THOUGHTS
ON A
PEBBLE
REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE,
PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS OF SCIENTIFIC WORKS,
KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY."
"There is no picking up a pebble by the brook-side, without finding all nature inconnexion with it."
Contemplations of Nature.
EIGHTH EDITION; WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND.
1849.
TO
MY SON,
Reginald Nebille Mantell, C.E.,
THESE
"THOUGHTS ON A PEBBLE"
ARE MOST AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED.
LONDON,
19, CHESTER SQUARE, PIMLICO.
1849.
"Every grain of sand is an immensity—every leaf a world—every insect anassemblage of incomprehensible effects in which reflection is lost."
Lavater.
"To the na