amusement?" replied Macallan, rising from his seat, annoyed at
these repeated attacks from all quarters upon his favourite study.
"Listen to me, and I will explain to you how investigation is the parent
of both amusement and instruction. What is this rock that I am standing
on? Has it remained here for ages to be dashed by the furious ocean?--
or has it lately sprung from the depths, from the silent labour of the
indefatigable zoophytes? Look at its sides; behold the variety of
marine vegetation with which it is loaded. Are they of the class of the
ulvae, confervae, or fuci? to be welcomed as old acquaintance, or,
hitherto unnoticed, to be added to the catalogue of Nature's endless
stores? And what are those corals, that, like mimic tenants of the
forest, extend their graceful boughs! Look at the variety of shells
which are adhering to its sides. Observe the patellae--with what
tenacity they cling to save themselves from being washed into the deep
water, and being devoured by the fishes that are playing in its chasms!
What a source of endless amusement, what a field for deep reflection, is
there in the investigation of this _one little rock_! When you
contemplate the instinct of the different species, the powers given to
them, so adapted to their wants and their privations--is not the eye
delighted, is not the mind enlarged, and are not the feelings
harmonised? Study the works of the creation, and you turn a desert into
a peopled city--a barren rock into a source of admiration and delight.
Nay, search into Nature for a few minutes, and you rise a better man.
Dive into--"

What the conclusion of the doctor's rhapsody may have been is not known;
for, stamping too energetically upon the seaweed on the edge of the
rock, his foot slipped, and he disappeared, with the perpendicular
descent and velocity of a deep-sea lead, into the water alongside of it.

Marshall, the coxswain, who had been astonished at his speech, to which
he had listened with mouth open for want of comprehension, quite forgot
the respect due to an officer, at this unexpected finale.

"Watch, there, watch!" cried the man, and then threw himself down, and
rolled in convulsions of laughter. Price and Willy, whose mirth was
almost as excessive, did, however, run to his assistance, and caught him
by the collar as he rose again to the surface, for it was considerably
out of his depth; while the deaf purser, whose eyes had been fixed on
the ground, i