THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE OCEAN WORLD. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STKEKT AND CHARING CROSS. Plate I. The Argonaut sailing in the open sea. THE OCEAN WORLD BEING A DESCRIPTION OF THE SEA AND ITS LIVING INHABITANTS. ItY LOUIS I< I G U I E R. THE CHAPTERS ON CONCHOLOGY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY CHARLES O. GROOM-NAPIER, F.G.S., &c. WITH 427 ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: CASSEI^L, FETTER, AND GALPIN; AND 596, BROADWAY, NEW YORK. P E E F A C E. " OUR PLANET is surrounded by two great oceans," says Dr. Maury, the eminent American savant : " the one visible, the other invisible ; one is under foot, the other over head. One entirely envelopes it, the other covers about two-thirds of its surface." It is proposed in " THE OCEAN WORLD " to give a brief record of the Natural History of one of those great oceans and its living inhabitants, with as little of the nomenclature of Science, and as few of the repulsive details of Ana- tomy, as is consistent with clearness of expression ; to describe the ocean in its majestic calm and angry agitation ; to delineate its inha- bitants in their many metamorphoses ; the cunning with which they attack or evade their enemies ; their instructive industry ; their quarrels, their combats, and their loves. The learned Schleiden eloquently paints the living wonders of the deep : " If we dive into the liquid crystal of the Indian Ocean, the most wondrous enchantments are opened to us, reminding us of the fairy tales of childhood's dreams. The strangely-branching thickets bear living flowers. Dense masses of Meandrineas and Astreas con- trast with the leafy, cup-shaped expansions of the Explanarias, and the variously-branching Madrepores, now spread out like fingers, now rising in trunk-like branches, and now displaying an elegant array of interlacing tracery. The colouring surpasses everything ; vivid greens alternate with brown and yellow ; rich tints, ranging from purple and I ri PREFACE. deepest blue to a pale reddish -brown. Brilliant rose, yellow, or peach- coloured Nullipores overgrow the decaying masses : they themselves being interwoven with the pearl-coloured plates of the Retipores, rivalling the most delicate ivory carvings. Close by wave the yellow and lilac Sea-fans (Gorgonia), perforated like delicate trellis- work. The bright sand of the bottom is covered with a thousand strange forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes. The leaf-like Flustrde and Escharse adhere like mosses and lichens to the branches of coral the yellow, green, and purple-striped limpets clinging to their trunks. The sea- anemones expand their crowns of tentacula upon the rugged rocks or on flat sands, looking like beds of variegated ranunculuses, or sparkling like gigantic cactus blossoms, shining with brightest colours. " Around the branches of the coral shrubs play the humming-birds of the ocean : little fishes sparkling with red or blue metallic glitter, or gleaming in golden green or brightest silvery lustre ; like spirits of the deep, the delicate milk-white jelly-fishes float softly through the charmed world. Here gleam the violet and gold-green Isabelle, and the flaming yellow, black, and vermilion-striped Coquette, as they chase their prey ; there the band-fish shoots snake-like through the thicket, resembling a silvery ribbon glittering with rose and azure hue. Then come the fabulous cuttle-fishes, in all the diaphanous colours of the rainbow, but with no definite outline. " When day declines, with the shades of night this fantastic garden is lighted up with renewed splendour. Millions of microscopic medusae and crustaceans, like so many glowing sparks, dance through the gloom. The Sea-pen waves in a greenish phosphorescent light. Whatever is beautiful or wondrous among fishes, Echinoderms, jelly- fishes and polypi and molluscs, is crowded into the warm and crystal waters of the Tropical ocean." It is stated on the Title-page that " THE OCEAN WORLD " is chiefly translated from M. Louis Figuier's two most recent works. In justice to that gentleman, we must explain this statement. The History of the Ocean is to a large extent, but not wholly, compiled from " La Terre et les Mers," one of the volumes of M. Figuier's " Tableau de la Nature ;" but the larger portion of the work is a free translation of PREFACE. vii that author's latest work, "La Yie et les Moeurs des Animaux." Other chapters, such as " Life in the Ocean," the chapter on Crusta- ceans, and some others, are compiled from various sources ; they will not be found in either of M. Figuier's volumes ; but in other respects his text has been pretty closely followed. M. Figuier's plan is to begin the study of animals with the less perfect beings occupying the lower rounds of the Zoological ladder, his reason for doing so being an impression that the presence of the gradually perfecting animal structure, from the simplest organisms up to the more perfect forms, was specially calculated to attract the reader. " What can be more curious or more interesting to the mind," ne asks, "than to examine the successive links in the uninterrupted chain of living beings which commence with the Infusoria and ter- minate in Man ?" The work, he hopes, is not without the impress of a true cha- racter of novelty and originality ; at least he knows no work in which the strange habits and special interests of the Zoophytes and Molluscs can be studied, nor any work in which an attempt is made to represent them by means of designs at once scientifically correct and attractive from the picturesque character of the illustrations, most of which have been made from specimens selected by Monsieur Ch. Bevalet from the various museums in Paris. One of those charming plain-speaking children we sometimes meet with lately said to M. Figuier, " They tell me thou art a vulgariser of Science. What is that ?" He took the child in his arms, and carried it to the window, where there was a beautiful rose-tree in blossom, and invited it to pull a rose. The child gathered the perfumed flower, not without pricking itself cruelly with the spines ; then, with its little hands still bleeding, it went to distribute roses to others in the room. " Thou art now a vulgariser," said he to the child ; " for thou takest to thyself the thorns, and givest the flowers to others P The parallel, although exaggerated, is not without its basis of truth, and was probably suggested by the criticism some of his works have vii; PREFACE. met with ; the critics forgetting apparently that these works are an attempt to render scientific subjects popular, and attractive to the general reader. In the present edition of " THE OCEAN WOELD " it is only necessary to add to the above (dated January, 1868), that the work has been revised throughout, and some not unimportant errors corrected. For several of these I am indebted to Mr. C. 0. Gr. Napier, who has re- arranged the whole of the Mollusca. Mr. David Grieve has kindly revised and added to the Crustacea ; and to the Messrs. Johnston of Montrose, and Dr. Wilson Johnston of the Bengal service, I am indebted for some valuable practical information respecting the salmon and the various modes of taking it. W. S. 0. March 1, 1869. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE OCEAN , 1 Depth of the Sea . . . . , 5 Colour of the Ocean .... 11 Phosphorescence 13 Saltness of the Sea .... 15 CHAPTER II. CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN ... 27 Trade-winds 28 Gulf Stream 31 Storms 32 Tides 35 Polar Seas 43 Antarctic Seas ..... 50 CHAPTER III. LIFE IN THE OCEAN . 60 CHAPTER IV. ZOOPHYTES , 68 Foraminifera 87 Infusoria .97 CHAPTER V. POLYPIFEHA . . . . . , H6 CHAPTER VI, CORALLINES ....... 119 Tubiporinse ...... 120 Gorgoniadse 121 Isidians , 124 CHAPTER VII. PAGE ZOANTHARIA 147 Madreporidse 149 Porites 162 Actiniaria 181 Mmyadinians 193 CHAPTER VIII. ACALEPHJB 195 MedusadsB 213 Rhizostoma 219 Vilelladse 229 Ctenophora 254 CHAPTER IX. ECHINODERMATA 259 Asterias 260 Crinoidea 270 Echinidae 280 MOLLUSCA. GENERAL DEFINITION 301 CHAPTER X. MOLLUSCOIDA 303 Tunicata 309 Ascidians 309 CHAPTER XL ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA 316 CONTENTS. CHAPTEK XII. ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA PAGE . 344 CHAPTER XVII. CRUSTACEANS PAGE . 477 Mjtilid.se . 344 General Definition 477 CHAPTEE XIII. Crabs and Crayfish . Lobsters ... . 486 496 CEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA .... Their Characteristics CHAPTER XIV. . 391 . 391 CHAPTER XVIII. 502 PULMONARY GASTEROPODS . . . 396 OQ7 CARTILAGINOUS FISHES . . . Cyclostomata . 508 . 508 400 Selachia . 510 4.0A Sturioiia . 524 Pterocera . 439 CHAPTER XV. MOLLUSCOUS PTEROPODS . . . . 441 CHAPTER XIX. OSSEI, OR BONY FISHES . . 529 529 CHAPTER XVI. CEPHALOPODOUS MOLLUSCA 445 Lophobranchii .... Malacopterygii .... Abdominales . 534 . 536 560 Tentaculifera . 445 Acanthoptery r ians 590 Ace tabula 448 Pharynsreans 596 ILLUSTBA.TIONS. PLATE . PAGE I. THE ARGONAUT SAILING BEFORE THE WIND . (Frontispiece) 467 II. SPONGE FISHING ON THE COAST OP SYRIA 78 III. CORAL FISHING ON THE COAST OF SICILY . . . . . 138 IV. CORAL ISLAND IN THE POMOTOUAN ARCHIPELAGO . . .169 V. SEA ANEMONES (I.) . . . . . . . 187 VI. SEA ANEMONES (II.) .189 VII. AGALMA RUBRA . . . . . . . . . 239 VIII. GALEOLARIA AURANTIACA ........ 244 IX. SEA-URCHINS . . . . 290 X. FISHING FOR HOLOTHURIA -. 295 XI. SYNAPTA DUVERNEA 299 XII. DREDGING FOR OYSTERS 374 XIII. OYSTER PARKS ON LAKE FUSARO 376 XIV. PECTLNID^: * 386 XV. SPONDYLUS 388 XVI. ANODONTA .340 XVII. TRIDACNA GIGANTEA ......... 338 XVIII. VENUS AND CYTHEREA 336 XIX. SOLENID2E (Razor-fisJi) . . . 333 XX. TEMPLE OF SERAPIS 330 XXL CONUS '*".'. 427 XXII. CYPRJEADJS . 421 xii ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATE PAGE XXIII. VOLUTA 426 XXIV. CAPTURE OF A GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISH 462 XXV. SHAKE FISHING . ... . . .... 520 XXVI. STURGEON FISHING ON THE VOLGA 528 XXVII. FISHING FOR ELECTRICAL EELS . . . . .*' . > . . 539 XXVIII. GrREENLANDERS FlSHING FOR HALIBUT 551 XXIX. THE HERRING FISHERY . . . ' 580 XXX. A KOMAN FEAST . . . j .- . . . . 593 XXXI. FISHING FOR TUNNY IN PROVENCE 598 XXXII. FISHING FOR MACKEREL OFF THE CORNWALL COAST 601 THE OCEAN WORLD. CHAPTER I. THE OCEAN. "Apiffrov fj.lv i/Swp "The best of all things is water." PINDAR. IT is estimated that the sea covers nearly two-thirds of the surface of the earth. The calculation, as given by astronomers, is as follows : The surface of the earth is 31,625,625 T V square miles, that portion occupied by the waters being about 23,814,121 square miles, and that consisting of continents, peninsulas, and islands, being 7,811,504 miles ; whence it follows that the surface covered with water is to dry land as 3*8 is to 1*2. The waters thus cover a little more than seven-tenths of the whole surface. " On the surface of the globe," Michelet remarks, " water is the rule, dry land the exception." Nevertheless, the immensity and depth of the seas are aids rather than obstacles to the intercourse and commerce of nations ; the mari- time routes are now traversed by ships and steamers conveying cargoes and passengers equal in extent to the land routes. One of the features most characteristic of the ocean is its continuity ; for, with the excep- tion of inland seas, such as the Caspian, the Dead Sea, and some others, the ocean is one and indivisible. As the poet says, " it em- braces the whole earth with an uninterrupted wave." Tlepl iratrav ff ^SCHYLUS in Prometheus Vinctus. The mean depth of the sea is not very exactly ascertained, but certain phenomena observed in the movement of tides are supposed to be incapable of explanation without admitting a mean depth of three 2 THE OCEAN WORLD. thousand five hundred fathoms. It is true that a great number of deep-sea soundings fall short of that limit ; hut, on the other hand, many others reach seven or eight thousand. Admitting that three thousand fathoms represents the mean depth of the ocean, Sir John Herschel finds that the volume of its waters would exceed three thousand two hundred and seventy-nine million cubic yards. This vast volume of water is divided by geographers into five great oceans : the Arctic, the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans. The Arctic Ocean extends from the Pole to the Polar Circle ; it is situated between Asia, Europe, and America. The Atlantic Ocean commences at the Polar Circle and reaches Cape Horn. It is situated between America, Europe, and Africa, a length of about nine thousand miles, with a mean breadth of two thousand seven hundred, covering a surface of about twenty-five million square miles, placed between the Old World and the New. Beyond the Cape of Storms, as Cape Horn may be truly called, it is only separated by an imaginary line from the vast seas of the south, in which the waves, which are the principal source of tides, have their birth. Here, according to Maury, the young tidal wave, rising in the circumpolar seas of the south, and obedient to the sun and moon, rolls on to the Atlantic, and in twelve hours after passing the parallel of Cape Horn is found pouring its flood into the Bay of Fundy, whence it is projected in great waves across the Atlantic and round the globe, sweeping along its shores and penetrating its gulfs and estuaries, rising and falling in the open sea two or three feet, but along the shore having a range of ten or twelve feet. Sometimes, as at Fundy on the American coast ; at Brest on the French coast ; and Milford Haven, and the mouth of the Severn in the Bristol Channel, rising and falling thirty or forty feet, " impetuously rushing against the shores, but gently stopping at a given line, and flowing back to its place when the word goes forth, f Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' That which no human power can repel, returns at its appointed time so regularly and surely, that the hour of its approach and the measure of its mass may be predicted with unerring certainty centuries beforehand." The Indian Ocean is bounded on the north by Asia, on the west by Africa, on the east by the peninsula of Molucca, the Sunda Isles, and Australia. THE SEA. 3 The Pacific, or Great Ocean, stretches from north to south, from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circle, being bounded on one side by Asia, the island of Sunda, and Australia ; on the other by the west coast of America. This ocean contrasts in a striking manner with the Atlantic : the one has its greatest length from north to south, the other from east to west ; the currents of the Pacific are broad and slow, those of the other narrow and rapid ; the waves of this are low, those of the other very high. If we represent the volume of water which falls into the Pacific by one, that received by the Atlantic will be represented by the figure 5. The Pacific is the calmest of seas, and the Atlantic Ocean is the most stormy. The Antarctic Ocean extends from the Antarctic Polar Circle to the South Pole. It is remarkable that one half of the globe should Be entirely covered with water, whilst the other contains less of water than dry land. Moreover, the distribution of land and water, if, in considering the germ of the oceanic basins, we compare the hemispheres separated by the Equator and the northern and southern halves of the globe, is found to be very unequal. Oceans communicate with continents and islands by coasts, which are said to be scarped when a rocky coast makes a steep and sudden descent to the sea, as in Brittany, Norway, and the west coast of the British Islands. In this kind of coast certain rocky indentations encircle it, sometimes above, sometimes under water, forming a labyrinth of islands, as at the Land's End, Cornwall, where the Scilly Islands form a compact group of from one to two hundred rocky islets, rising out of a deep sea ; or in the case of the Channel, on the opposite coast of France, where the coast makes a sudden descent, forming steep cliffs and leaving an open sea. The coast is said to be flat when it consists of soft argillaceous soil descending to the shore with a gentle slope. Of this description of coast there are two, namely, sandy beaches, and hillocks or dunes. What is the average depth of the sea ? It is difficult to give an exact answer to this question, because of the great difficulty met with in taking soundings, caused chiefly by the deviations of submarine currents. No reliable soundings have yet been made in water over five miles in depth. B 2 4 THE OCEAN WOKLD. Laplace found, on astronomical consideration, that the mean depth of the ocean could not be more than ten thousand feet. Alexander von Huniboldt adopts the same figures. Dr. Young attributes to the Atlantic a mean depth of a thousand yards, and to the Pacific, four thousand. Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Eoyal, has laid down a formula, that waves of a given breadth will travel with certain velo- cities at a given depth, from which it is estimated that the average depth of the North Pacific, between Japan and California, is two- thousand one hundred and forty-nine fathoms, or two miles and a half. But these estimates fall far short of the soundings reported by navigators, in which, as we shall see, there are important and only recently discovered elements of error. Du Petit Thouars, during his scientific voyage in the frigate Venus, took some very remarkable soundings in the Southern Pacific Ocean : one, without finding bottom at two thousand four hundred and eleven fathoms ; another, in the equinoctial region, indicated bottom at three thousand seven hundred and ninety. In his last expedition, in search of a north-west passage, Captain Boss found soundings at five thousand fathoms. Lieutenant Walsh, of the American Navy, reports a cast of the deep-sea lead, not far from the American coast, at thirty-four thousand feet without bottom. Lieutenant Berryman reported another unsuccessful attempt to fathom mid ocean with a line thirty-nine thousand feet in length. Captain Denman, of H. M. S. Herald, reported bottom in the South Atlantic at the depth of forty-six thousand feet ; and Lieutenant J. P. Parker, of the United States frigate Congress, on attempting soundings near the same region, let go his plummet, after it had run out a line fifty thousand feet long, as if the bottom had not been reached. We have the- authority of Lieutenant Maury for saying, however, that " there are no such depths as these." The under-currents of the deep sea have power to take the line out long after the plummet has ceased to sink, and it was before this fact was discovered that these great soundings were reported. It has also been discovered that the line, once dragged down into the depths of the ocean, runs out un- ceasingly. This difficulty was finally overcome by the ingenuity of Midshipman Brooke. Under the judicious patronage of the Secretary to the United States Navy, Mr. Brooke invented the simple and in- genious apparatus (Fig. 1), by which soundings are now made, in a DEPTH OF THE OCEAN. 5 manner which not only establishes the depth, but brings up specimens of the bottom. The sounding-line in this apparatus is attached to a weighty rod of iron, the lower extremity of which contains a hollow cup for the reception of tallow or some other soft substance. This rod is passed through a hole in a thirty-two pound spherical shot, being supported in its position by slings A, which are hooked on to the line by the swivels a. When the rod strikes the bottom, the Fig. 1. Brooke's Sounding Apparatus. tension on the line ceases, the swivels are reversed, the slings B are thrown out of the hooks, the ball falls to the ground, and the rod, released from its weight, is easily drawn up, bringing with it portions of the bottom attached to the greasy substance in the cup. By means of this apparatus, specimens of the bottom have been brought up from the depth of four miles. 6 THE OCEAN WOKLD. The greatest depth at which the bottom has been reached with this plummet is in the North Atlantic between the parallels of thirty-five and forty degrees north, and immediately south of the great bank of rocks off Newfoundland. This does not appear to be more than twenty-five thousand feet deep. " The basin of the Atlantic," says Maury, " according to the deep-sea soundings in the accompanying diagram, is a long trough separating the Old World from the New, and extending, probably, from pole to pole. In breadth, it contrasts strongly with the Pacific Ocean. From the top of Chimborazo to the bottom of the Atlantic, at the deepest place yet reached by the plummet in that ocean, the distance in a vertical line is nine miles." " Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea gash which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic Seas, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing ; the very ribs of the solid earth with the foundations of the sea would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us in one view, in the empty cradle of the ocean, ' a thousand fearful wrecks,' with the array of ' dead men's skulls, great anchors, heaps of pearls, and inestimable stones,' which, in the poet's eye, lie scattered on the bottom of the sea, making it hideous with the sight of ugly death." The depth of the Mediterranean is comparatively inconsiderable. Between Gibraltar and Ceuta, Captain Smith estimates the depth at about five thousand seven hundred feet, and from one to three thousand in the narrower parts of the straits. Near Nice, Saussure found bottom at three thousand two hundred and fifty. It is said that the bottom is shallower in the Adriatic, and does not exceed a hundred and forty feet between the coast of Dalmatia and the mouths of the Po. The Baltic Sea is remarkable for its shallow waters, its maximum rarely exceeding six hundred feet. It thus appears that the sea has similar inequalities to those observed on land ; it has its mountains, valleys, hills, and plains. The Deep-sea Sounding Apparatus of Lieutenant Brooke has already furnished some very remarkable results. Aided by it, Dr. Maury has constructed his fine orographic map of the basin of the Atlantic, which is probably as exact as the maps which represent Africa or Australia. DEPTH OF THE OCEAN. 