II.


Suppose the man who found the watch upon a heath to continue his walk
till he comes down to the sea-shore, and suppose further that he is as
ignorant of physical geography as he is of watch-making. He soon begins
to observe a number of adaptations of means to ends, which, if less
refined and delicate than those that formed the object of his study in
the watch, are on the other hand much more impressive from the greatly
larger scale on which they are displayed. First, he observes that there
is a beautiful basin hollowed out in the land for the reception of a
bay; that the sides of this basin, which from being near its opening are
most exposed to the action of large rolling billows, are composed of
rocky cliffs, evidently in order to prevent the further encroachment of
the sea, and the consequent destruction of the entire bay; that the
sides of the basin, which from being successively situated more inland
are successively less and less exposed to the action of large waves, are
constituted successively of smaller rocks, passing into shingle, and
eventually into the finest sand: that as the tides rise and fall with as
great a regularity as was exhibited by the movements of the watch, the
stones are carefully separated out from the sand to be arranged in
sloping layers by themselves, and this always with a most beautiful
reference to the places round the margin of the basin which are most in
danger of being damaged by the action of the waves. He would further
observe, upon closer inspection, that this process of selective
arrangement goes into matters of the most minute detail. Here, for
instance, he would observe a mile or two of a particular kind of seaweed
artistically arranged in one long sinuous line upon the beach; there he
would see a wonderful deposit of shells; in another place a lovely
little purple heap of garnet sand, the minute particles of which have