"It was a mere worn dead fragment, but its surface was covered with brown, crimson, and yellow _Nulliporae_, many small _Actinae_, and soft branching _Corallines_, _Flustra_, and _Eschara_, and delicate _Reteporae_, looking like beautiful lace-work carved in ivory. There were several small sponges and _Alcyonia_, seaweeds of two or three species, two species of _Comatula_, and one of _Aphiura_, of the most vivid colours and markings, and many small, flat, round corals, something like _Nummulites_ in external appearance. "On breaking into the block, boring shells of several species pierced it in all directions, many still containing their inhabitants; while two or three _Nereis_ lay twisted in and out among its hollows and recesses, in which, likewise, were three small species of crabs." If it should be supposed that the receptacle or _nidus_ of all those curious and varied things was a huge mass of rock, we are informed that,-- "The block was not above a foot in diameter, and was a perfect museum in itself, while its outside glared with colour, from the many brightly and variously coloured animals and plants. It was by no means a solitary instance; every block which could be procured from the bottom, in from ten to twenty fathoms, was like it." The reflection on this exuberance of nature is striking and true.--"What an inconceivable amount of animal life must be here scattered over the bottom of the sea! to say nothing of that moving through its waters; and this through spaces of hundreds of miles: every corner and crevice, every point occupied by living beings, which, as they become more minute, increase in tenfold abundance." And let it be remembered, too, that those creatures have not merely life, but enjoyment; that they are not created for any conceivable use of man, but for purposes and pleasures exclusively suited to their own state of existence; that they exist in millions of millions, and that the smallest living thing among those millions, not merely exceeds in its formation, its capacities, and its senses, all that the powers of man can imitate, but actually offers problems of science, in its simple organisation, which have baffled the subtlest human sagacity since the creation, and will probably baffle it while man treads the globe. In the navigation along the coast, the officers had frequent meetings with the natives, who seemed to have known but little of the English settlements, for their conduct was exactly that of the savage. They evidently looked with as much surprise on the ships, the boats, and the men, as the inhabitants of Polynesia looked upon the first navigators to their shores. They were all astonishment, much craft, and a little hostility on safe occasions.