7 Dr. Maury has also published many charts, giving the depths of the ocean, the substance of which is given in the accompanying map, which represents the configuration of the Atlantic up to the tenth degree of south latitude, not in figures, as in Dr. Maury 's charts, but in tints ; diagonal lines from right to left, representing the shores of both hemi- spheres, indicate a depth of less than a thousand fathoms ; from left to right, indicate bottom at one thousand to two thousand ; horizontal lines, two to three thousand fathoms ; cross lines show an average depth of three to four thousand fathoms ; finally, the perpendicular lines in- dicate a depth of four thousand fathoms and upwards. Solid black Fig. 2. Chart of the Atlantic Ocean. indicates continents and islands; waving lines, surrounding both continents at a short distance from the shore, indicate the sands which surround the coast line at a little distance from the shore. The question may be asked, what useful purpose is served by taking soundings at great depths? To this we may quote the answer of Franklin to a question of similar tendency, addressed to aeronauts "What purpose is served by the birth of a child?" Every fact in physics is interesting in itself; it forms a rallying point, round which, sooner or later, others will meet, in order to establish some useful 8 THE OCEAN WORLD. truth ; and the importance of making and recording deep- sea soundings is established by the successful immersion of the transatlantic telegraph. At the bottom of the Atlantic there exists a remark- able plateau, extending from Cape Eace in Newfoundland, to Cape Clear in Ireland, a distance of over two thousand miles, with a breadth of four hundred and seventy miles : its mean depth along the whole route is estimated at two miles to two miles and a half. It is upon this telegraphic plateau, as it has been called, that the attempt was made to lay down the cable in 1858, and it is on it that the enterprise has been so successfully completed, during the year 1866. Tubular annelids, capable of boring into all IHH | organic substances, are native to this plateau, and have materially assisted in destroying the electric cable. The surface of the plateau had been previously explored by means of Brooke's apparatus, and the bottom was found to be composed chiefly of microscopic calcareous shells (Foraminifera), and a few siliceous shells (Diatomacete). These delicate and fragile shells, which seemed to strew I the bottom of the sea, in beds of great thickness, were brought up by the sounding-rod in a state of perfect preservation, which proves that the water is remarkably quiet in these depths, an inference which is fully borne out by the condition in which the cable of 1858 was UU found, when picked up in 1866. The first exploration of this plateau was undertaken by the American brig Dolphin, which took a hundred sound- ings one hundred miles from the coast of Scotland, after- wards taking the direction of the Azores, to the north of which bottom was found, consisting of chalk and yellow sand, at nine thousand six hundred feet. To the south of Newfoundland, the depth was found to be sixteen thousand five hundred feet. In 1856, Lieutenant Berryman, of the American steamer Arctic, completed a line of soundings from St. John, Newfoundland, to Yalentia, off the Irish coast, and in 1857, Lieutenant Dayman, of the English steamship Cyclops, repeated the same operation : this last DEPTH OF THE OCEAN. 9 line of soundings, the result of which is represented in the accom- panying section, differed slightly from that followed by Lieutenant Berryman. In the Gulf of Mexico, the depth does not seem to exceed seven thousand feet ; the Baltic does not in any place exceed eleven hun- dred. The depth of the Mediterranean is, as we have said, very variable. At Nice, according to Horace de Saussure, the average depth is three thousand three hundred feet. Between the Dalmatian coast and the mouth of the Po, bottom is found at a hundred and forty feet. Captain Smith found soundings at from one thousand to nine thou- sand feet in the Straits of Gibraltar, and at ten thousand feet between Gibraltar and Ceuta, where the breadth exceeds sixteen miles. Between Ehodes and Alexandria, the greatest depth is ten thousand feet. Between Alexandria and Candia it is ten thousand three hun- dred. A hundred and twenty miles east of Malta it is fifteen thousand. The peculiar form of the Mediterranean has led to its being compared to a vast inverted tunnel. The Arctic Ocean has, probably, no great depth. Hence salt water, following the general law of contracting as it is cooled until it freezes, no ice can be formed on its surface till the temperature has fallen through its entire depth nearly to freezing point, when the entire mass is consolidated into pack-ice. According to Baron Wrangel, the bottom of the glacial sea, on the north coast of Siberia, forms a gentle slope, and, at the distance of two hundred miles from the shore, it is still only from ninety to a hundred feet. Nevertheless, in Baffin's Bay, Dr. Kane made soundings at eleven thousand six hundred feet. The inequalities of the basin of the Pacific Ocean are, comparatively, unknown to us. The greatest depth observed by Lieutenant Brooke in the great ocean is two thousand seven hundred fathoms, which he found in fifty- nine degrees north latitude and one hundred and sixty- six degrees east longitude. Applying the theory of waves to the billows propelled from the coast of Japan to California, during the earth- quake of the 23rd of December, 1854, Professor Bache calculated that the mean depth of this part of the Pacific is fourteen thousand four hundred feet. In the Pacific Ocean, latitude sixty degrees south and one hundred and sixty degrees east longitude, he found soundings at fourteen thousand six hundred feet about two miles and a half. Another cast of the lead in the Indian Ocean was made in 10 THE OCEAN WOKLD. seven thousand and forty fathoms, but without bringing up any soil from the bottom. Among the fragments brought up from the bottom of the Coral Sea, a remarkable absence of calcareous shells was noted, whilst the siliceous fragments of sponges were found in great quantities. Other soundings made in the Pacific, at a depth of four or five miles, were examined by Ehrenberg, who found a hundred and thirty-five different forms of infusoria represented, and among them twenty-two species new to him. Generally speaking, the composition of the infusoria of the Atlantic are calcareous; those of the Pacific, siliceous. These ani- malcules draw from the sea the mineral matter with which it is charged that is, the lime or silica which form their shell. These shells accumulate after the death of the animal, and form the bottom of the ocean. The animals construct their habitations near the surface ; when they die, they fall into the depths of the ocean, where they accumulate in myriads, forming mountains and plains in mid ocean. In this manner, we may remark, en passant, many of the existing con- tinents had their birth in geological times. The horizontal beds of marine deposits, which are called sedimentary rocks, and especially the cretaceous rocks and calcareous beds of the Jurassic and Tertiary periods, all result from such remains.* The sea level is, in general, the same everywhere. It represents the spherical form of our planet, and is the basis for calculating all ter- restrial heights ; but many gulfs and inland seas open on the east are supposed to be exceptions to this rule : the accumulation of waters, pressed into these receptacles by the general movement of the sea from east to west, it is alleged, may pile up the waters, in some cases, to a greater height than the general level. It had long been admitted, on the faith of inexact observation, that the level of the Bed Sea was higher than that of the Mediterranean, It has also been said that the level of the Pacific Ocean at Panama is higher by about forty inches than the mean level of the Atlantic at Chagres, and that, at the moment of high water, this difference is increased to about thirteen feet, while at low it is over six feet in the opposite direction. This has been proved, so far as the evidence goes, to be error in what concerns the difference in level of the Bed Sea and Mediterranean; and the opening of the Suez Canal, which is near at hand, will probably furnish still more convincing proofs. Becent * "World before the Deluge." Second edition. BLUE WATEK. 11 soundings show that the mean level of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are identical. It has been calculated that all the waters of the several seas gathered together would form a sphere of fifty or sixty leagues in diameter, and, supposing the surface of the globe perfectly level, that these waters would submerge it to the depth of more than six hundred feet. Again, admitting the mean depth of the sea to be thirteen thousand feet, its estimated contents ought to be nearly two thousand two hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles of water ; and, if the sea could be imagined to be dried up, all the sewers of the earth would require to pour their waters into it for forty thousand years, in order to fill the vast basins anew. If we could imagine the entire globe to be divided into one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six parts by weight, we should find approxi- mately, according to Sir John Herschel, that the total weight of the oceanic waters is equivalent to one of these parts. The specific weight of sea water is a little above that of fresh water,, the proportion being as a thousand to a thousand and twenty -seven. The Dead Sea, which receives no fresh water into its bosom to main- tain itself at the same level as other seas, acquires a higher degree of saltness, and is equal to a thousand and twenty-eight. The specific gravity of sea water is about the same as the milk of a healthy woman. The colour of the sea is continually varying, and is chiefly caused by filtration of the solar rays. According to the testimony of the majority of observers, the ocean, seen by reflection, presents a fine azure blue or ultramarine (cseruleum mare). When the air is pure and the surface calm this tint softens insensibly, until it is lost and blended with the blue of the heavens. Near the shore it becomes more of a green or glaucus, and more or less brilliant,, according to circumstances. There are some days when the ocean assumes a livid aspect, and others when it becomes a very pure green ;. at other times, the green is sombre and sad. When the sea is agitated, the green takes a brownish hue. At sunset, the surface of the sea is illumined with tints of every hue of purple and emerald. Placed in a vase, sea water appears perfectly transparent and colourless. According. 12 THE OCEAN WORLD. to Scoresby, the Polar seas are of brilliant ultramarine blue. Castaz says of the Mediterranean, that it is celestial blue, and Tuckey describes the equinoctial Atlantic as being of a vivid blue. Many local causes influence the colours of marine waters, and give them certain decided and constant shades. A bottom of white sand will communicate a greyish or apple-green colour to the water, if not very deep ; when the sand is yellow, the green appears more sombre ; the presence of rocks is often announced by the deep colour which the sea takes in their vicinity. In the Bay of Loango the waters appear of a deep red, because the bottom is there naturally red. It appears white in the Gulf of Guinea, yellow on the coast of Japan, green to the west of the Canaries, and black round the Maldive group of islands. The Mediterranean, towards the Archipelago, sometimes becomes more or less red. The White and Black Seas appear to be named after the ice of the one and the tempests to which the other is subject. At other times, coloured animalcules give to the water a particular tint. The Eed Sea owes its colour to a delicate microscopic algaa (Trychodesmium erythrteum) , which was subjected to the microscope by Ehrenberg ; but other causes of colouration are suggested. Some microscopists maintain that it is imparted by the shells and other remains of infusoria; others ascribe the colour to the evaporation which goes on unceasingly in that riverless district, producing salt rocks on a great scale all round its shores. In the same manner sea water, concentrated by the action of the solar- rays in the salt marshes of the south of France, when they arrive at a certain stage of concentration take a fine red colour, which is due to the presence of some red-shelled animalcules which only appear in sea water of this strength. The saline lakes on the Great Thibetian water sheds are due to this cause. Strangely enough, these minute creatures die when the waters attain greater density by further concentration, and also if it becomes weaker from the effects of rain. Navigators often traverse long patches of green, red, white, or yellow coloured water, all of which are due to the presence of microscopic crustaceans, medusae, zoophytes, and marine plants ; the Vermilion Sea on the Californian coast is entirely due to the latter cause. The phenomenon known as Phosphorescence of the Sea is due to analogous causes. This wonderful sight is observable in all seas, but PHOSPHOEESCENCE OF THE SEA. 13 is most frequent in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf, and other tropical seas. In the Indian Ocean, Captain Kingman, of the American ship Shooting Star, traversed a zone twenty-three miles in length so filled with phosphorescent animalcules that at seven hours forty-five minutes the water was rapidly assuming a white, milky appearance, and during the night it presented the appearance of a vast field of snow. " There was scarcely a cloud in the heavens," he continues, " yet the sky, for about ten degrees above the horizon, appeared as black as if a storm were raging ; stars of the first magnitude shone with a feeble light, and the ' Milky Way ' of the heavens was almost entirely eclipsed by that through which we were sailing." The animals which produced this appearance were about six inches long, and formed of a gelatinous and translucent matter. At times, the sea was one blaze of light, produced by countless millions of minute globular creatures, called Noctilucss. The motion of a vessel or the plash of an oar will often excite their lucidity, and sometimes, after the ebb of tide, the rocks and seaweed of the coast are glowing with them. Various other tribes of animals there are which contribute to this luminous appearance of the sea. M. Peron thus describes the effect produced by Pyrosoma Atlantieum, on his voyage to the Isle of France : " The wind was blowing with great violence, the night was dark, and the vessel was making rapid way, when what appeared to be a vast sheet of phosphorus presented itself floating on the waves, and occupying a great space ahead of the ship. The vessel having passed through this fiery mass, it was discovered that the light was occasioned by animalcules swimming about in the sea at various depths round the ship. Those which were deepest in the water looked like red-hot balls, while those on the surface resembled cylinders of red-hot iron. Some of the latter were caught : they were found to vary in size from three to seven inches. All the exterior of the creatures bristled with long thick tubercles, shining like so many diamonds, and these seemed to be the principal seat of their luminosity. Inside also there appeared to be a multitude of oblong narrow glands, exhibiting a high degree of phosphoric power. The colour of these animals when in repose is an opal yellow, mixed with green ; but, on the slightest movement, the animal exhibits a spontaneous contractile power, and assumes a luminous brilliancy, passing through various shades of deep red, orange green, and azure blue." 14 THE OCEAN WOKMX The phosphorescence of the sea is a spectacle at once Imposing and magnificent. The ship, in plunging through the waves, seems to advance through a sea of red and blue flame, which is thrown off by the keel like so much lightning. Myriads of creatures float and play on the surface of the waves, dividing, multiplying, and reuniting, so as to form one vast field of fire. In stormy weather the luminous waves roll and break in a silvery foam. Glittering bodies, which might be taken for fire-fishes, seem to pursue and catch each other lose their hold, and dart after each other anew. From time im- memorial, the phosphorescence of the sea has been observed by navigators. The luminous appearance presents itself on the crest of the waves, which in falling scatters it in all directions. It attaches itself to the rudder and dashes against the bows of the vessel. It 3>lays round the reefs and rocks against which the waves beat, and on silent nights, in the tropics, its effects are truly magical. This phosphorescence is due chiefly to the presence of a multitude of mollusks and zoophytes which seem to shine by their own light ; they emit a fluid so susceptible of expansion, that in the zigzag movement pursued they leave a luminous train upon the water, which spreads with immense rapidity. One of the most remarkable of these minute mollusks is a species of Pyrosoma, a sort of mucous sac of an inch long, which, thrown upon the deck of a ship, emits a light like a rod of iron heated to a white heat. Sir John Herschel noted on the surface of calm water a very curious form of this phosphores- cence ; it was a polygon of rectilinear shape, covering many square feet of surface, and it illuminated the whole region for some moments with a vivid light, which traversed it with great rapidity. The phosphorescence of the sea may also result from another cause. "When animal matter is decomposed, it becomes phosphorescent. The bodies of certain fishes, when they become a prey to putrefaction, emit an intense light. MM. Becquerel and Breschet have noted fine phos- phorescent effects from this cause in the waters of the Brenta at Venice. Animal matter in a state of decomposition, proceeding from dead fish which floats on the surface of ponds, is capable of producing large patches of oleaginous matter, which, piled upon the water, com- municates to a considerable extent the phosphorescent aspect. Whatever may be the case elsewhere, there are local causes which SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 15 affect the colour of the waters in certain rivers, and even originate their names. The Guamia, which with the Casiquaire forms the Eio Negro, is of a deep brown, which scarcely interferes with the limpidity of its waters. The waters of the Orinoco and the Casiquaire have also a brownish colour. The Ganges is of a muddy brown, while the Djumna, which it receives, is green or blue. The whitish colour belongs to the Kio Bianco, or White Kiver, and to many other rivers. The Ohio in America, the Torgedale, the Goetha, the Traun at Ischl, and most of the Norwegian rivers, are of a delicate limpid green. The Yellow Kiver and the Blue Kiver in China are distinguished by the characteristic tint of their waters. The Arkansas, the Ked Kiver, and the Lobregat in Catalonia, are* remarkable for their red colour, which, like the Dart and other English rivers, they owe to the earth over which they flow, or which their waters hold in suspension. The water of the sea is essentially salt, of a peculiar flavour, slightly acrid and bitter, and a little nauseous. It has an odour perfectly sui generis, and is slightly viscous. In short, it includes a great number of mineral salts and some other compounds, which give it a very dis- agreeable taste, and render it unfit for domestic use. It contains nearly all the soluble substances which exist on the globe, but principally chloride of sodium, or marine salt, and sulphate of magnesia, of potassium, and of lime. Pure water is produced by a combination of one volume of oxygen and of two volumes of hydrogen, or in weight, 100 oxygen and 12'50 hydrogen. Sea water is composed of the same ; but we find there, besides, other elements, the presence of which chemistry reveals to us. In 1000 grains of sea water the following ingredients are found: Water 962'0 Chloride of sodium 27*1 Chloride of magnesium 5'4: Chloride of potassium 0*4 Bromide of magnesia O'l Sulphate of magnesia 1*2 Sulphate of lime 0'8 Carbonate of lime O'l Leaving a residuum of .... 