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Show 28 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd, Of language, reason, and reflection prouc.l, With brow erect who scorns this earthy sod, And styles himself the image of his God; Arose from rudiments of form and sense, An embryon point~ or microscopic ens l CANTO I. 310 " Now in vast shoals beneath the brineless tide, '0~ earth's firm crust testaceous tribes reside; Age after age expands the peopled plain, The tenants perish, but their cells remain; Whence coral walls and sparry hills ascend From pole to pole, and round the line extend. 320 An embryon point, 1. 314. The arguments showing that all vegetables and animals arose from such a,..small beginning, as a living point or living fibre, are detailed in Zoonomia, Sect. XXXIX. 4. 8. on Generation. Brineless tide, I. 315. As the salt of the sea has been gradually accumulating, being washed down into it from the recrements of animal and vegetable bodies, the sea must originally have been as fresh as river water; and as it is not saturated with salt, must become annually saline. The sea-water about our island contains at this time from about one twenty-eighth to one thirtieth part of sea salt, and about one eightieth of magnesian salt; Brownrigg on Salt. Whence coral 'tvalls, I. 319. An account of the stru~ture of the CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. 29 " Next when irnprison'd fires in central caves Burst the :firm earth, and drank the headlong "'raves; And, as new airs with dread explosion swell, Form'd Java-isles, and continents .of shell; Pil'd rocks on rocks, on mountains mountains raised, And high in heaven the first volcanoes blazed; In countless swarms an insect-myriad moves From sea-fan gardens, and from coral groves; earth is given m Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Additional Notes, XVI. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXIII. XXIV. Drank the headlong waves, 1. 322. See Additional Note III. An insect-myriad moves, 1. 327. After islands or continents were raised above the primeval ocean, great numbers of the most simple animals would attempt to seek food at the edges or shores of the new land, and might thence gradually become amphibious; as is now seen in the frog, who changes from an aquatic animal to an amphibious one; and in the gnat, which changes from a natant to a volant state. At the same time new microscopic animalcule!i would immediately commence wherever there was ·warmth and moisture, and some organic matter, that mtght induce putridity. Those situated on dry land, and immersed in dry air, may gradually acquire new powers to preserve their existence; and by innumerable successive reproductions for some thousands, or perhaps millions of ages, may at length have produced many of the vegetable and animal inhabitants which now people the earth. As innumerable shell-fish must have existed a long time beneath the ocean, before the calcareous mountains were produced and elevated; it is also probable, that many of the insect tribes, or less |
