The term “Vegetables,” used scientifically about Land Vegetation, includes all manner of growths, from the lichen to the forest tree. But by that word, used in connection with the Ocean, is meant, _not_ cabbages and cauliflowers, _not_ garden-plants or forest-trees, but an enormous variety of Sea-Weeds. And among ocean-vegetables of humblest form, flourishing in salt water, is that of Diatoms--Flint-makers. It need not be imagined that the manufacture of Flint is a monopoly of the Diatom tribe. That would be a mistake. We have had to do in the last chapter with small carbonate-of-lime building jelly-specks. We shall have to do in the next chapter with carbonate-of-lime building jelly-polyps. But there are also little vegetable-growths in the sea which form carbonate-of-lime, and some of these add their quota to the work of rearing Coral-reefs. We have to do in the present chapter with small flint-building vegetable-growths. But there are also little animal jelly-specks in the sea which form flint. So neither Carbonate-of-lime nor Flint can be spoken of as belonging _only_ to Animal or _only_ to Vegetable Life. They must both be described in general terms as the outcome of that which Lives. Among other Flint-builders in the ocean are the Radiolarians; living jelly-specks, and makers of the most exquisite shells, so tiny in size that millions of them may be packed into one cubic inch. These belong to the Animal Kingdom. They rank with the Foraminifera, differing from them chiefly in the fact that their shells or skeletons are formed of silica, not carbonate-of-lime. But in this chapter we are concerned with the Vegetable Life of the ocean, and we must therefore let the wonderful Radiolarians alone. Properly the chapter on Vegetables ought to have come before any chapter on Animals, since we have been climbing upward from inanimate Nature, and since all vegetables rank below all animals. When on the topic of Ocean-building, however, the subject of Chalk seemed to follow naturally after that of Sandstone. And this little volume makes no pretensions to stiff classification. No surprise need be felt at vegetables being able to make or “secrete” flint and chalk. This making is, as we have seen, an unconscious work. The living jelly-speck secretes automatically, not with intention. Such secreting is not confined to ocean vegetables. Trees and plants on land manufacture a host of substances--sweet oil, cocoa-nut milk, indiarubber, and countless others.[2] Forest trees in like manner grow their own framework of hard wood, which may be said to take the place with them of a skeleton. [2] The spicules of silica may be seen on coarse grass, secreted by the grass. All this is a part of LIFE. Inanimate rocks and stones may lie for centuries unchanged, except through friction with other rocks and stones, or with running water. But where Life reigns, though it be of the simplest kind, there growth and development must follow.