their heraldic shields and flinty armor, make two cubic feet of
Bilin polishing slate in four days. By straining sea-water, a web of
greenish cloth of gold, illuminated by their play of self-generated
electric light, has been collected. Humboldt and Ehrenberg speak of
their voracity, their power of discharging electricity at will, and
their sporting about, exhibiting an intelligent enjoyment of the life
God has given to them. Man and his works perish, but the monuments of
the infusoriae are the flinty ribs of the sea, the giant bones of huge
continents, heaped into mountain-ranges over which the granite and
porphyry have set their stony seal for ever. Man thrives in his little
zone: the populous infusoriae crowd every nook of earth from the
remote poles to the burning equatorial belt.

As the coral, in its soft, milky chalk, gives a name to tropical seas,
so also it is a question to my simplicity if the Yellow Sea, Black Sea
and White Sea do not owe their color and name, in part at least, to
microscopic infusoriae. One of these, the Yellow Sea, is very similar
in many characteristics to our beautiful southern gulf, and there
is connected with it an incident or two illustrative of submarine
adventure which is the partial purpose of this desultory sketch.

About the time our American was investing in Pharaoh's golden
chariot-wheels an East Indiaman was trading its way from the English
docks, eighteen weary weeks' sail by seamen's law, and more tedious by
delays. They exchanged for bullion on the Gold Coast; for bullion
and bad Cape brandy at Good Hope to sell to the Mohammedans, who are
forbidden to drink it. At Bombay and Calcutta they exchanged bullion
and brandy for opium to sell to the Chinese, who are forbidden to buy
or use it. Whether the coolie trade was included in its iniquities
or not, I cannot say. Very possibly that was the return cargo. From