Dr. Maury is disposed to regard these beings as having much to do in
maintaining the harmonies of creation, and the principles of the most
admirable compensation in the system of oceanic circulation. “We may
even regard them as regulators, to some extent, of climates in parts
of the earth far removed from their presence. There is something
suggestive both of the grand and the beautiful in the idea that while
the insects of the sea are building up their coral islands in the
perpetual summer of the tropics, they are also engaged in dispensing
warmth to distant parts of the earth, and in mitigating the severe cold
of the polar winter.”