2-9 1000 consisting of sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrochlorate of ammonia, iodine 16 THE OCEAN WOELD. iron, copper, and even silver in various quantities and proportions, according to the locality of the specimen. In examining the plates of copper taken from the bottom of a ship at Valparaiso, which had been long at sea, distinct traces of silver were found deposited by the sea. Finally, we find dissolved in the ocean a peculiar mucus, which seems of a mixed animal and vegetable nature, and is evidently organic matter proceeding from the successive decomposition of the innumerable generations of animals which have disappeared since the beginning of the world. This matter has been described by the Count Marsigli, who designates it sometimes under the name of glu, and sometimes as an unctuosity. It is the " ooze " of marine surveyors, and consists chiefly of carbonate of lime, ninety per cent, of which is formed of minute animal organisms. Its mealy adhesiveness results from the pressure of the superimposed water. The numerous salts which exist in the sea can neither be deposited in its bed, nor exhaled with the vapour, to be again poured upon the soil in showers of rain. Particular agents retain these salts in solution, transform them, and prevent their accumula- tion. Hence sea water always maintains a certain degree of saltness and bitterness, and the ocean continues to present the chemical characters which it has exhibited in all times, varying only in certain localities where more or less fresh water is poured into the sea basin from rivers : thus the saltness of the Mediterranean is greater than that of the ocean, probably because it loses more water by evaporation than it receives from its fresh-water affluents. For the opposite reason, the Black and the Caspian Seas are less charged with these salts. The Dead Sea is so strongly impregnated with salt that the body of a man floats on its surface without sinking, like a piece of cork upon fresh water. The supposed cause is excessive evaporation and the absence of rivers of any importance. The saltness of the sea seems to be generally less towards the poles than the equator ; but there are exceptions to this law. In the Irish Channel, near the Cumberland coast, the water contains salt equal to the fortieth of its weight ; on the coast of France, it is equal to one thirty-second ; in the Baltic, it is equal to a thirtieth ; at Teneriffe, a twenty- eighth; and off the coast of Spain, to a sixteenth. Again, in many places the sea is less salt at the surface than at the bottom. In the Straits of the Dardanelles, at Constantinople, the proportion is as seventy-two to sixty-two. In the Mediterranean, it is as thirty-two SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 17 to twenty-nine. It is also stated that as the salt increases at a certain depth, the water becomes less bitter. At the mouth of the great rivers it is scarcely necessary to add that the water is always less saline than on shores which receive no supplies of fresh water ; the same remark applies to sea water in the vicinity of polar ice, the melting of which is productive of much fresh water. A recent analysis of the water of the Dead Sea by M. Eoux gives about two pounds of salt to one gallon of water. No mineral water, if we except that of the Salt Lake of Utah, is so largely impregnated with saline substances ; the quantity of bromide of magnesia is 0'35 grammes to the litre. The water of the Dead Sea is, according to these proportions, the richest natural depository of bromide, which it might be made to furnish abundantly. The waters of the great Lake of Utah and Lake Ourmiah in Persia are both highly saline. In Lake Ourmiah, as in the Dead Sea, the proportion of salt is six times greater than in the ocean. Many of our fresh-water lakes were probably salt originally, but have by degrees lost their saline properties by the mingling of their waters with those of the rivers which traverse or flow into them. Among the lakes which appear to have been divested of their saline properties may be mentioned the great lakes of Canada and the Sea of Baikal, in all of which seals and other marine animals are still found, which have become acclimatized as the water gradually became fresh. The saltness of sea water increases its density, and at the same time its buoyancy, thus adapting it for bearing ships and other burdens on its bosom ; moreover, to abbreviate slightly Dr. Maury's remark, " the brine of the ocean is the ley of the earth." From it the sea derives dynamical power, and its currents their main strength It is the salt of the sea that imparts to its waters those curious anomalies in the laws of freezing and of thermal dilatation, that assist the rays of heat to penetrate its bosom ; the salts of the sea invest it with adaptations which fresh water could not possess. In the latter case, the maximum density would be thirty-nine degrees two seconds F. instead of twenty-seven degrees two seconds F., when the dynamical force of the sea would be insufficient to put the Gulf Stream in motion. Nor could it regulate those climates we call marine. We have said that sea water contains nearly all the soluble sub- o r 18 THE OCEAN WOKLD. stances which exist in the globe. Nevertheless its exhalation is com- paratively pure. " The water which evaporates from the sea," says Youman, in his " Chemistry," " is nearly pure, containing but very minute traces of salts. Falling as rain upon the land, it washes the soil, percolates through the rocky layers, and becomes charged with saline substances, which are borne seaward by the returning currents. The ocean, therefore, is the great depository of all substances that water can dissolve and carry down from the surface of the continents ; and, as there is no channel for their escape, they would constantly accumulate, were it not for the creatures which inhabit the seas, and utilize the material thus brought within their reach." These sub- stances are chloride of sodium or marine salt, sulphates of magnesia, potassa, lime, and other substances which the water of various seas is found to contain. In the year 1847, I made an analysis of water taken a few leagues from the coast at Havre, which gave the following result, from one litre (1 pint -760773) : * Grammes. Chloride of sodium 25-704 Chloride of magnesium 2*905 Sulphate of magnesia 2462 Sulphate of lime ... 1-210- Sulphate of potassa 0'094 Carbonate of lime 0132 Silicate of soda 0*017 Bromide of sodium 0*103 Bromide of magnesium 0'030 Oxide of iron, carbonate and phosphate of mag-) Only nesia, and oxide of manganese ... . ( traces. 32-657 The water of the Mediterranean contains more salts than that of the ocean. The following are, according to M. Usiglio, who was one of a com- mission sent to examine the different kinds of salt water in the south of France, the component parts of one hundred gallons of Mediter- ranean water : * Examen Comparatif des Principales eaux Mine'rales Salines de France ct d'AHe- magne, par MM. L. Figuier et Mialhe. Head at the Academic de Medecin, 23rd of May, 1848. SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 19 Ibs. Chloride of sodium 29*524 Chloride of potassium 0*405 Chloride of magnesium 3'219 Sulphate of magnesia 2-477 Chloride of calcium 6*080 Sulphate of lime 1-557 Carbonate of lime . 0'114 Bromide of sodium 0*356 Protoxide of iron . . 0*003 Total . . . 43*735 We conclude, from the quantity of sea salt contained in the water of the ocean, that, if it were spread over the surface of the globe, it would form a layer of more than thirty feet in height. The salt contained in sea water gives it a greater density than fresh water; its average specific weight is 1*027. The density of the water of the Mediterranean is, according to M. Usiglio, 1*025 when at the temperature of seventy degrees. But the saltness of the sea varies very much under the influence of a great many local circum- stances, among which we must count principally currents, winds favourable to evaporation, rivers coming from the continents, &c. It has been remarked that the sea is less salt towards the poles than at the equator ; that the saltness increases, in general, with the distance from land, and the depth of the water ; that the interior seas, such as the Baltic, the Black Sea, the White Sea, the Sea of Mar- mora, and the Yellow Sea, are less salt than the ocean. The Mediter- ranean is an exception to this last rule ; it is, as we have seen, salter than the ocean. This difference is explained by the fact that the quantity of fresh water brought into it by rivers is less than that lost by evaporation. The Mediterranean must therefore grow salter with time, unless its water is discharged into the ocean by a counter current, which would run under the current coming from the Atlantic by the Straits of Gibraltar. The Black Sea, on the contrary, the water of which has a density of only 1*013, receives from rivers more fresh water than it loses by evaporation. The saltness of this interior sea is only half as intense as that of the ocean. The Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea are still less salt than the Black Sea. c 2 20 THE OCEAN WORLD. The following table shows the relative composition of the water in these three interior seas : Black Sea. Sea of Azov. Caspian Sea. In 100 Gallons of Water. .Density Density Density 1-013 1-009. 1-005. Chloride of sodium . . . 14-0195 9-6583 3-6731 Chloride of potassium . 9-1892 0-1279 0-0761 Chloride of magnesium . . i-3045 0-8870 0-6324 Sulphate of magnesia . Sulphate of lime . . . . 1-4704 0-1047 0-7642 0-2879 1-2389 ' 0-4903 Bicarbonate of magnesia . 0-2086 0-1286 0-0129 Bicarbonate of lime . . 0-3646 0-0221 0-1705 Bromide of magnesium . :. 0-0052 0-0035 traces 17-6663 11-8795 6-2942 In lakes without any outlet, as the Dead Sea and the Lake of Ural, the degree of saltness is considerably augmented. Numerous experiments have proved that the water of the Dead Sea is six times salter than that of the ocean. MM. Boutron and O'Henry analysed, in April, 1850, after the rainy season, some water of the Dead Sea, taken at about two leagues from the mouth of the Jordan ; its density was then 1*10. The saltness of sea water makes it more fitted to float ships, because its density is increased by the salts which are dissolved in it. Besides this, these salts contribute to prevent the water becoming contaminated with decomposed organic matter. By the table representing the composition of the water of the ocean and of that of the Mediterranean, we see that salts of lime and potassium, as well as iodine and silica, are only found in infinitely small quantities. Nevertheless, the lime and silica contained in the sea water are of very great importance ; for these quantities, which appear to us so small in the table of a chemical analysis, become enormous in the entire extent of the ocean. The marine plants take in the lime, the silica, the potassa, and the iodides which are dis- solved in the sea water : these mineral substances enter into their textures. It is from the carbonate of lime and silica that the marine animals form their solid covering, their shell or carapace. The infusoria make use of the lime, silica, and potassa for the same purpose. It is by the life and habits of the polypi that we explain those Coral Islands found in the sea, the existence of which has been CORAL ISLANDS. 21 a subject of much astonishment, and ought, therefore, to find a place in this chapter. The Pacific and Indian Oceans are studded with islands in a state of formation, which owe their origin to the polypi and corallines. These zoophytes extract from the sea water the lime and silicium which are found there in the state of soluble salts. In order to grow and develop, they must be continually under water. They are con- stantly producing calcareous deposits; these deposits rise rapidly, and at last reach the surface of the water. Then the seaweed and rubbish of all kinds that the sea carries along with it, arrested by these emerged masses, cover them with a layer of fertile soil, which is soon covered with vegetation, as the birds and the waves bring seeds thither. The Coral Islands of the Pacific, which are described in another chapter, are formed in this manner. Besides the substances named, sea water also contains, in infinitesi- mally small quantities, metals, such as iron, copper, lead and silver. The old copper collecting ground the keels of ships sometimes so much silver that it has been thought worth extracting ! A curious calculation has been attempted, based on the age of ships and the distance they have gone during all their voyages, to show that the sea contains in solution two million tons of silver.* The question has often been asked, whence comes the salt and other substances held in solution in sea water ? If our readers will turn back to the first few pages of " The World before the Deluge," they will better understand the very simple geological explanation that we are going to give of the origin of different substances dissolved in sea water. In the first stage of our planet, before the watery vapours contained in the primitive atmosphere were condensed, and before they had begun to fall on the earth in the form of boiling rain, the shell of the earth contained an infinite variety of heterogeneous mineral substances, some soluble in water, others not. When rain fell on the burning sur- face for the first time, the waters became charged with all the soluble substances, which were reunited and afterwards deposited, accumu- lating in the large depressions of the soil. The seas of the primitive * Sir J. Herschel'd " Physical Geography,' 5 p. 22, gives the basis and details of tins calculation. 22 THE OCEAN WOULD. globe were thus formed of rain water, holding in solution all that the earth had given up, collected in large basins. Chloride of sodium, sul- phates of soda, magnesia, potassium, lime, and silica, in the form of soluble silicate ; in a word, every soluble matter that the primitive globe contained formed part of the mineral contingent of this water. If we reflect that through all time up to the present day none of the general laws of nature have changed if we consider that the soluble substances contained in the water of the primitive seas have remained there, and that the fresh water of the rivers constantly replaces the water which disappears by evaporation we have the true explanation of the saltness of sea water. " It is a very simple theory, it is true," adds M. Figuier, " but one that we have found nowhere, and the responsi- bility of which we therefore claim. The chloride of sodium is by no means the only substance dissolved in sea water. It contains, besides, many other mineral substances : in short, every soluble salt on the face of the globe, and, along with them, portions of different metals in infinitely small quantities." The mean temperature of the surface of the sea is nearly the same as the atmosphere, so long as no currents of heat or cold interpose their perturbing influence. In the neighbourhood of the Tropics, it ap- pears that the surface of the water is slightly warmer than the ambient air, but experiments on the temperature of the sea from the surface to the bottom reveal, according to our author,* " some evidence which establishes a curious law. In very deep water a perfectly uniform temperature of four degrees below zero prevails, which corresponds, as physics have established, to the maximum density of water. Under the Equator this temperature exists at the depth of seven thousand feet. In the Polar regions, where water is colder at the surface, this tempera- ture is maintained at four thousand six hundred feet. The isothermal lines of four degrees form a line of demarcation between the Zones, where the surface of the sea is colder, and those where it is warmer than the bed of four degrees below zero." This is more clearly shown in Fig. 4, which represents a section of the ocean, the curved line which touches two points at the surface indicating the depths where the temperature is constantly fixed at four degrees. Dr. Maury's account of this phenomenon is asserted with less confi- dence. The existence of an isothermal floor of the ocean, as he calls * " La Terre et les Mers," p. 517. Troisieme Ed. USES OF SALT SEAS. 23 it, was first suggested by the observations of Kotzebue, Admiral Beechey, and Sir James C. Boss. "Its temperature, according to Kotzebue, is thirty-six degrees Fahr., or four degrees Cent.; the depth of this bed, of invariable and uniform temperature, is twelve hundred fathoms at the Equator; thence it gradually rises to the parallel of about fifty-six degrees north and south, when it crops out, and there the temperature of the sea from top to bottom is conjectured PolJ 90 ' " Fig 4. Therma 1 Lines ot equa 1 Temperature. to be permanent at thirty-six degrees. The place of this outcrop, no doubt, shifts with the seasons, vibrating north and south, after the manner of the Calm belts. Proceeding onwards to the Frigid zones, this aqueous stratum of an unchanging temperature dips again, and continues to incline till it reaches the Poles, at the depth of seven hundred and fifty fathoms ; so that on the equatorial side of the out- crop the water above the isothermal floor is the warmer, but in Polar seas the supernatant water is the colder." In the saline properties of sea water Maury discovers one of the principal forces from which currents in the ocean proceed. " The brine of the ocean is the ley of the earth," he says ; " from it the sea derives dynamical powers, and its currents their main strength. Hence, to understand the dynamics of the ocean, it is necessary to study the effects of their saltness upon the equilibrium of the waves. Why is the sea made salt ? It is the salts of the sea that impart to its waters those curious anomalies in the laws of freezing and of thermal dilatation. It is the salts of the sea that assist the rays of heat to penetrate its bosom." The circulation of the ocean is indis- pensable to the distribution of temperature to the maintenance of 24 THE OCEAN WOULD. the meteorological and climatic conditions which rule the develop- ment of life; and this circulation could not exist at least, the character of its waters would be completely changed if they were fresh in place of salt. " Let us imagine," says M. J alien, " that the sea, now entirely composed of fresh water, of one uniform temperature from the Pole to the Equator, and from the surface to its greatest depths ; the solar heat would penetrate the liquid beds nearest to the Equator; it would dilate them, so as to raise them above their primitive level ; by the single effect of gravitation, they would glide on the surface towards the polar zones. The absence of all solar radiation would tend, on the contrary, to cool and contract them without this tendency. An exchange would be established from the extremities towards the centre ; in other words, a counter current of cold and heavy water, calculated to replace the losses occa- sioned by the action of solar radiation, would descend from the Poles, but quite maintaining itself beneath the light and warm current from he Equator." In a like system of general circulation, the physical properties of pure water, which attains its maximum of density seven degrees two seconds F. below zero, would produce the most singular consequences. As its temperature rose above that point, the water would become lighter, having, consequently, a tendency to ascend towards the upper beds. After this, the equatorial current, meeting in its progress towards the Poles the cold water, would itself be cooled down ; and when its temperature had reached four degrees below zero, being now heavier than the polar current, would change places with it, descending until it reached water equally dense, while the polar current would ascend. Hence would arise a sort of confusion of currents which would give to a fresh-water ocean the strangest results, disarranging every instant the regular circulation of its waters. It could not be so, however, in an ocean of salt water, which attains its maximum specific gravity at four degrees eight seconds F. below zero. By evaporation at the surface it is con- centrated and precipitated, and thus rendered denser than that imme- diately below the surface. It consequently sinks, while the lower beds come up to replace, in order to modify it, and in turn to be precipitated in the same manner. " In this manner we find established a continually ascending and descending movement, which carries down into the depths of ocean the water wanned at the surface by the solar rays of the Torrid USES OF SALT SEAS. 25 zone. This double vertical current facilitates and prepares the grand horizontal current which puts these submarine reservoirs of heat in communication with the lower beds of the glacial sea. In the Arctic basin the clouds, the melted snow, and the great rivers, which have their mouths on the north of both continents, produce considerable quantities of fresh water, which, mixing with the waves of the Polar Sea, form a bed of mean density light enough to maintain itself and flow off towards the Atlantic Ocean. These surface movements deter- mine in the lower regions certain contrary movements, whence origi- nate the powerful counter currents which ascend the Straits from Baffin's Bay and reappear in the mysterious ' Polynia ' of Kane, diffus- ing there its treasure of heat brought from intertropical seas." Dr. Kane, in his interesting Narrative, reports an open sea north of the parallel of eighty- two degrees, which he and his party crossed a barrier of ice eighty miles broad to reach, and before he reached it the ther- mometer marked sixty degrees. Beyond this ice-bound region he found himself on the shores of an iceless sea, extending in an unbroken sheet of water as far as the eye could reach towards the Pole. Its waves were dashing on the beach with the swell of a great ocean ; the tides ebbed and flowed. Now the question arises, Where did those tides have their origin ? The tidal wave of the Atlantic could not have passed under the icy barrier which De Haven found so firm ; therefore they must have been cradled in the cold sea round the Pole ; in which case it follows that most, if not all, the unexplored regions about the Pole must be covered with deep water, the only source of strong and regular tides. Seals were sporting and waterfowl feeding in this open sea, as Dr. Kane tells us, and the temperature of the water which rolled in and dashed at his feet with measured beat was thirty-six degrees, while the bottom of the icy barrier of eighty miles was probably hundreds of feet below the surface level. " The existence of these tides," says Maury, " with the immense flow and drift which annually take place from the Polar Seas and the Atlantic, suggests many conjectures as to the condition of these unex- plored regions. Whalemen have always been puzzled as to the breed- ing place of the great whale. It is a cold-water animal, and, following up the train of thought, the question arises, Is not the nursery for the great whale in this Polar Sea, which is so set about and hemmed in by a hedge of ice, that man may not trespass there ?" 26 THE OCEAN WORLD. One or two points worthy of notice may be recorded here. Shallow water, and water near the coast, or covering raised sand-hanks, is colder than water in the open sea. Alexander von Humholdt explains this phenomenon by supposing that deep waters of higher temperature reascend from the lowest depths and mingle with the upper heels. Fogs are frequently formed over sand-banks, because the cold water which covers them produces a local precipitation of atmospheric vapour. The contour of these fogs are perfectly denned when seen from a distance: they reproduce the form and accidents due to the sub- marine soil. Moreover, we often see clouds arrested over these points, which look from afar like the peaks of mountains. CHAPTEE II. CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. " seas that sweep The three-decker's oaken mast." TENNYSON. THE ocean is a scene of unceasing agitation ; " its vast surface rises and falls," to use the image suggested by Schleiden, " as if it were gifted with a gentle power of respiration ; its movements, gentle or powerful, slow or rapid, are all determined by differences of temperature." Heat increases its volume and changes the specific gravity of the water, which is dilated or condensed in proportion to the change of temperature. In proportion as it cools, water increases in density, and descends into the depths until it reaches a constant temperature of four degrees twenty-five minutes Cent, below zero, which it preserves in all latitudes at the depth of a thousand yards, according to M. D'Urville. If the water continues to cool, and reaches zero, it becomes lighter than it was at four degrees twenty-five minutes Cent., and ascends in a state of congelation a process which, by an admirable provision of nature, can only take place at the surface. So long as the tempe- rature is above four degrees twenty-five minutes, water is light, and ascends to the surface, while colder water sinks to the bottom. Below four degrees twenty-five minutes the process is reversed ; the first phenomenon is always in force under the Equator, the second near the Poles. The evaporation, which is in continual operation in warm seas, forming vast rain-clouds at the expense of the sea, is com- pensated by unceasing currents of colder water flowing from the Poles. This evaporation has a direct- influence, moreover, on the density of sea water, and is pointed out by Dr. Maury as a remarkable instance 28 THE OCEAN WORLD. of the compensations by which the oceanic waters are governed : " According to Eodgers' observations," he says, " the average specific gravity of sea water on the parallels of thirty-four degrees north and south, at a mean temperature of sixty-four degrees, is just what it ought to be, according to saline and thermal laws ; but its specific gravity, when taken from the Equator at a mean temperature of eighty- one degrees, is much greater than, according to the same laws, it ought to be the observed difference being '0015, whereas it ought to be 0025. Let us inquire," he adds, "what makes the equatorial waters so much heavier than they ought to be. " The anomaly occurs in the trade-wind region, and is best de- veloped between the parallel of forty degrees in the North Atlantic and the Equator, where the water grows warmer, but not proportionally lighter. The water sucked up by the trade-winds is fresh water, and the salt it contained, being left behind, is just sufficient to counteract by its weight the effect of thermal dilatation upon the specific gravity of water between the parallels of thirty-four degrees north and south. The thirsting of the trade-winds for vapour is so balanced as to pro- duce perfect compensation, and a more beautiful instance than we have here stumbled upon is not, it appears to me, to be found in the mecha- nism of the universe." The oceanic currents are due to a great number of causes : the duration and force of the winds, for instance; the rise and fall of tides all over the globe ; the variations in the density of the waters, according to its temperature, and the evaporating powers of the atmo- sphere; the depth and degree of saltness to which we have already alluded ; finally, to the variations of barometric pressure. The currents which furrow the ocean present a striking contrast with the immobility of the neighbouring waters; they form rivers of a determinate breadth, whose banks are formed by the water in repose, and whose course is often made quite perceptible by the vrachs and other aquatic plants which follow in their train. In order to comprehend the origin of these pelagic rivers, it is necessary to consider the laws which govern the atmospheric currents, in particular the trade-winds. "Hence," says Maury, " in studying the system of oceanic circulation, we set out with the very simple assumption, that from whatever part of the ocean a current is found to run, to that same part a current of equal volume is bound to CUKEENTS OF THE OCEAN. 