deposition of the bed of rock in which such an example occurs, and
that which overlies it, might be calculated from careful observation
of the shape and number of layers of calcareous matter composing an
extinct oyster-shell. In some ancient formations, stratum above
stratum of extinguished oysters may be seen, each bed consisting of
full-grown and aged individuals. Happy broods these pre-Adamite
congregations must have been, born in an epoch when epicures were as
yet unthought of, when neither Sweeting nor Lynn had come into
existence, and when there were no workers in iron to fabricate
oyster-knives! Geology, and all its wonders, makes known to us
scarcely one more mysterious or inexplicable than the creation
of oysters long before oyster-eaters and the formation of
oyster-banks--ages before dredgers! What a lamentable heap of good
nourishment must have been wasted during the primeval epochs! When we
meditate upon this awful fact, can we be surprised that bishops will
not believe in it, and, rather than assent to the possibility of so
much good living having been created to no purpose, hold faith with
Mattioli and Fallopio, who maintained fossils to be the fermentations
of a _materia pinguis_; or Mercati, who saw in them stones bewitched
by stars; or Olivi, who described them as the 'sports of nature;' or
Dr Plot, who derived them from a latent plastic virtue?--_Westminster
Review, Jan. 1852._

THE OASES OF LIBYA.

Nought wholly waste or wretched will appear
Through all the world of Nature or of mind;
Hope's tender beamings soften Sorrow's tear,
The homeless outcast happy hours will find:
To polar snows the Aurora-fires are given,
The voice of friendship cheers the groping blind;
The dreary night hath stars to deck the heaven;
One law prevails beneficently kind:
E'en not all darkness is the silent tomb,
Faith points to bowers of bliss beyond the gloom.

So, Libya, in thy wide and fiery waste,
Gladdening the traveller, plots of verdure lie,
As if, when demons thence all life had chased,
They dropped in beauty from the pitying sky.
How weary pilgrims, dragging o'er the plain,
When first green Siwah's valleys they espy,[1]
Cast off their faintness! swiftly on they strain,
Drinking sweet odours, as the breeze floats by:
They see the greenery of the swelling hills,
They hear, they hear the gush of bubbling rills!