r-worms.

[Footnote: _So erst the Sage_, l. 417. It is probable, that
the perpetual transmigration of matter from one body to
another, of all vegetables and animals, during their lives,
as well as after their deaths, was observed by Pythagoras;
which he afterwards applied to the soul, or spirit of
animation, and taught, that it passed from one animal to
another as a punishment for evil deeds, though without
consciousness of its previous existence; and from this
doctrine he inculcated a system of morality and benevolence,
as all creatures thus became related to each other.]

"HEAR, O ye Sons of Time! your final doom,
And read the characters, that mark your tomb: 430
The marble mountain, and the sparry steep,
Were built by myriad nations of the deep,--
Age after age, who form'd their spiral shells,
Their sea-fan gardens and their coral cells;
Till central fires with unextinguished sway
Raised the primeval islands into day;--
The sand-fill'd strata stretch'd from pole to pole;
Unmeasured beds of clay, and marl, and coal,
Black ore of manganese, the zinky stone,
And dusky steel on his magnetic throne, 440
In deep morass, or eminence superb,
Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb;
These from their elements by Life combined,
Form'd by digestion, and in glands refined,
Gave by their just excitement of the sense
The Bliss of Being to the vital Ens.

[Footnote: _The marble mountain_, l. 431. From the increased
knowledge in Geology during the present century, owing to the
greater attention of philosophers to the situations of the
different materials, which compose the strata of the earth,
as well as to their chemical properties, it seems clearly to
appear, that the nucleus of the globe beneath the ocean
consisted of granite; and that on this the great beds of
limestone were formed from the shells of marine animals
during the innumerable primeval ages of the world; and that
whatever strata lie on these beds of limestone, or on the
granite, where the limestone does not cover it, were formed
after the elevation of islands and continents above the
surface of the sea by the recrements of vegetables and of
terrestrial animals; see on t