29 return ; for on this principle is based the whole system of currents and counter currents." The differences of temperature between equinoctial and polar countries generate two opposing currents, the upper one proceeding from the Equator to the Poles, the lower one directed from the Poles towards the Equator. On reaching the Equator, the cold current of air from the Poles is warmed and rarefied, and ascends to the upper beds of the atmosphere, whence it is again led to its point of departure ; there it is again cooled, and returns with the lower current towards the tropical regions. But the rotatory movement of the earth modifies the direction of these atmo- spheric currents. The movement by which it is carried from west to east being almost nothing at the Poles, but inconceivably rapid under the Equator, it follows that the cold air, in proportion as it advances towards the Tropics, ought to incline a little towards the west. This is just what takes place with these counter currents. The north-east trade-winds, which prevail in the northern hemisphere, move in a sort of spiral curve, turning to the west as they rush from the Poles to the Equator, and in the opposite direction as they move from the Equator towards the Poles; the immediate cause of this motion being the rotation of the earth on its axis. "The earth," says Dr. Maury, " moves from west to east. Now, if we imagine a particle of atmo- sphere at the North Pole, where it is at rest, to be put in motion in a straight line towards the Equator, we can easily see how this particle of air, coming from the very axis of diurnal rotation, where it did not par- take of the diurnal motion, would, in consequence of its own vis inertias, find as it travelled south that the earth was slipping from under it, as it were, and it would appear to be coming from the north-east and going towards the south-west ; in other words, it would be a north-east wind." In the same manner, the upper currents of air, which proceed towards the Poles with equatorial rapidity, ought to outstrip the atmo- spheric beds, which are gifted with much smaller rapidity of motion towards the Poles, and turn them towards the east in consequence. These are the south-west and north-west counter ' trade-winds, which, passing above the north and south-east trades, often sweep the surface of the sea in the latitudes of the Temperate zone. The two trades are separated by a belt more or less broad, where the friction experienced at the surface of the sea neutralizes their impulse towards the west ; in 30 THE OCEAN WOELD. general, the current of air there is an ascending current. This belt, which does not exactly correspond with the Equator, is called the Zone of Calms, where atmospheric tempests frequently occur, and the winds make the entire tour of the compass, which has acquired for them the name of tornadoes. The trade-winds, whose movement towards the west is retarded by the friction which the waves of the ocean oppose to them, communi- cate to these waves, by a sort of reaction, a tendency towards the west, or, to speak more exactly, towards the south-west in the northern hemi- sphere, and towards the north-west in the opposite hemisphere. The currents on the surface of the water which result from this reaction, reunite under the Equator, and form the grand equinoctial current which impels the waters of the east towards the west. This movement is stronger at the edges than in the middle of the current, because the force which produces it acts there with more energy : it results from this, that the currents bifurcate more readily when any obstacle pre- sents itself to its movement. In the Atlantic Ocean, bifurcation takes place a little to the south of the Equator ; the southern branch descends along the coast of Brazil, and probably returns by reascending along the west coast of Africa. The northern branch follows the coast of Brazil and Guiana, enters the Sea of the Antilles, and directs its course, rein- forced by the current which reaches it from the north-east, into the Bay of Honduras, traverses the Yucatan Channel, and enters the Gulf of Mexico, whence it debouches by the Florida Channel, under the name of the Gulf Stream. Of this oceanic marvel Dr. Maury observes that " there is a river in the bosom of the ocean ; in the several droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows ; its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm ; it takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico, and empties itself into the Arctic Seas. This mighty river is the Gulf Stream. In no other part of the world is there such a majestic flow of water ; its current is more rapid than the Amazon, more impetuous than the Mississippi, and its volume is more than a thousand times greater. Its waters, as far as the Carolina coast, are of indigo blue ; they are so distinctly indicated that their line of junction can be marked by the eye." Such is Dr. Maury 's description of this powerful current of warm water, which traverses the Atlantic Ocean, and influences in no slight manner the climate of Northern Europe, and especially our own shores. CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 31 The Gulf Stream thus described by the American savant issues from the Florida Channel, with a breadth of thirty-four miles, and a depth of two thousand two hundred feet, moving at the rate of four and a half miles per hour. The temperature of the water in the vicinity is about thirty degrees Cent. From the American coast the current takes a north-east direction towards Spitzbergen, its velocity and volume diminishing as it expands in breadth. Towards the forty-third degree of latitude it forms two branches, one of which strikes the coast of Ireland and of Norway, whither it frequently transports seeds of tropical origin : it also warms the frozen waters of the glacial sea. The other branch, inclining towards the south, not far from the Azores, visits the coast of Africa, whence it returns to the Antilles. Throughout this vast circuit may be seen all sorts of plants and driftwood, with waifs and strays of every description borne on the bosom of the ocean. " Mid- way the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the Azores, Cana- ries, and Cape de Verd Islands, is the great Sargasso Sea, covering an area equal in extent to the Mississippi Valley : it is so thickly matted over with the Gulf Weed (Sargassum laceiferum), that the speed of vessels passing through it is actually retarded, and to the companions of Columbus it seemed to mark the limits of navigation ; they be- came alarmed. To the eye at a little distance it seemed sufficiently substantial to walk upon." These moving vegetable masses, always green, which tail off to a steady breeze, serving as an anemometer to the mariner, afford an asylum to multitudes of mollusks and crustaceans. The Gulf Stream plays a grand part in the Atlantic system. It carries the tepid water of the equinoctial regions into the high latitudes ; beyond the fortieth parallel the temperature is sixteen degrees Cent. Urged by the south-west winds which predominate in that zone, its tepid waters mix with those of the Northern Sea, softening the rigour of the climate in these regions. To the south of the great bank of Newfoundland, the warm current, in vast volume rushing from the Florida Straits, meets the cold currents descending from the Arctic Circle through Baffin's Bay and the Sea of Greenland, running with equal velocity towards the south. A portion of these waters reascend towards the Pole along the western coast of Greenland. It is to this conflict of the polar and equatorial waters, that the formation of the banks of Newfoundland is ascribed. Each of these great currents 32 THE OCEAN WORLD. having unceasingly deposited the de'bris carried in its bosom, the bank has been thus formed bit by bit in the concourse of ages. The difference of temperature between the Gulf Stream and the waters it traverses gives birth inevitably to tempests and cyclones. In 1780 a terrible storm ravaged the Antilles, in which twenty thousand persons perished. The ocean quitted its bed and inundated whole cities ; the trunks of trees, mingled with other debris, were tossed into the air. Numerous catastrophes of this kind have earned for the Gulf Stream the title of the King of the Tempests. In consequence of the numerous nautical documents which have been placed at the command of the National Observatory of Washington, and the admir- able use made of them by the late Naval Secretary and his assistants, the directions and range of these cyclones engendered by the Gulf Stream may be foreseen, and their most dangerous ravages turned aside. As an example of the utility of Dr. Maury's labours in settling the direction of storms in the traject of the Gulf Stream, we quote a well-known instance : In the month of December, 1859, the American packet San Francisco was employed as a transport to convey a regi- ment to California. It was overtaken by one of these sudden storms, which placed the ship and its freight in a most dangerous position. A single wave, which swept the deck, tore out the masts, stopped the engines, and washed overboard a hundred and twenty-nine persons, officers and soldiers. From that moment the unfortunate steamer floated upon the waters, a waif abandoned to the fury of the wind. The day after the disaster the San Francisco was seen in this desperate situation by a ship which reached New York, although unable to assist her. Another ship met her some days after, but, like the other, could render no assistance. When the report reached New York, two steamers were despatched to her assistance ; but in what direction were they to go ? what part of the ocean were they to explore ? The luminaries of Washington Observatory were appealed to ! Having consulted his charts as to the direction and limits of the Gulf Stream at that period of the year, Dr. Maury traced on a chart the spot to which the disabled steamer was likely to be driven by the current, and the course to be taken by the vessels sent to her assistance. The crew and passengers of the San Francisco were saved before their arrival. Three ships, which had seen their distressing situation, had been able .to reach them, and the steamers sent to their assistance only arrived CUKKENTS OF THE OCEAN. 33 to witness the safety of the passengers and crew. But the point where the steamer foundered shortly after they were transferred to the rescuing ships was precisely that indicated by Dr. Maury. If the ships sent to their assistance had reached in time, the triumph of SCIENCE would have been complete. The equinoctial currents of the Pacific are very imperfectly known. It is believed, however, that they traverse the Great Ocean in its whole length, and bifurcate opposite the Asiatic coast, where the weakest branch bends northward until it encounters the polar current from Behring's Straits, when it returns along the Mexican coast. The larger branch inclines towards the south, passing round Australia, where it is met by one or many counter currents coming from the Indian Ocean of the complicated and dangerous nature of which both Cook and La Peyrouse speak. The cold waters from the Antarctic Pole are carried towards the Equator by three great oceanic rivers. The first bifurcates in forty- five degrees ; one portion goes round Cape Horn ; the other Hum- boldt's current ascends the Chilian and Peruvian coasts up to the Equator, ameliorating the rainless climate as it goes, and making it delightful. A second great current takes the direction of the African coast, and is divided at the Cape, ascending both the east and west coasts of Africa. On either side of the warm current which escapes from the intertropical parts of the Indian Ocean, but especially along the Australian coast, a polar current wends its way from the Antarctic regions, carrying supplies of cold water to modify the climate and restore the equilibrium in that part of the world. This cold current turns at first towards the west, then towards the south in the direction of Madagascar ; more to the south still it is driven back by the polar current from Cape Horn. It is thus that the warm waters from the Bay of Bengal, pressed by the Indian polar current, circulate between Africa and Australia, one lateral branch of the current sweeping along the south coast of this vast continent. The monsoons which reign in the Indian Ocean tend still more to complicate the currents, already sufficiently intricate and confused. But it is not intended at present to occupy the reader's attention further with these questions of intricate currents. We have already spoken of a submarine current which appears to D 34 THE OCEAN WORLD. carry the waters of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean. Its existence is in some respects established by calculations which prove that the quantity of salt water supplied by the upper current through the Straits of Gibraltar is equal to seventy-two cubic miles per annum, while the quantity of fresh water brought down by the rivers is equal to six, and the quantity lost by evaporation to twelve cubic miles per annum. This would leave an annual excess of sixty-six cubic miles, if the equilibrium was not re-established by an under current flowing into the Atlantic. This hypothesis would appear to have been confirmed by a very curious fact. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, a Dutch brig, pursued by the French corsair Phoenix, was overhauled between Tangier and Tarifa, and seemed to be sunk by a single broadside ; but, in place of foundering and going down, the brig, being freighted with a cargo of oil and alcohol, floated between the two Currents, and, drifting towards the west, finally ran aground, after two or three days, in the neigh- bourhood of Tangier, more than twelve miles from the spot where she had disappeared under the waves. She had therefore traversed that distance, drawn by the action of the under current in a direction opposite to that of the surface current. This ascertained fact, added to some recent experiments, lend their support to the opinion which admits of the existence of an outward current through the Straits of Gibraltar. Dr. Maury quotes an extract from the " log " of Lieute- nant Temple, of the United States Navy, bearing the same inference. At noon on the 8th of March, 1855, the ship Levant stood into Almeria Bay, where many ships were waiting for a chance to get westwards. Here he was told that at least a thousand sail were waiting between the bay and Gibraltar, " some of them having got as far as Malaga only to be swept back again. Indeed," he adds, " no vessel had been able to get out into the Atlantic for three months past." Supposing this current to run no faster than two knots an hour, and assuming its depth to be four hundred feet only, and its width seven miles, and that it contained the average proportion of solid matter, estimated at one-thirtieth, it appears that salt enough to make eighty-eight cubic miles of solid matter were carried into the Mediterranean in those ninety days. " Now," continues Dr. Maury, " unless there were some escape for all this solid matter which has been running into the sea, not for ninety days, but for ages, it is very TIDES. 35 clear that the Mediterranean would long ere this have been a vat of strong brine, or a bed of cubic crystals." For the same reason, Dr. Maury considers it certain that there is an under current to the south of Cape Horn, which carries into the Pacific Ocean the overflowings of the Atlantic. In fact, the Atlantic is fed unceasingly by the Great American rivers, while the Pacific receives 'no important affluent, but ought to be, and is, subjected to enormous losses, in consequence of the evaporation continually taking place at the surface. TIDES. Tides are periodical movements produced by the attraction of the sun and moon. This action, which influences the whole mass of the earth, is made manifest by the swelling movement of the waters. The attractive force exercised by the moon is three times that of the sun, in consequence of its approximation to the earth, as compared to the greater luminary. In order to comprehend the theory of tides, we shall first consider the lunar influences, putting aside for a moment the solar action. South Pole. Fig. 5. Lunar Tides. The attraction which the moon exercises upon any point on the earth's surface is in the inverse ratio of the square of its distance. D 2 36 THE OCEAN WORLD. If we draw a straight line from the moon passing through the centre- of the earth, this line will meet the surface of the waters at two points diametrically opposite to each other namely, z and N (Fig. 5) ; one of these points would be to the moon its zenitli, the other its nadir. The point of the sea which has the moon in the zenith namely, that above which the moon is perfectly perpendicular will be nearest to the planet, and will consequently be more strongly attractive to the centre of the earth, while the points diametrically opposite to which the moon is the nadir will be more distant, and consequently less strongly attracted by that luminary. It follows that the waters situated directly under. the moon will be attracted towards it, and form an accumulation or swelling at that point ; the waters at the antipodes being less strongly attracted to the moon than to the centre of the earth, will form also a secondary swelling on the surface of the sea, thus forming a double tide, accumulating at the point nearest the moon and at its antipodes. At the intermediate points of the cir- cumference of the globe, where the waters are not subjected to the direct attraction of the moon, the sea is at low water, as represented in Fig. 5. The earth, in its movement of rotation, presents, in the course of twenty-four hours, every meridian on its surface to the lunar attrac- tion ; consequently, each point in its turn, and at intervals of six hours, is either under the moon, or ninety degrees removed from it : it follows, that in the space of a lunar day that is to say, in the time which passes between two successive passages of the moon on the same meridian the oceanic waters will be at high and low tide twice in the month on every point of the surface of the. globe. But this result of attraction is not exercised instantaneously. The moon has passed from the meridian of the spot before the waters have attained their greatest height ; the flux reaches its maximum about three hours after the moon has culminated ; and the watery mountain follows the moon all round the globe, from east to west, about three hours in its rear. It is obvious, however, that the great inequalities of the bottom of the sea ; the existence of continents ; the slopes of the coast, more or less steep ; the different breadths of channels and straits ; finally, the winds, the pelagic currents, and a crowd of local circumstances, must materially modify the course of the tides. Nor is the moon the only TIDES. 37 celestial body which influences the rise and fall of the waters of the sea. We have already said that the sun asserts an influence on the waves. It is true that, in consequence of its great distance, this only amounts to a thirty-eight-hundredth part of that of the earth's satellite. The inequality which exists between the solar and lunar days the latter exceeding the first by fifty-four minutes has also the effect of adding to or subtracting from this force alternately. When the sun and moon are in conjunction (Fig. 6), or in opposition, that is to say, placed upon the same right line, their attraction on the sea is com- bined, and a spring tide is produced. This happens at the period of Tlie Sun. South Pole. Fig. 6. Lunar-Solar Tides. the syzygies the period of new and full moon. At the period of the quadrature, or the first and last quarters, the solar action, being opposed to that of lunar attraction, tends to produce a sensibly weaker tide. These effects are never produced instantaneously ; but, the impulse once given, it will continue to influence the tides for two or three days, the highest and lowest tides being nearly in the proportion of 138 to 63, or of 7 to 3. The highest tides occur at the equinoxes, when the moon is in perigee ; the lowest at the solstices, when it is in apogee. In our. ports, and along the coast, the water rises twice in twenty-four hours, when it is said to be high water ; when it retires, it is low water : they are respectively iheflux and reflux of the waves. 