which can hardly fail of enticing a visitor to look in once during his morning walk. If he should do this, he will probably become aware, by a certain whirring sound, that there is an inner room which serves for a workshop. This latter I have always been partial to: but as the contents of the show-room are the most attractive, I will speak of them first, reserving to the end of the chapter a description of the lapidary’s wheel and other implements of his trade.