as their barometers. The light breath which stirred in the cavern waved
to and fro their glossy bands.

Under these vegetations there showed themselves from time to time some
of the rarest _bijoux_ of the casket of the ocean; ivory shells,
strombi, purple-fish, univalves, struthiolaires, turriculated cerites.
The bell-shaped limpet shells, like tiny huts, were everywhere adhering
to the rocks, distributed in settlements, in the alleys between which
prowled oscabrions, those beetles of the sea. A few large pebbles found
their way into the cavern; shell-fish took refuge there. The crustacea
are the grandees of the sea, who, in their lacework and embroidery,
avoid the rude contact of the pebbly crowd. The glittering heap of their
shells, in certain spots under the wave, gave out singular irradiations,
amidst which the eye caught glimpses of confused azure and gold, and
mother-of-pearl, of every tint of the water.

Upon the side of the cavern, a little above the water-line, a
magnificent and singular plant, attaching itself, like a fringe, to the
border of seaweed, continued and completed it. This plant, thick,
fibrous, inextricably intertwined, and almost black, exhibited to the
eye large confused and dusky festoons, everywhere dotted with
innumerable little flowers of the colour of lapis-lazuli. In the water
they seemed to glow like small blue flames. Out of the water they were
flowers; beneath it they were sapphires. The water rising and inundating
the basement of the grotto clothed with these plants, seemed to cover
the rock with gems.

At every swelling of the wave these flowers increased in splendour, and
at every subsidence grew dull again. So it is with the destiny of man;
aspiration is life, the outbreathing of the spirit is death.

One of the marvels of the cavern was the rock itself. Forming here a
wall, there an arch, and here again a pillar or pilaster, it was in
places rough and bare, and sometimes close beside, was wrought with the
most delicate natural carving. Strange evidences of mind mingled with
the massive stolidity of the granite. It was the wondrous art-work of
the ocean. Here a sort of panel, cut square, and covered with round
embossments in various positions, simulated a vague bas-relief. Before
this sculpture, with its obscure designs, a man might have dreamed of
Prometheus roughly sketching for Michael Angelo. It seemed as if that
great genius with a few blows of his mallet could have finishe