38 THE OCEAN WORLD. The tide is retarded every day about fifty minutes, the lunar day being twenty-four hours fifty minutes of mean time. If, for instance, it is high water to-day at two o'clock in the morning, that of the next day will take place at fifty minutes past two. Low water does not occur, however, at the half of the intermediate time ; the flux is more rapid than the reflux : thus at Havre, Boulogne, and at corresponding places- on this side of the Channel, it takes two hours and eight minutes more in retiring ; at Brest, the difference is only sixteen minutes more than the flux. The daily retardation of high water by the passage of the moon in the meridian, at the equinoxes, is a constant quantity for the same locality, which can be determined by direct observation. The height of the tide varies in the different regions of the globe, according to local circumstances. The eastern coast of Asia and the western coast of Europe are exposed to extremely high tides ; while in the South Sea Islands, where they are very regular, they scarcely reach the height of twenty inches. On the western coast of South America? the tides rarely reach three yards; on the western coast of India they reach the height of six or seven ; and in the Gulf of Cambay it ranges from five to six fathoms. This great difference makes itself felt in our own and adjoining countries : thus, the tide, which at Cherbourg is seven and eight yards high, attains the height of fourteen yards at Saint Malo, while it reaches the height of ten yards at Swansea, at the mouth of the Bristol Channel, increasing to double that height at Chepstow, higher up the river. In general, the tide is higher at the bottom of a gulf than at its mouth. The highest tide which is known occurs in the Bay of Fundy, which opens up to the south of the isthmus uniting Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There the tide reaches forty, fifty, and even sixty feet, while it only attains the height of seven or eight in the bay to the north of the same isthmus. It is related that a ship was cast ashore upon a rock during the night, so high, that at daybreak the crew found themselves and their ship suspended in mid-air far above the water ! In the Mediterranean, which only communicates with the ocean by a narrow channel, the phenomenon of tides is scarcely felt, and from this cause that the moon acts at the same time upon its whole surface, which are not sufficiently abundant to increase the swelling mass of waters formed by the moon's attraction; consequently, the swelling TIDES. 39 remains scarcely perceptible. This is the reason why neither the Black Sea or White Sea presents a tide, and the Mediterranean a very inconsiderable one. Nevertheless, at Alexandria the tide rises twenty inches, and at Yenice this height is increased to about six feet and a half. Lake Michigan is slightly affected by the lunar attraction. Professor Whewell has prepared maps, in which the course of the tidal wave is traced in every country of the globe. We see here that it traverses the Atlantic, from the fiftieth degree of south latitude up to the fiftieth parallel north, at the rate of five hundred and sixty miles an hour. But the rapidity with which it proceeds is least in shallow water. In the North Sea it travels at the rate of a hundred and eighty miles. The tidal wave which proceeds round the coast of Scotland traverses the German Ocean and meets in St. George's Channel, between England and Ireland, where the conflict between the two opposing waves presents some very complicated phenomena. The winds, again, exercise a great influence on the height of the tides. When the impulse of the wind is added to that of the attract- ing planet, the normal height of the wave is considerably increased. If the wind is contrary, the flux of the tide is almost annihilated. This happens in the Gulf of Vera Cruz, where the tide is only per- ceptible once in three days, when the wind blows with violence. An analogous phenomenon is observable on the coast of Tasmania. The rising tide sometimes strikes the shore with a continuous and incredible force. This violent shock is called the surf. The swell then forms a billow, which expands to half a mile. The surf increases as it approaches the coast, when it sometimes attains the height of six or seven yards, forming an overhanging mountain of water, which gradually sinks as it rolls over itself. But this motion is not in reality progressive it transports no floating body. The surf is 'very strong at the Isle of Togo, one of the Cape de Yerd Islands in the Indian Ocean, and at Sumatra, where the surf renders it dangerous and sometimes impossible to land on the coast. Fig. 7 represents the effects of the surf at Point du Baz, on the coast of Brittany. The winds adding their influence to these causes, give birth on the surface of the sea to waves or billows, which increase rapidly, rising in foaming mountains, rolling, bounding, and breaking one against the other. "In one moment," says Malte Brun, "the 40 THE OCEAN WORLD. waves seem to carry sea-goddesses on its breast, which seem to revel amid plays and dances ; in the next instant, a tempest rising out of them, seems to he animated by its fury. They seem to swell with passion, and we think we see in them marine monsters which are prepared for war. A strong, constant, and equal wind produces long swelling billows, which, rising on the same line, advance with a uniform movement, one after the other, precipitating themselves upon Fig. 1. Point du Raz, Coast of Brittany the coast. Sometimes these billows are suspended by the wind or arrested by some current, thus forming, as it were, a liquid wall. In this position, unhappy is the daring navigator who is subjected to its fury." The highest waves are those which prevail in the offing off the Cape of Good Hope at the period of high tide, under the influence of a strong north-west wind, which has traversed the South Atlantic, pressing its waters towards the Cape. " The billows there lift them- selves up in long ridges," says Dr. Maury, "with deep hollows between WHIRLPOOLS AND EDDIES. 41 them. They run high and fast, tossing their white caps aloft in the air, looking like the green hills of a rolling prairie capped with snow, and chasing each other in sport. Still, their march is stately, and their roll majestic. The scenery among them is grand. Many an Australian-bound trader, after doubling the Cape, finds herself followed for weeks at a time by these magnificent rolling swells, furiously driven and lashed by the " brave west winds." These billows are said to attain the height of thirty, and even forty feet ; but no very exact measurement of the height of waves is recorded. One of these moun- tain waves placed between two ships conceals each of them from the Fig. 8. Height of Waves off the Cape of Good Hope. other an effect which is partially represented in Fig. 8. In round- ing Cape Horn, waves are encountered from twenty to thirty feet high ; but in the Channel they rarely exceed the height of nine or ten feet, except when they come in contact with some powerful resisting obstacle. Thus, when billows are dashed violently against the Eddy- stone Lighthouse, the spray goes right over the building, which stands a hundred and thirty feet above the sea, and falls in torrents on the roof. After the storm of Barbadoes in 1780, some old guns were 42 THE OCEAN WORLD. found on the shore, which had been thrown up from the bottom of the sea by the force of the tempests. If the waves, in their reflux, meet with obstacles, whirlpools and whirlwinds are the result the former the terror of navigators. Such are the whirlpools known in the Straits of Messina, between the rocks of Charybdis and Scylla, celebrated as the terror of ancient mariners, and which were sung by Homer, Ovid, and Yirgil : " Scylla latus dextrum, Isevum irrequieta Charybdis, Infestat ; vorat hsec raptis revomitque carinas. . . . Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdiin." These rocks are better understood, and less redoubted in our days. At Charybdis, there is a foaming whirlpool ; at Scylla, the waves dash against the low wall of rock which forms the promontory, scarcely noticed by the navigator of our days. Another celebrated whirlpool is that of Euripus, near the Island of Eubcea ; another is known in the Gulf of Bothnia. But perhaps the best known rocky danger is the Maelstrom, whose waters have a gyratory movement, producing a whirlpool at certain states of the tide, the result of opposing currents, which change every six hours, and which, from its power and magnitude, is capable of attracting and engulfing ships to their destruction, although chiefly dangerous to smaller craft. To the combined effects of tides and whirlpools may also be attri- buted the hurricanes, so dreaded by navigators, which so frequently visit the Mauritius and other parts of the Indian Ocean. In periods of the utmost calms, when there is scarcely a breath to ruffle the air, these shores are sometimes visited by immense waves, accompanied by whirlwinds, which seem capable of blowing the ships out of the water, seizing them by the keel, whirling them round on an axis, and finally capsizing them. " At the period of the changing monsoon, the winds, breaking loose from their controlling forces, seem to rage with a fury capable of breaking up the very fountains of the deep." The hurricanes of the Atlantic occur in the months of August and September, while the south-west monsoon of Africa and the south- east monsoon of the West Indies are at their height ; the agents of the one drawing the north-east trade-winds into the interior of Mexico and Texas, the other drawing them into the interior of Africa, greatly disturbing the equilibrium of the atmosphere. THE FIRST ARCTIC NAVIGATOR. 43 THE POLAR SEAS. The extreme columns of the known world are Mount Parry, situated at eight degrees from the North Pole, and Mount Koss, twelve degrees from the South Pole. Beyond these limits our maps are mute ; a blank space marks each extremity of the terrestrial axis. Will man ever succeed in passing these icy barriers ? Will he ever justify the prediction of the poet Seneca, who tells us that " the time will come in the distant future when Ocean will relax her hold on the world, when the immense earth will be open, when Tethys will appear amid new orbs, and where Thule (Iceland) shall no longer be the extreme limit of the earth ?" " Venient annis Ssecula seris quibus oceanus Vincula rerum laxet et ingens Pateat tellus, Tethysque novos Detegat orbes, nee sit terris Ultime Thule." Medea. No one can say. Every step we have taken in order to approach the Pole has been dearly purchased ; and it is not without reason that navigators have named the south point of Greenland, Cape Farewell. Of the number of expeditions, for the most part English, which have been fitted out, at the cost of nearly a million sterling, to explore the Frozen Ocean, one-twentieth have had for their mission to ascertain the fate of the lamented Sir John Franklin. The first navigator who penetrated to Arctic polar regions was Sebastian Cabot, who in 1498 sought a north-west passage from Europe to China and the Indies. Considering the date, and the state of navigation at that period, this was perhaps the boldest attempt on record. Scandinavian traditions attribute similar undertakings to the son of the King Kodian, who lived in the seventh century ; to Osher, the Norwegian, in 873; and to the Princes Harold and Magnus, in 1150. Sebastian Cabot reached as high as Hudson's Bay, but a mutiny of his sailors forced him to retrace his steps. In 1500, Gaspard de Cortereal discovered Labrador ; in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby Nova Zembla ; and Chancellor the White Sea, about the same time. Davis visited in 1585 the west coast of Greenland, and two years later he discovered the strait which bears his name. In 1596 Barentz dis- 44 THE OCEAN WORLD. covered Spitsbergen, wliich was again seen by Hendrich Hudson, who sailed up to and beyond tbe eighty-second parallel. Three years later Hudson gave bis name to tbe great Labrador Bay, but be could get no farther. His crew also revolted, and be was left in the ship's launch with his son, seven sailors, and the carpenter, who remained faithful. Thus perished one of our greatest navigators. The Island of Jan Mayen was discovered in 1611 ; the channel which Baffin took for a bay, and which bears his name, was discovered in 1616. Behring discovered, in his first voyage in 1727, the strait which separates Siberia from America ; he sailed through it in 1741, but his ship w T as stranded, and he himself died of scorbutic disease. In the year 1771 the Polar Sea was discovered by Hearne, a fur merchant ; it was explored long after by Mackenzie. From the year 1810, when Sir John Boss, Franklin, and Parry turned their attention to the Arctic regions, these expeditions to the Polar Seas rapidly succeeded each other. In 1827 Parry reached the eighty-second degree of north latitude; and in 1845 Sir John Frank- lin, with the ships Erebus and Terror, and their crews, departed on their last voyage, from which neither he nor his companions ever returned. There is now no doubt that they perished miserably, after having discovered the north-west passage, which Captain M'Clure also discovered, coming from the opposite direction, in 1850. In 1855 the expedition of Dr. Elisha Kane found the sea open from the Pole. The Antarctic Pole had in the meantime attracted the attention of navigators. In 1772 the Dutch captain, Kerguelen, discovered an island which he took for a continent. In 1774 Captain Cook explored these regions up to the seventy-first degree of latitude. James Weddell, in a small whaler, sailed past this parallel in 1823. Biscoe discovered Enderby's Land in 1831. The Zelee and Astrolabe , under the command of Captain Dumont D'Urville, of the French Marine, and the American expedition, under Captain "Wilkes, reached the same region in 1838. The former discovered Adelia's Land. Finally, in 1841 , Sir James Clark Boss, nephew of Sir John Koss, with the Erebus and Terror, penetrated up to the seventy-eighth degree south latitude. Here he discovered the volcanic islands which he named after his ships, and, farther to the south, a new continent or land, which he called Victoria's Land. THE POLAR SEAS. 45 While these efforts were being made to penetrate the ice which surrounds the Antarctic Pole, a region having little which could attract human enterprise, the interests of commerce seemed to call for obstinate and persevering attempts to penetrate to the Arctic Pole. In spite of these numerous expeditions, however, which extend over two centuries, the regions round the North Pole are far from being known to geographers. The fogs and snows which almost always cover them were the source of many errors made by the earlier navi- gators. In his first voyage, made in 1818, Sir John Eoss was led to think that Lancaster Sound was closed by a chain of mountains, which he called the Croker Mountains ; but in the following year Captain Parry, in command of two ships, the Heda and Griper, discovered that this was an error. This celebrated navigator discovered Barrow's Straits, Wellington Channel, and Prince Eegent Inlet; Cornwallis, Sir Byam Martin, and Melville Islands, to which the name of Parry's Archipelago has been given. In this short voyage he gathered more new results than were obtained by his successors during the next forty years. He was the first to traverse these seas. Upon Sir Byam Martin Island he has described the ruins of some ancient habitations of the Esquimaux. He passed the winter on Melville Island. In order to attain his chosen anchorage in Winter's Bay, he was compelled to saw a passage in the ice of a league in length, which involved the labour of three days ; but scarcely were they moored in their chosen harbour than the thermometer fell to eighteen degrees below zero. They carried ashore the ship's boats, the cables, the sails, and log-books. The masts were struck to the maintop ; the rest of the rigging served to form a roof, sloping to the gunwale, with a thick covering of sail-cloth, which formed an admirable shelter from the wind and snow. Number- less precautions were taken against cold and wet under the decks. Stoves and other contrivances maintained a supportable degree of temperature. In each dormitory a false ceiling of impermeable cloth interposed to prevent the collection of moisture on the wooden walls of the ship. The crew were divided into companies, each com pany being under the charge of an officer, charged with the daily inspection of their clothes and cleanliness an essential protection against scurvy. As a measure of precaution, Captain Parry reduced by one-third the ordinary ration of bread; beer and wine. were substi- tuted for spirits ; and citron and lemon drinks were served out daily 46 THE OCEAN WORLD. to the sailors. Game was sometimes substituted to vary a repast worthy of Spartans. As a remedy against ennui, a theatre was fitted up and comedies acted, for which occasions Parry himself composed a vaudeville, entitled "The North-west Passage; or, the End of the Yoyage." During this long night of eighty-four days, the thermo- meter in the saloons marked 28, and outside 35 below zero, and for a few minutes actually reached 47. Some of the sailors had their members frozen, from which they never quite recovered. One day the hut which served as an observatory was discovered to be on fire. A sailor who saved one of the precious instruments lost his hands in the effort ; they were completely frost-bitten in the attempt. Nevertheless, the month of June arrived, and with it the opportu- nity of making excursions in the neighbourhood. It was found that, in Melville Island, the earth was carpeted with moss and herbage, with saxifrages and poppies. Hares, reindeer, the musk-ox, northern geese, plovers, white wolves and foxes, roamed around their haunts, disputing their booty with the crew. Captain Parry could not risk a second winter in this terrible region. He returned home as soon as the thaw left the passage open. In 1821, Captain Parry undertook a second voyage with the Fury and Heda. He visited Hudson's Bay and Fox's Channel. In his third voyage, undertaken in 1824, he was surprised by the frost in Prince Eegent's Channel, and was constrained to pass the winter there. The Fury was dismantled, and, being found unfit for service, Captain Parry was obliged to abandon her and return to England. Accompanied by Sir James Koss, Parry again put to sea in the Hecla, in April, 1826. On his third voyage, on leaving Table Island on the north of Spitzbergen, Parry placed his crew in the two training ships, Enterprise and Endeavour ; the first under his own command, the second under orders of Sir James Ross. Sometimes they sailed, sometimes hauled through the crust of the ice; sometimes the ice, which pierced their shoes, showed itself bristling with points, intersected into valleys and little hills, which it was difficult to scale. In spite of the courage and energy of their crews, the two ships scarcely advanced four miles a day, while the drifting of the ice towards the south led them imperceptibly towards their point of departure. They reached latitude eighty-two degrees forty-five minutes fifteen seconds, however, and this was the extreme point which they attained. THE POLAR SEAS. 47 In the month of May, 1829, Sir John Eoss, accompanied by his nephew, James Clark Eoss, again turned towards the Polar Seas. He entered Prince Eegent's Channel, and there he found the Fury, which had been dismantled and abandoned by Parry, in these regions, eight years before. The provisions, which the old ship still contained, were quite a providential resource to Eoss's crews. The distinguished navigator explored the Boothian Peninsula, and passed four years con- secutively in Port Felix, without being able to disengage his vessel, the Victory. This gave him ample leisure to become familiar with the Esquimaux. Sir John Eoss, in his account of this long sojourn in polar countries, has recorded many conversations with the natives, which our space does not permit us to quote. From this terrible position he was extricated, and emerged with his crew from this icy prison, when all hope of his return had been abandoned. After being exposed to a thousand dangers, Eoss and his crew were at last observed by a whaling ship, which received them on board, after many efforts to attract attention. On learning that the ship which had saved them was the Isabella, formerly commanded by Captain Eoss, he made himself known. " But Captain Eoss has been dead two years," was the reply. We need not repeat here the enthusiastic reception Captain Eoss and his companions met with on their arrival in London. During an excursion made by the nephew of the Commander (after- wards Sir James Clark Eoss), he very closely approached the North Magnetic Pole. This was at eight o'clock on the morning of the 1st of June, 1831, on the west coast of Boothia. The dip of the magnetic needle was nearly vertical, being eighty-nine degrees fifty- nine seconds one minute short of ninety degrees. The site was a low flat shore, rising into ridges from fifty to sixty feet high, and about a mile inland. Contrary to the judgment of many officers of experience in polar explorations, the last and most fatal of all the expeditions was under- taken by Sir John Franklin, with one hundred and thirty-seven picked officers and men, in the ships Erebus and Terror. The adventurers left Sheerness on the 26th of May, 1846, the ships having been strength- ened in every conceivable way, and found in everything calculated to secure the safety of the expedition. On the 22nd of July the 48 THE OCEAN WORLD. ships were spoken by the whaler Enterprise, and, four' ( clays later, they were sighted by the Prince of Wales, of Hull, moored to an ice- berg, waiting an opening to enter Lancaster Sound. There the veil dropped over the ships and their unhappy crews. In 1848, their fate began to excite a lively interest in the public mind. Expedition in search of them succeeded expedition, at immense cost, sent both by the English and American authorities, and by Lady Franklin her- self, some of which penetrated the Polar Seas through Behring's Straits, while the majority took Baffin's Bay. In 1850, Captains Ommaney and Penny discovered, at the entrance of Wellington Channel, some vestiges of Franklin, which led to another expedition in 1857, which was got up by private enterprise, of which Captain M'Clintock had the command. Guided by the indications collected in the previous expedition, and intelligence gathered from the Esqui- maux by Dr. Eae in his land expedition, Captain M'Clintock in the yacht Fox discovered, on the 6th of May, 1859, upon the north point of King William's Land, a cairn