"By constant work they made the island of Clermont-Tonnerre, and numerous other coral islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Forty-seven millions of these insects are needed to weigh a grain, and yet, with the sea-salt they absorb, the solid elements of water which they assimilate, these animalculae produce limestone, and this limestone forms enormous submarine erections, of which the hardness and solidity equal granite.

Formerly, at the first periods of creation, nature employing fire, heaved up the land, but now she entrusts to these microscopic creatures the task of replacing this agent, of which the dynamic power in the interior of the globe has evidently diminished--which is proved by the number of volcanoes on the surface of the earth, now actually extinct.

And I believe that centuries succeeding to centuries, and insects to insects, this Pacific may one day be changed into a vast continent, which new generations will inhabit and civilize in their turn." "That will take a long time," said Pencroft.
"Nature has time for it," replied the engineer.
"But what would be the use of new continents ?" asked Herbert.

"It appears to me that the present extent of habitable countries is sufficient for humanity.