or heap of stones. Several leaves of parch- ment, which were buried under the stones, bearing date the 28th of April, 1848, solved the fatal enigma. The first, dated the 24th of May, 1847, gave some details ending with " all well." The papers had been dug up twelve months later to record the death of Franklin, on the llth of June, 1847. The survivors are supposed to have been on their way to the mouth of the Eiver Back, but they must have sunk under the terrible hardships to which they were exposed, in addition to cold and hunger. In September, 1859, Captain M'Clintock returned to England, bringing with him many relics of our lost countrymen, found in the theatre of their misfortunes. It only remains to us to say a few words on the latest voyages undertaken in the Polar Seas. After the return of Captain M'Clin- tock, in 1850, Captain M'Clure, leaving Behring's Straits, discovered the north-west passage between Melville and Baring's Island, which passage had been sought for without success during so many ages. He saw the thermometer descend fifty degrees below zero. In the month of October, 1854, he returned to England, and at a subsequent period it was ascertained with certainty that, before his death, Franklin knew of the other passage which exists to the north of America, to the south of Victoria Land, and Wollaston. THE POLAR SEAS. 49 The expedition of Dr. Kane entered Smith's Strait in 1853, and advanced towards the north upon sledges drawn by dogs ; the mean temperature, which ranged between thirty degrees and forty degrees below zero, fell at last to fifty degrees. At eleven degrees from the Pole they found two Esquimaux villages, called Etah and Peterovik, then an immense glacier. A detachment, conducted by Lieutenant Morton, discovered, beyond the eightieth degree of latitude, an open channel inhabited by innumerable swarms of birds, consisting of swallows, ducks, and gulls, which delighted them by their shrill, piercing cries. Seals (plioca) enjoyed themselves on the floating ice. In ascending the banks, they met with flowering plants, such as Lychnis, Hesperis, &c. On the 24th of June, Morton hoisted the flag of the Antarctic, which had before this seen the ice of the South Pole, on Cape Independence, situated beyond eighty-one degrees. To the north stretched the open sea. On the left was the western bank of the Kennedy Channel, which seemed to terminate in a chain of mountains, the principal peak rising from nine thousand to ten thousand feet, which was named Mount Parry. The expedition re- turned towards the south, and reached the port of Uppernavick exhausted with hunger, where it was received on board an American ship. Dr. Kane, weakened by his sufferings, from which he never quite recovered, died in 1857. We cannot conclude this rapid sketch of events connected with the expeditions to the Arctic Pole without noting a geological fact of great and singular interest. When opportunities have presented themselves of examining the rocks in the regions adjoining the North Pole, it has been found that great numbers belong to the coal measures. Such is the case in Melville Island and Prince Patrick's Island. Under the ice which covers the soil in these islands coal exists, with all the fossil vegetable debris which invariably accompany it. This shows that in the coal period of geology, the North Pole was covered with the rich and abundant vegetation whose remains constitute the coal-fields of the present day ; and proves to demonstration that the temperature of these regions was, at one period of the earth's history, equal to that of equatorial countries of the present day. What a wonderful change in the temperature of these regions is thus indicated ! It is, indeed, a strange contrast to find coal formations under the soil covered by the polar ice. Let us suppose that human industry should dream of E 50 THE OCEAN WOELD. establishing itself in these countries, and drawing from the earth the combustible so needed to make it habitable, thus furnishing the means of overcoming the rigorous climatic conditions of these inhospitable regions. The Antarctic Pole is probably surrounded by an icy canopy not less than two thousand five hundred miles in diameter ; and numerous circumstances lead to the conclusion that the vast mass has diminished since 1774, when the region was visited by Captain Cook. The Ant- arctic region can only be approached during the summer, namely, in December, January, and February. The first navigator who penetrated the Antarctic circle was the Dutch captain, Theodoric de Gheritk, whose vessel formed part of the squadron commanded* by Simon de Cordes, destined for the East Indies. In January, 1600, a tempest having dispersed the squadron, Captain Gheritk was driven as far south as the sixty-fourth parallel, where he observed a coast which reminded him of Norway. It was mountainous, covered with snow, stretching from the coast to the Isles of Solomon. The report of Simon de Cordes was received with great incredulity, and the doubts raised were only dissipated when the New South Shetland Islands were definitely recognized. The idea of an Antarctic continent is, however, one of the oldest conceptions of speculative geography, and one which mariners and philosophers alike have found it most difficult to relinquish. The existence of a southern continent seemed to them to be the necessary counterpoise to the Arctic land. The Terra Australis incognita is marked on all the maps of Mercator, round the South Pole, and when the Dutch officer, Kerguelen, discovered, in 1772, the island which bears his name, he quoted this idea of Mercator as the motive which suggested the voyage. In 1774, Captain Cook ventured up to and beyond the seventy-first degree of latitude under the one hundred and ninth degree west longitude. He traversed a hundred and eighty leagues, between the fiftieth degree and sixtieth degree of south latitude, without finding the land of which mariners had spoken : this led him to conclude that mountains of ice, or the great fog-banks of the region, had been mistaken for a continent. Nevertheless, Cook clung to the idea of the existence of a southern continent. " I firmly believe," he says, " that near the Pole there is land where most part of the ice is THE POLAR SEAS. 51 formed which is spread over the vast Southern Ocean. I cannot believe that the ice could extend itself so far if it had not land and I venture to say land of considerable extent to the south. I believe, nevertheless, that the greater part of this southern continent ought to lie within the Polar Circle, where the sea is so encumbered with ice as to be unapproachable. The danger run in surveying a coast in these unknown seas is so great, that I dare to say no one will venture to go farther than I have, and that the land that lies to the south will always remain unknown. The fogs are there too dense ; the snowstorms and tempests too frequent ; the cold too severe ; all the dangers of navigation too numerous. The appearance of the coast is the most horrible that can be imagined. The country is condemned by nature to remain unvisited by the sun, and buried under eternal hoar frost. After this report, I believe that we shall hear no more of a southern continent." This description of these desolate regions, to which the great navigator might have applied the words of Pliny, "Pars mundi a natura damnata et densa mersa caligine" only excited the courage of his successors. In our days, several expeditions have been fitted out for the express survey of regions which may be characterised as the abode of cold, silence, and death. In 1833, a free passage opened itself into the Antarctic Sea. The Scottish whaling ship, commanded by James "Weddell, entered the pack ice, and penetrated it in pursuit of seals ; but having, by chance, found the sea open on his course, he forced his way up to seventy-four degrees south latitude, and under the thirty-fourth degree of longitude, but the season was too advanced, and he and his crew retraced their steps. The voyage of Captain Weddell caused a great sensation, and suggested the possibility of more serious expeditions. Twelve years later three great expeditions were fitted out : one, under Dumont D'Urville, of the French Marine ; an American expedition, under Captain Wilkes, of the "United States Navy; and an English ex- pedition, under Sir James Clark Eoss. Dumont D'Urville, who perished so miserably in the railway catastrophe at Versailles, in 1842, passed the Straits of Magellan on the 9th of January, 1838, having under his command the two corvettes Astrolabe and ZeUe. He expected to find it as Weddell had described, and that, after passing the first icy barrier, he should find an open sea before him. But he was soon compelled to renounce this E 2 52 THE OCEAN WOKLD. hope. The floating icebergs became more and more closely packed and dangerous. The southern icebergs do not circulate in straits and channels already formed, like those of the North Pole, but in enormous detached blocks which hug the land. Sometimes in shallow water they form belts parallel to the base of the cliffs, intersected by a small number of sinuous narrow channels. These icy cliffs present a face more or less disintegrated as they approximate to the rocky shore. The blocks of ice form at first huge prisms, or tabular, regular masses of a whitish paste ; but they get used up by degrees, and rounded off and separated under the action of the waves, which chafe them, and their colour becomes more and more limpid and bluish. They ascend freely towards the north, in spite of the winds and currents which carry them in the contrary direction. One year with another these floating icebergs accumulate with very striking differences, and it is only by a rare chance that they open up a free passage such as Captain Weddell had discovered. These floating islands of ice have been met with in thirty-five degrees south latitude, and even as high as Cape Horn. The two French ships frequently found themselves shut up in the icebergs, which continued to press upon them, and driven before the north winds, until the south wind again dispersed their vast masses, enabling them to issue from their prison in health and safety. In some cases D'Urville found it necessary to force his ship through fields of ice by which he was surrounded and imprisoned, and to cut his way by force through the accumulating blocks, using the corvette as a sort of battering-ram. In 1838 he recognized, about fifty leagues from the South Orkney Isles, a coast, to which he gave the name of Louis Philippe's and Joinville's Land. This coast is covered with enormous masses of ice, which seemed to rise to the height of two thousand six hundred feet. Boss discovered still more lofty peaks, such as Mount Penny and Mount Haddington, rising about seven thousand feet. The English navigator states that this land is only a great island. The crew of D'Urville's ship being sickly and over- worked, he returned to the port of Chili, whence he again issued for the South Pole in the following January. On this occasion his approach was made from a point diametrically opposite to the former. He very soon found himself in the middle of the ice. He discovered within the Antarctic Circle land, to which he THE POLAR SEAS. 53 gave the name of Adelia's Land. The long and lofty cliffs of this island or continent he describes as being surrounded by a belt of islands of ice at once numerous and threatening. D'Urville did not hesitate to navigate his corvettes through the middle of the band of enormous icebergs which seemed to guard the Pole and forbid his approach to it. For some moments his vessels were so surrounded that they had reason to fear, from moment to moment, some terrible shock, some irreparable disaster. In addition to this, the sea produces around these floating icebergs, eddies, which were not unlikely to draw on the ship to the destruction with which it was threatened at every instant. It was in passing at their base that D'Urville was able to judge of the height of these icy cliffs. " The walls of these blocks of ice," he says, " far exceed our masts and riggings in height ; they overhang our ships, whose dimensions seem ridiculously curtailed. We seem to be traversing the narrow streets of some city of giants. At the foot of these gigantic monuments we perceive vast caverns hollowed by the waves, which are engulfed there with a crashing tumult. The sun darts his oblique rays upon the immense walls of ice as if it were crystal, presenting effects of light and shade truly magical and startling. From the summit of these mountains, numerous brooks, fed by the melting ice produced by the summer heat of a January sun in these regions, throw themselves in cascades into the icy sea. " Occasionally these icebergs approach each other so as to conceal the land entirely, and we only perceive two walls of threatening ice, whose sonorous echoes send back the word of command of the officers. The corvette which followed the Astrolabe appeared so small, and its masts so slender, that the ship's crew were seized with terror. For nearly an hour we only saw vertical walls of ice." Ultimately they reached a vast basin, formed on one side by the chain of floating islands which they had traversed, and on the other by high land rising three and four thousand feet, rugged and undulating on the surface, but clothed over all with an icy mantle, which was rendered dazzlingly imposing in its whiteness by the rays of the sun. The officers could only advance by the ship's boats through a labyrinth of icebergs up to a little islet lying opposite to the coast. They touched the land at this islet ; the French flag was planted, possession was taken of the new continent, and, in proof of possession, some portions 54 THE OCEAX WORLD. of rock were torn from the scarped and denuded cliffs. These rocks are composed of quartzite and gneiss. The southern continent, there- fore, belongs to the primitive formation, while the northern region belongs in great part to the transition, or coal formation. According to the map of Adelia's Land, traced by D'Urville over an extent of thirty leagues of country, the region is one of death and desolation, without any trace of vegetation. A little more to the north, the French navigator had a vague vision on the white lines of the horizon of another land, which he named Cote Clarie, or Coast Clear, the existence of which was soon confirmed by the American expedition under Commodore Wilkes. This officer has explored the southern land on a larger scale than any other navigator, but he suffered himself to be led into error by the dense fogs of the region, and has laid down coast lines on his map where Sir James Eoss subsequently found only open sea an error which has very unjustly thrown discredit on the whole expedition. The English expedition entered this region on Christmas Day, 1840, which was passed by Eoss in a strong gale, with constant snow or rain. Soon after, the first icebergs were seen, having flat tabular summits, in some instances two miles in circumference, bounded on all sides by perpendicular cliffs. On New Year's Day, 1841, the ships crossed the Antarctic Circle, and reached the edge of the pack ice, which they entered, after skirting it for several days. On the 5th, the pack was passed through, amid blinding snow and thick fog, which on clearing away revealed an open sea, and on the llth of January land was seen directly ahead of the ships. A coast line rose in lofty snow-covered peaks at a great distance. On a nearer view, this coast is thus described : ' It was a beautifully clear evening, and two magnificent ranges of mountains rose to elevations varying from seven thousand to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. The glaciers which filled their intervening valleys, and which descended from near the mountain summits, projected in many places several miles into the sea, and terminated in lofty perpendicular cliffs. In a few places the rocks broke through their icy covering, by which alone we could be assured that lava formed the nucleus of this, to all appearance, enormous iceberg. This antarctic land was named Victoria Land, in honour of the Queen. It was coasted up to latitude seventy-eight degrees south, and near to this a magnificent THE POLAR SEAS. 55 yolcanic mountain presented itself, rising twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, which emitted name and smoke in splendid profusion. The flanks of this gigantic mountain were clothed with snow almost to the mouth of the crater from which the flaming smoke issued. At a short distance, Eoss discovered the cone of an extinct, or, at least, inactive volcano nearly as lofty. He gave to these two volcanoes the names of his vessels, Erebus and Terror (Fig. 9) names perfectly in harmony with the surrounding desolation. The Fig. 9. Mounts Erebus and Terror. ice-covered cliffs rose about a hundred and ninety feet high, and appear to be about three hundred feet deep, soundings being found at about four hundred fathoms. In the distance, towards the south, a range of lofty mountains were observed, which Eoss named Mount Parry, in honour of his old commander. When Eoss retraced his steps, the expedition had advanced as far as the seventy-ninth degree of south latitude. It may be said of polar countries, that they form a transition state 56 THE OCEAN WOKLD. between land and sea, for water is always present, although in a solid state ; the surface is always at a very low temperature ; snow does not melt as it falls, and the sea is thus sometimes covered with a continu- ous sheet of frozen snow ; sometimes with enormous floating hlocks of ice which are driven by the currents. Meeting with these floating masses of ice is one of the dangers of polar navigation. Captain Scoresby has given a very detailed description of the different kinds of ice met with in the Arctic Seas. The ice-fields of this writer form extensive masses of solid water, of which the eye cannot trace the limits, some of them being thirty-five leagues in length and ten broad, with a thickness of seven to eight fathoms ; but generally these ice-fields rise only four to six feet above the water, and reach from three to four fathoms beneath the surface. Scoresby has seen these ice-fields forming in the open sea. When the first crystals appear, the surface of the ocean is cold enough to prevent snow from melting as it falls. On the approach of congelation the surface solidifies, and seems as if covered with oil ; small circles are formed, which press against each other, and are finally soldered together until they form a vast field of ice, the thickness of which increases from the lower surface. The water produced from melted ice is perfectly fresh the result of a well-known physical cause. When a saline solution like sea water is congealed by cold, pure water alone passes into the solid state, the saline solution becomes more concentrated, increases in density, and, sinking to the bottom, remains liquid. Blocks of ice, therefore, in the Polar Seas, are always available for domestic use. There are, however, salt blocks of ice, which are distinguished from fresh-water ice by their opaqueness and their dazzling white colour : this saltness is due to the sea water retained in its interstices. Scoresby amused himself sometimes by shaping lenses of ice, with which he is said to have set fire to gunpowder, much to the astonish- ment of his crew. The ice-fields, which are formed in higher latitudes, are driven to- wards the south by winds and currents, but sooner or later the action of the waves breaks them up into fragments. The edges of the broken icebergs are thus often rising and continually changing : these asperities and protuberances are called hummocks by English navi- gators; they give to the polar ice an odd, irregular appearance. THE POLAK SEAS. 57 Hummocks form themselves of the stray, broken icebergs which come in contact with each other at their edges, and thus form vast rafts, the pieces of which may exceed a hundred yards in length. When these icebergs are separated by open spaces, through which vessels can be navigated, the pack ice is said to be open. But it often happens that mountains of ice occur partly submerged, where one edge is retained under the principal mass, while the other is above the water. Scoresby once passed over a calf, as English mariners call these icy mountains, but he trembled while he did so, dreading lest it should throw his vessel, himself, and crew into the air before he could pass it. The aspect of the ice-fields varies in a thousand ways. Here it is an incoherent chaos resembling some volcanic rocks, with crevices in all directions, bristling with unshapely blocks piled up at random ; there it is a strongly-marked plain, an immense mosaic formed of vast blocks of ice of every age and thickness, the divisions of which are marked by long ridges of the most irregular forms ; sometimes re- sembling walls composed of great rectangular blocks, sometimes re- sembling chains of hills, with great rounded summits. In the spring, when a thaw sets in, and the fields begin to break up, the pieces of light ice which unite the great blocks into unique masses are the first to melt ; the several blocks then separate, and the motion of the water soon disperses them, and the imprisoned ships find a free passage. But a day of calm is still sufficient to unite the dispersed masses, which oscillate and grind against each other with a strange noise, which sailors compare to the yelping of young dogs. When a ship is shut up in one of these floating ice-fields, inexpli- cable changes sometimes occur in the vast incoherent aggregations. Vessels, which think themselves immovable, are found in a few hours to have completely reversed their positions. Two ships shut in at a short distance from each other were driven many leagues without being able to perceive any change in the surrounding ice. At other times ships are drawn with the floating ice-fields, like the white bears, who make long voyages at sea upon these monster vehicles. In 1777 the Dutch vessel, the Wilhelmina, was driven with some other whaling ships from eighty degrees north back to sixty-two degrees, in sight of the Iceland coast. During this terrible journey the ships were broken up one after the other. More than two hundred persons perished, and the remainder reached land with difficulty. .58 THE OCEAN WORLD. Lieutenant De Haven, navigating in search of Sir John Franklin, was caught in the ice in the middle of the channel in Wellington Strait. During the nine months which he remained in captivity, he drifted nearly thirteen hundred miles towards the south ; and the ship Resolute, abandoned by Captain Kellet in an ice-field of immense extent, was drifted towards the south with this vast mass to a much greater distance. Some curious speculations are hazarded by Dr. Maury, arising out of his investigations of winds and currents, facts being revealed which indicate the existence of a climate, mild by comparison, within the Antarctic Circle. These indications are a low barometer, a high degree of aerial rarefaction, and strong winds from the north. " The winds," he says, u were the first to whisper of this strange state of things, and to intimate to us that the Antarctic climates are in winter very unlike the Arctic for rigour and severity." The result of an immense mass of observation on the polar and equatorial winds reveals a marked difference in atmospherical movements north, as compared with the same movements south of the Equator ; the equatorial winds of the northern hemisphere being only in excess between the tenth and thirteenth parallel, while those of the southern hemisphere are dominant over a zone of forty-five degrees, or from thirty-five degrees south to ten degrees north. " The fact that the influence of the polar indraught upon the winds should extend from the Antarctic to the parallel of forty degrees south, while that from the Arctic is so feeble as scarcely to be felt in fifty degrees north, is indicative enough as to the difference in degree of aerial rare- faction over the two regions. The significance of the fact is enhanced by the consideration that the ( brave west winds,' which are bound to the place of greatest rarefaction, rush more violently and constantly along to their destination than do the counter-trades of the northern hemi- sphere. Why should these polar-bound winds differ so much in strength and prevalence, unless there be a much more abundant supply of caloric, and, consequently, a higher degree of rarefaction, at one pole than at the other r" That this is the case is confirmed by all known barometrical obser- vations, which are very much lower in the Antarctic than in the Arctic, and Dr. Maury thinks this is doubtless due to the excess in Antarctic regions of aqueous vapour and this latent heat. THE POLAE SEAS. 59 " There is rarefaction in the Arctic regions. The winds show it, the barometer attests it, and the fact is consistent with the Kussian theory of a Polynia in polar waters. Within the Antarctic Circle, on the contrary, the winds bring air which has come over the water for the distance of hundreds of leagues all around; consequently, a large portion of atmospheric air is driven away from the austral regions by the force of vapour." 60 THE OCEAN WORLD. CHAPTEE III. LIFE IN THE OCEAN. " See what a lovely shell, small and pure as a pearl, Frail, but a work divine, made so fairly well, With delicate spore and whorl, a miracle of design." TENNYSOX. " THE appearance of the open sea," says Fredol, from whose elegant work this chapter is chiefly compiled, "far from the shore the boundless ocean is to the man who loves to create a world of his own, in which he can freely exercise his thoughts, filled with sublime ideas of the Infinite. His searching eye rests upon the far-distant horizon. He sees there the ocean and the heavens meeting in a vapoury outline, where the stars ascend and descend, appear and dis- appear in their turn. Presently this everlasting change in nature awakens in him a vague feeling of that sadness ' which,' says Hurn- boldt, ' lies at the root of all our heartfelt joys.' " Emotions of another kind and equally serious are produced by the contemplation and study of the habits of the innumerable organized beings which inhabit the great deep. In fact, that immense expanse of water, which we call the sea, is no vast liquid desert ; life dwells in its bosom as it does on dry land. Here this mystery reigns supreme in the midst of its expansions, luxuries, and agitations. It pleases the Creator. It is the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the noblest, and the most incomprehensible of His manifestations. Without life, the world would be as nothing. The beings endowed with it transmit it faithfully to other beings, their children, and their successors, which will be, like them, the depositaries of the same mysterious gift ; the marvellous heritage thus traverses years and hundreds of years without losing its powers ; the globe is redolent with the life which has been LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 61 so bounteously distributed over it. In the words of Laniartine, " We know what produces life, but we know not what it is ;" and this igno- rance is perhaps the powerful attraction which provokes our curiosity and excites us to study. Every living being is animated by two principles, between which a silent but incessant combat is being carried on life, which assimilates, and death, which disintegrates. At first, life is all powerful it lords it over matter ; but its reign is limited. Beyond a certain point its vigour is gradually impaired ; with old age it decays ; and is finally extinguished with time, when the chemical and physical laws seize upon it, and its organization is destroyed. But the elements, though inert at first, are soon reanimated and occupied with a new life. Every plant, every animal is bound up with the past, and is part of the future, for every generation which starts into life is only the corollary upon that which expires, and the prelude of another which is about to be born. Life is the school of death ; death is the foster-mother of life. Life, however, does not always exhibit itself at the moment of its formation. It is visible later, and only after other phenomena. In order to develope itself, a suitable soil or other medium must be pre- pared, and other determinate physical and chemical conditions provided. The presence and diffusion of living beings are no chance products ; they follow rigorously an order of law. Speaking of the higher forms of animal life, the Duke of Argyll says, in his able and satisfactory work, " The Reign of Law," " In all these there is an observed order in the most rigid scientific sense, that is, phenomena in uniform connexion and mutual relations which can be made, and are made, the basis of systematic classification. These classifications are imperfect, not because they are founded on ideal connexions where none exist, but only because they fail in representing adequately the subtle and per- vading order which binds together all living things." The knowledge of fossils has thrown great light upon the regular and progressive development of organization. The evolution of living beings seems to have commenced with the more rudimentary forms ; the more ancient rocks, until very recently, had revealed no traces of life, and what has been revealed tends to confirm this view. In the Cam- brian rocks of Bray Head, county Wicklow, the Oldhamia is a zoophyte of the simplest organization, and the Rhizapods found near the bottom of the Azoic rocks of Canada are the lowest form of living types; G2 THE OCEAN WORLD. and it is only in beds of comparatively recent formation that complex organization exists. Vegetables first snow themselves, and even among these the simplest forms have priority. Animals afterwards appear, which, as we have seen, belong to the least perfect classes. The combinations of life, at first simple, have become more and more complex, until the creation of man, who may be considered the masterpiece of organization. If we expose a certain quantity of pure water to the light" and air in the spring, we should soon see it producing shades of a yellowish or greenish colour. These spots, examined through the microscope, reveal thousands of vegetable agglomerates. Presently thousands of animalcules appear, which swim about among the floating masses, nourishing themselves with its substance. Other animalcules then appear, which, in their turn, pursue and devour the first. In short, life transforms inanimate into organized matter. Vege- tables appear first, then come herbivorous animals, and then come the carnivorous. Life maintains life. The death of one gives food and development to others, for all are bound up together all assist at the metamorphoses continually occurring in the organic as in the mineral world, the result being general and profound harmony harmony always worthy of admiration. The Creator alone is unchangeable, omnipotent, and permanent ; all else is transition. The inhabitants of the water are much more numerous than those of the solid earth. " Upon a surface less varied than we find on continents," says Humboldt, " the sea contains in its bosom an exuberance of life of which no other portion of the globe could give us any idea. It expands in the north as in the south ; in the east as in the west. The seas, above all, abound with it ; in the bosom of the deep, creatures corresponding and harmonizing with each other sport and play. Among these especially the naturalist finds instruction, and the philosopher subjects for meditation. The changes they undergo only impress upon our minds more and more a sentiment of thankfulness to the Author of the universe." Yes, the ocean in its profoundest depths its plains and its moun- tains, its valleys, its precipices, even in its ruins is animated and embellished by innumerable organized beings. These are at first plants, solitary or social, erect or drooping, spreading into prairies, LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 63 grouped in patches, or forming vast forests in the oceanic valleys. These submarine forests protect and nourish millions of animals which creep, which run, which swim, which sink into the sands, attach themselves to rocks, lodge themselves in crevices, which construct dwellings for themselves, which seek for or fly from each other, which pursue or fight, caress each other lovingly, or devour each other without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks somewhere that our terrestrial forests do not maintain nearly so many living beings as those which swarm in the bosom of the sea. The ocean, which for man is the region of asphyxia and death, is for millions of animals the region of life and health : there is enjoyment for myriads in its waves ; there is happiness on its banks ; there is the blue above all. The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, animal or vegetable, by its temperature, by its density, by its saltness, by its bitterness, by the never-ceasing agitation of its waves, and by the rapidity of its currents. We have seen in preceding chapters that the sea only freezes under intense cold, and then only at the surface, and that at the depth of five hundred fathoms the same permanent temperature exists in all latitudes. On the other hand, it is agreed that the agitations produced by the most violent storms are never felt beyond the depth of twelve or thirteen fathoms. From this it follows that animals and vege- tables, by descending more or less, according to the cold or disturbing movements, can always reach a medium which agrees with their constitutions. The hosts of the sea are distinguished by a peculiar softness. Certain pelagic plants present only a very weak, feeble consistence ; a great number are transformed by ebullition into a sort of jelly. The flesh of marine animals is more or less flaccid ; many seem to consist of a diaphanous mucilage. The skeleton of the more perfect species is more or less flexible and cartilaginous ; and it rarely attains, as to weight and consistency, the strength of bone exhibited by terrestrial vertebrate animals. Nevertheless, both the shells and coral produced in the bosom of the ocean are remarkable for their stony solidity. Among marine bodies, in short, we find at once the softest and hardest of organized substances. The separation of organized beings, nourished by the ocean, is 64 THE OCEAX WOKLD. subjected to certain fixed laws. We never find on the coast, except by evident accident, the same species that we meet with far from the shore ; nor on the surface, creatures whose habits lead them to hide in the depths of ocean. What immense varieties of size, shape, form, and colour, from the nearly invisible vegetation which serves to nourish the small zoophytes and mollusks, to the long, slender algaB of fifty and even five hundred yards in length ! How vast the disparity between the microscopic infusoria and the gigantic whale ! " We find in the sea," says Lacepede, " unity and diversity, which constitute its beauty ; grandeur and simplicity, which give it sub- limity ; puissance and immensity, which command our wonder." In the following pages we shall figure and describe many inhabi- tants of the sea ; but how many remain still to figure and describe ! During more than two thousand years research has been multiplied, and succeeded by research without interruption. " But how vast the field," as Lamarck observes, " which Science has still to cultivate, in order to carry the knowledge already acquired to the degree of per- fection of which it is susceptible !" " When the tide retires from the shore, the sea leaves upon the coast some few of the numberless beings which it bears in its bosom. In the first moments of its retreat, the naturalist may collect a crowd of substances, vegetable and animal, with their various characteristic colours and properties. The inhabitants of the coast find there their food, their commerce, and their occupations. At low water the nearest villages and hamlets send their contingents, old and young, men, women, and children, to the harvest. Some apply themselves to gathering the riband seaweed (Zostera), the membranous Viva, the sombre brown Fucus vesiculosus, formerly a source of great wealth to the dwellers by the sea, being then much used in making kelp ; others gather the small shells left on the sands ; boys mount upon the rocks in search of whelks (Buccinum), mussels (Mytilus), detach limpets (Patella), and other edible marine animals, from the rocks to which they have attached themselves. On some coasts, shells, as Mactra, Cytheria, and Bucardium, are sought for their beauty. By turning the stones, or by sounding the crevices of the rocks with a hook at the end of a lath, polypes and calmars are sometimes surprised sometimes even sea and conger eels, which have sought refuge there ; while the LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 65 pools, left here and there by the retiring tide, are dragged by nets of very small mesh, in which the smaller crustaceous mollusks and small fish are secured." In the Mediterranean and other inland seas, where the tide is almost inappreciable, there exist a great number of animals and vegetables belonging to the deep sea, which the waves or currents very rarely leave upon the sea shore. There are others so fugitive, or which attach themselves so firmly to the rocks, that we can watch them only in their habitats. It is necessary to study them floating on the surface of the waves, or in their mysterious retirements. Hence the necessity that naturalists should study the living productions of the salt water even in the bosom of the ocean, and not on the sea shore. The means generally employed for this purpose is a drag-net, sounding-line, and other engines suitable for scraping the bottom, and breaking the harder rocks. In a voyage which Milne Edwards made to the coast of Sicily, he formed the idea of employing an apparatus invented by Colonel Paulin, which consisted of a metallic casque pro- vided with a visor of glass, and consequently transparent, which fixed itself round the neck by means of a copper collar made water-tight by stuffing a diving-bell, in short, in miniature. It communicated with an air-pump by means of a flexible tube. Four men were employed in serving the pump, two exercising it while the other two rested themselves. Other men held the extremity of a cord, which was passed over a pulley attached at a higher elevation, and enabled them to hoist up the diver with the necessary rapidity in emergencies. A vigilant observer held in his hand a small signal cord. The immersion of the diver was facilitated by heavy leaden shoes, which assisted him at the same time to maintain his vertical position at the bottom. M. Edwards made the descent with this apparatus in three fathoms water with perfect success. He was thus enabled to study, in their most hidden and most inaccessible retreats, the radiate animals, mollusks, crustaceans, and annelids, especially their larvss and eggs, and by his descriptions to contribute most essentially to make known the functions, manners, and mode of development of certain inhabitants of the sea, whose sojourn and habits would seem to sequestrate them for ever from our observation. Another and easier mode of studying the living creatures sheltered r 66 THE OCEAN WOKLD. by the sea was first suggested by M. Charles des Moulins of Bordeaux, in 1830. The aquarium, which is charged with fresh or salt water, according to the beings it is intended to contain, serves the same purpose for the inhabitants of the deep which the aviary does for the birds of the air cages of glass being used in place of iron wire or wicker-work, and water in place of atmospheric air. When a globe is filled with fresh water, and with mollusks, crustaceans, or fishes, it is observed, after a few days, that the water loses its transparency and purity, and becomes slightly corrupt. It necessarily follows that the water must be changed from time to time. Changing the water, however, causes much suffering, and even death to the animals. Besides, the new water does not always present the same composition, the same aeration, or the same temperature with that which is replaced. To obviate this defect, and taking a leaf out of Nature's book, M. Moulins proposed to put into the vase a certain number of aquatic plants floating or submerged duckweed, for example which would apt upon the water in a direction inverse to that of the animals inhabiting it. It is known that vegetables .assimilate carbon, while decomposing the carbonic acid produced by the respiration of animals, thus disengaging the oxygen indispensable to animal life. In this simple manner was the necessary change of water obviated. The same happy idea has been successfully applied to salt water, and aquariums for salt-water plants and animals have been proposed on a great scale. That of the Zoological Gardens of Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne, inaugurated in 1861, is perhaps the largest in the world. It is a solid stone building of fifty yards in length by about twelve broad, presenting a range of forty reservoirs of Angers slate, running north and south. The reservoirs are nearly cubical, presenting in front the strong glass of Saint Gobain, which permits of the interior being seen. They are lighted from above ; but the light is weak, greenish, uniform, and consequently mysterious and gloomy, giving a pretty exact imitation of the submarine light some fathoms down. Each reservoir contains about two hundred gallons of water. It is furnished with rocks disposed a little in the form of an amphitheatre, and in a picturesque manner. Upon the rocks various species of marine vegetables are planted. The bottom is of shingle, gravel, and sand, in order to give certain animals a sufficiently natural retreat. LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 67 Ten of these reservoirs are intended for marine animals. The water employed is never changed, but it is kept in continual agitation by circulation, produced by a current of water led from the great pipe which feeds the Bois de Boulogne. This water, being subjected to a strong pressure, compresses a certain portion of air, which, being per- mitted to act on a portion of the sea water contained in a closed cylinder placed below the level of the aquarium, makes it ascend, and enter with great force into a reservoir, into which it is thrown from a small jet. The sea water thus pressed absorbs a portion of the air, which is drawn with it into the reservoir. A tube placed in a corner of the reservoir receives the overflow, and conducts it into a closed carbon filter, whence it passes into a gravelly underground reservoir, returning again to the closed cylinder. The water is once more subjected to the pressure of air, and again ascends to the aquarium. The cylinder being underground, a temperature equal to about sixteen degrees Cent., which is nearly the uniform temperature of the ocean, is easily maintained. During winter, the aquarium is heated artificially. r 2 68 THE OCEAN WOULD. CHAPTEE IV. ZOOPHYTES. " Nature is nowhere more perfect than in her smaller works." " Natura nusquam magis qvuliu in minirais tola est." FLINT. IT will not be out of place here to offer some remarks on animals in general, including the whole kingdom as well as the great divisions which form the subject of this particular volume. But considering the vastness of the subject, and our imperfect knowledge of the whole animal series as a subject of study, nothing is more difficult than to seize upon the real analogies between beings, of types so varied, of organizations so dissimilar. The arrangements which naturalists have established in order to study and describe animals the divisions, classes, orders, families, genera, and species are admirable contrivances for facilitating the study of creatures numerous as the sands of the sea shore. Without this precious means of logical distribution, the indi- vidual mind would recoil before the task of describing the innumerable phalanges of contemporary animal life. But the reader must never forget that these methodical divisions are pure fictions, due to human invention : they form no part of nature ; for has not Linnaeus told us that nature makes no leaps, natura non facit saltus ? Nature passes in a manner almost insensibly from one stage of organization to another, altogether irrespective of human systems. Moreover, when we come to watch the confines of the animal and vegetable kingdom, we realise how difficult it is to seize the precise line of demarcation which separates the great kingdoms of Nature. We have seen in the "Vegetable World" germs of the simplest organization, as in the Cryptogamia, spores, as in the Algao, and ZOOPHYTES. G9 fruitful corpuscles, as in the Mosses, which seem to be invested -with some of the characteristics of animal life, for they appear to be gifted with organs of locomotion, namely, vibratile cilia, by means of which they execute movements which are to all appearance quite voluntary. Side by side with these are vegetable germs and fecundating corpuscles, known as antherozoides among the Algae, Mosses, and Ferns, which, when floating in water, go and come like the inferior animals, seeking to penetrate into cavities, withdrawing themselves, returning again, and again introducing themselves, and exhibiting all the signs of an apparent effort. Let us compare the Infusoria, or even the Polypi and Gorgons, with these shifting vegetable organisms, and say if it is easy to determine, without considerable study, which is the plant and which the animal. The precise line of demarcation which it is so desirable to establish between the two kingdoms of Nature is indeed difficult to trace. The word zoophyte, to which this comparison introduces us, seems very happily applied : it is derived from the Greek word f<5W, animal, and (frvrov, plant ; and is, as it seems to us, quite worthy of being retained in Science, because it consecrates and materialises, so to speak, a sort of fusion between the two kingdoms of Nature at their confines. Let us guard ourselves, however, from carrying this idea too far, and, upon the faith of a happy word, altering alto- gether the true relations of created beings. In adopting the name zoophyte, to indicate a great division of the animal kingdom, the reader must not imagine that there is any ambiguity about the creatures designated, or that they belong at once to both kingdoms, or that they might be ranged indifferently in the one or the other. Zoophytes are animals, and nothing but animals ; the justification for using a designation which signifies animal-plant is, that many of them have an exterior resemblance to plants ; that they divide themselves by offshoots, as some plants do, and are sometimes crowned with organs tinted with lively colours, like some flowers. This analogy between plants and zoophytes is nowhere more appa- rent than in the coral. Kooted in the soil and upon rocks, the form of its branches many times subdivided, above all, the coloured appendages which At certain periods so closely resemble the corolla of a flower, have all the form and appearance of plants. Until the eighteenth century most naturalists classed the coral as Linnaeus did, without the 70 THE OCEAN WORLD. least hesitation, with analogous creations in the vegetable world. Keaumur long contended for the contrary opinion ; but it is only in our day that the animal nature of the coral is satisfactorily esta- blished. The sea anemone may be cited as another striking example of the resemblance borne by certain inferior organisms to vegetables. We hold, then, that we are justified in using the word zoophyte to designate the beings which now occupy our attention. We shall not surprise our readers by telling them that the structure of the zoophyte, especially in its inferior orders, is excessively simple. They are the first steps in the scale of animal life, and in them a purely rudimentary organization was to be expected. In these beings true types of animal life the several parts of the body, in place of being dis- posed in pairs on each side of its longitudinal plane, as occurs in animals of a higher organization, are found to radiate habitually round an axis or central point, and this whether in its adult or juvenile state. Zoophytes have not generally an articulate skeleton, either exterior or interior, and their nervous system, where it exists, is very slightly developed. The organs of the senses, other than those of touch, are altogether absent in the greater part of beings which belong to this, the lowest class of the last division of the animal kingdom. Several questions arise here : Has the zoophyte sentiment, feeling, perception ? Has it consciousness, sense, sensibility ? The question is insoluble; it is an abyss of obscurity. The coral, or rather the aggregation of living beings which bear the name, are attached to the rock which has seen their birth, and which will witness their death : the infusoria, of microscopic dimensions, which revolve perpetually in a circle mfinitesimaUy small ; the Amoebae, the marvellous Proteus, which in the space of a minute changes its form a hundred times under the surprised eyes of the observer, are, in truth, mere atoms charged with life. Yet all these beings have an existence to appearance purely vege- tative. In their obscure and blind impulse, have they consciousness or instinct ? Do they know what takes place at the three-thousandth part of an inch from their microscopic bodies ? To the Creator alone does the knowledge of this mystery belong. It would be foreign to the object of this work to enter into* minute division of the innumerable creatures which swarm on the ocean and on its confines. We shall perhaps best consult the convenience of ZOOPHYTES. 71 our readers by adopting the following simple arrangement of these animals into I. PROTOZOA, including the Spongiadse, Infusoria, and Fora- minifera. II. POLYPIFERA, including the Hydrse, Sertularia, and Penna- tularise. III. ECHINODERMATA, or Sea-urchins and Star-fishes. Our space will prevent our doing more than presenting to the reader in succession the most characteristic types of each of these groups. I. THE PEOTOZOA. The Protozoares represent animal life reduced to its most simple expression. They are organized atoms, mere animated and moving points, living sparks. As they are the simplest forms of animal life as regards their structure, so also they are the smallest. Their micro- scopic dimensions hide them from our view. The discovery of the microscope was a necessary step to our becoming acquainted with these beings, whose existence was ignored by the ancient world, and only revealed in the seventeenth century by the discovery of the microscope. When armed with this marvellous instrument, applied to examine the various liquid mediums as when Leuwenhoek, for example, ap- plied the magnifying glass to the inspection of stagnant water, with its infusions of macerated vegetable and animal substances when he scrutinized a drop of water borrowed from the ocean, from rivers, or from lakes, he discovered there a new world a world which will be unveiled in these pages. Some modern writers believe that the Protozoa is a mere cellular organism, that being the principle and end of organization, such as we find it in the cellular vegetable. According to this hypothesis, the Protozoares would be the cellulars of the animal kingdom, as the Algae and Mushrooms are of the vegetable world. This idea is so far wrong, that it has been founded upon the empire of pure theory. " In reality," says Paul Gervais and Yan Beneden, " the animals to which we extend it very rarely resemble elementary cellulars." The tissue of which the bodies of the Protozoa are composed is habitually destitute of cellular structure. They are formed of a sort of animated jelly, amorphous and diaphanous, and have received from Dujardin the name of Sarcoda, or soft-fleshed animals. 72 THE OCEAN WOULD. Infinitely varied in their form, the Protozoares are furnished with vilratile cilia, which are organs of locomotion belonging to the lower annuals inhabiting the liquid element. Their bodies are sometimes naked, sometimes covered with a siliceous, chalky, or membranous cuirass. They are divided into two great classes, the Rliizopoda and Infusoria. SPONGIA. The Sponge is a natural production, which has been known from times of the highest antiquity. Aristotle, Pliny, and all other writers who occupied themselves with natural history in ancient times, are agreed in according to it a sensitive life. They recognize the curious fact that the sponge evades the hand which tries to seize it, and clings to the rocks on which it is rooted, as if it would resist the efforts made to detach it. Pliny, Dioscorides, and their commentators, even formed the idea that sponges were capable of feeling, that they adhered to their native rock by special force, and that they shrunk from the hand which tried to seize them. They even distinguished males from females. Erasmus, however, criticising Pliny, concludes that he may pass over all he has written upon the sponge. The sponge, in short, was to the ancients something between a plant and an animal. Eondelet, the friend of the celebrated Eabelais, whom the merry curate of Meudon designated under the name of Eondibilis, who was himself a physician and naturalist of Montpellier, denied at first the existence of sensibility in sponges. He originated the idea that these productions belonged to the vegetable world an idea which Tourne- fort, Gaspard Bauhin, Key, and even Linnaeus, in the first editions of his "Systems Naturae," supported by the great authority of their names. Afterwards, influenced by the convincing labours of Trembley and some other observers, Linnaeus withdrew the sponges from the vegetable world. He satisfied himself, in short, that certain poly- piers much resembled sponges in the nature of their parenchyma, and that, on the other hand, the assimilation of sponges with plants was not such as could be maintained. Neuremberg, Peyssonnel, and Trembley maintain the animal nature of sponges, and their views are adopted by Linnaeus, Guettard, Donati, Lamouroux, and Ehrenberg on the Continent, and by Ellis, Fleming, and Grant in England. SPONGIA. 73 They live at the bottom of the seas in five to twenty-five fathoms of water, among the clefts and crevices of the rocks, always adhering and attaching themselves, not only to inorganic bodies, but even growing on vegetables and animals, spreading, erect, or pendent, according to the body which supports them and their natural habit. The power of fixing themselves to other objects, which certain animals possess, is very singular. Nevertheless, it is certain that whole tribes exist consisting of innumerable strictly adherent species, which live and die attached to some rock or other object ; and among these are all polypiers, such as the sponges and corallines. It follows that they are wholly dependent on external agencies for their means of existence. " The poor little creatures," says Alfred Fredol, " re- ceive their nourishment from the wave which washes past them ; they inhale and respire the bitter water all their lives; they are insensible to that which is only the hundredth part of an inch from their mouth." In the months of April and May, these animalcules engender germs, round, yellow, or white, whence proceed certain ovoid granular embryos furnished towards their largest extremity with small vibratile cilia. They are thrown off by the currents, which serve as a stomach, and form swarms of larvae round the polypier. They swim about with a gliding wavy motion, and when they have been some time in the water they usually come to the surface ; but they are also often carried off by the current. During two or three days they seem to seek a convenient place to fix themselves. Once fixed, the larvae loses the cilia, spreads itself out, and takes the form of a flattened gelatinous disk. Its interior organization consists of contractile cellules and numerous spiculae " a tribe," says Gosse, " of the most debateable forms of life, long denied a right to stand in the animal ranks at all, and even still admitted there doubtingly and grudgingly by some excellent natura- lists. Yet such they certainly are, established beyond reasonable controversy as true and proper examples of animal life." It may, then, be safely asserted that all naturalists are now satisfied of the animal nature of sponges, although they represent the lowest and most obscure grade of animal existence, and that so close to the confines of the vegetable world, that it is difficult in some species to determine whether they are on the one side or the other. " Several 74 THE OCEAN WOELD. of them, however," says Mr. Gosse, " if viewed with a lens under water while in a living state, display vigorous currents constantly pouring forth from certain orifices ; and we necessarily infer that the water thus ejected must he constantly taken in through some other channel. On tearing the mass open, we see that the whole substance is perforated in all directions hy irregular canals, leading into each other, of which some are slender, and communicate with the surface hy minute hut numerous pores, and others are wide, and open hy ample orifices ; through the former the water is admitted, through the latter it is ejected." It is not to be denied, however, that these beings constitute, in spite of investigations of modern naturalists, a group still somewhat problematical, and still very imperfectly known as regards their internal organization. Sponges are masses of a light elastic tissue, which is, at the same time, resistant, full of air-cells, and with much varied exterior arrange- ments. Nearly three hundred species are known, the different appearances of which have been characterised by names more or less singular. There is, for instance, the Feather Sponge, the Fan Sponge, the Bell, the Lyre, the Trumpet, the Distaff, the Peacock Tail, and Neptune's Grlove. There are river sponges and sea sponges. The first are irregular and arenaceous masses, which pile them- selves upon plants and solid bodies immerged in fresh water. Such are the spongilles, upon which anatomic and embryonic observations have very frequently been made in relation to the group more im- mediately under consideration. The second is found in almost every sea ; especially are they found in the Mediterranean, the Eed Sea, and the Mexican Gulf. Affecting warm and quiet waters, they attach themselves to bold and rugged rocks at depths ranging from five to twenty-five fathoms. They are erect, pendent, or spreading, according to their form or position. Fig. 10, drawn from Nature, represents a very remarkable form of sponge, which was fished up in sixty fathoms. The sponge is very common in the Mediterranean and round the Grecian Archipelago, and is known vulgarly under the name of the Marine Mushroom, the Sailor's Nest, and the fine soft sponge of Syria. It is a mass more or less rounded, covered with a mucous bed, glutinous above, formed of a light elastic but resisting tissue full of SPONG1A. 75 gaps, and riddled with air-cells. This tissue is formed of delicate flexible fibres, uniting in all directions by anastomosis, but presenting numerous pores, which are formed by what is termed osculation, Fig. 10. Spongia, half the natural size, attached to its rocky bed. having irregular conduits which connect them. In this tissue certain very small solid bodies are discovered, named spiculse. The spiculse are siliceous or calcareous in their nature, varying according to the 76 THE OCEAN WORLD. species, and sometimes varying even in the same species. Some of these resemble needles, others are pin-like, and others again resemble very small stars. The physiological function of those tubes and orifices which present themselves on all parts of the sponge has been interpreted in various ways. Ellis, writing in 1765, supposes that they were the orifices of the cells occupied by the polypi. In 1816, Lamarck still advocated this opinion; and even now we find the observer, whose notes M. Fre"dol has edited with so much judgment, asserting that " the inhabitants of the sponge are a species of fleeting, transparent, gela- tinous tube, susceptible of extension and contraction ; young polypes, as we may call them, without consistence, without cilia; incipient polypes, in short, of very simple but sufficient organization. The animalcule of the sponge is a stomach, without arms, very simple, very elementary in short, an animal all stomach !" This mode of considering the sponge is not conformable to the views of the leaders of modern science, however. Mr. Milne Edwards, for instance, in place of seeing in the sponge a collection of united beings, forming as it were a colony, considers each to be an isolated being, an unique individual. The innumerable canals by which the sponge is traversed, according to that author, are at once the digestive organs and breathing pores of the zoophyte. The vibratile cilia are necessary to the renewed aeration of the water required as a respiratory fluid in the interior canals of the sponge. The currents in these channels have one constant direction. The water penetrates the sponge by numerous orifices of minute dimensions and irregular dis- position \ it traverses channels in the body of the zoophyte, which reunite somewhat like the root of a plant, in order to constitute the trunk and increase its substance ; finally, the water makes its escape by special openings. According to this view, the channels of the sponge have a kind of cumulative physiology, performing the two functions of digestion and respiration. The rapid currents of aerated water which traverse them lead into them the substances necessary to the nourish- ment of these strange creatures, rejecting all excremental matter. At the same time, the walls of these canals present a large absorbing surface which separates the oxygen with which the water is charged, and disengages the carbonic acid which results from respiration. Sponges contain true eggs, from which embryo polyps are SPONGIA. 77 produced ; these have not cilia at first. In the interior of these eggs the contractile cellules have their hirth ; then the spiculse ; and when they are finally covered with the vihratile cilia, aided by them these larvfe of ovoid form swim, or rather glide, through the water. The species of infusoria horn of the sponge resemble the larvae of various polypes at the moment they issue from the egg. " They soon attach themselves to some foreign body," says Mr. Milne Edwards, "and become henceforth immovable; no longer giving signs either of sensibility or of contractibility, while in their enlargement they are completely transformed. The gelatinous substance of their bodies is channeled and riddled with holes the fibrous framework is completed the sponge is formed." We may add, however, that other zoologists, and among them MM. Paul Gervais and Yan Beneden, take a different view of the development of the sponges, and Dr. Johnston omits them altogether from his great work on " British Zoophytes." " If they are not the production of polypi," he says, " the zoologist who retains them in his province must contend that they are individually animals, an opinion to which I cannot assent, seeing that they have no animal structure or individual organs, and exhibit not one function usually supposed to be characteristic of the animal kingdom." Gervais and Van Beneden consider, as Milne Edwards does, that the embryos are at 'first movable, then fixed, many of them uniting together, and melting, as it were, into one common colony, which become a sponge, such as we see it. An isolated embryo might also, by throwing out germs, pro- duce a similar colony, which would thus become a product of agamous generation. Thus it appears that Science is far from being settled in its views as to the organization and development of these obscure and complex formations ; nor is it more advanced in its knowledge of the duration of life and the quickness of growth in sponges. It is agreed, however, on one point namely, that the sponge-fisher may return to the same fishing- ground after three years from the last fishing. At the present time sponge-fishing takes' place principally in the Grecian Archipelago and the Syrian littoral. The Greeks and Syrians sell the product of their fishing to the Western nations, and the trade has been immensely extended in recent times, when the sponge has become an almost necessary adjunct of the toilet as well as the stable, and in other cleansing operations. 78 THE OCEAN WOULD. Fishing usually commences towards the beginning of June on the coast of Syria, and finishes at the end of October. But the months of July and August are peculiarly favourable to the sponge harvest, if we may use the term. Latakia furnishes about ten boats to the fishery, Batroun twenty, Tripoli twenty-five to thirty, Kalld fifty, Simi about a hundred and seventy to a hundred and eighty, and Kalminos more than two hundred. The operations of one of these boats fishing for sponges on the Syrian coast is represented in Plate II. The boat's crew consists of four or five men, who scatter themselves along the coast for two or three miles in search of sponges under the cliffs and ledges of rock. Sponges of inferior quality are gathered in shallow waters. The finer kinds are found only at a depth of from twelve to twenty fathoms. The first are fished for with three- toothed harpoons, by the aid of which they are torn from their native rock; but not without deteriorating them more or less. The finer kinds of sponges, on the other hand, are collected by divers aided by a knife ; they are carefully detached. Thus the price of a sponge brought up by diving is much more considerable than that of a harpooned sponge. Among divers, those of Kalminos and of Psara are particularly renowned. They will descend to the depth of twenty- five fathoms, remain down a shorter time than the Syrian divers, and yet bring up a more abundant harvest. The fishing of the Archipelago furnishes few fine sponges to commerce, but a great quantity of very common ones. The Syrian fisheries furnish many of the finer kinds, which find a ready market in France ; they are of medium size. On the other hand, those which are furnished from the Barbary coast are of great dimensions, of a very fine tissue, and much sought for in England. On the Bahama banks, and in the Gulf of Mexico, the sponges grow in water of small depth. The fishermen, Spanish, American, and English, sink a long mast or perch into the water moored near the boat, down which they drop upon the sponges ; by this means they are easily gathered. In the Bed Sea, the Arabs fish for sponges by diving, their produce being either sold to the English at Aden or sent to Egypt. Sponge- fishing is carried on at various other stations in the Mediterranean, but without any intelligent direction, and in consequence it is effected without any conservative foresight. At the same time, however, the Pluto II. Sponge Fishing on the Coast of Syria. SPONGIA. 79 trade in this product goes on increasing. But it is only a question of time when the trade shall cease ; the demand which every year clears the submarine fields of these zoophytes causes such destruction that their reproduction will soon cease to he equal to the demand. In order to prevent this troublesome result, it is very desirable that the several species of sponges should be naturalized on the French and Algerian coast, and the cultivation and reproduction of the zoophyte protected. For this purpose, the rocky coasts of the Medi- terranean, from Cape Cruz to Nice, and round the islands of Corsica and Hyeres, in the Algerian waters, and even some of the salt lakes of the departments near the Mediterranean, might be utilized. The whole of the Italian littoral would also be available under the new regime for this purpose. M. Lamiral considered that the composition of the water of the Mediterranean being thought the same on the coast of France, of Algeria, and on the Syrian coast, that the difference of temperature between the two latitudes especially at the depth where the sponges flourish most would not interfere with the existence of these robust zoophytes, and that their acclimatization on the coasts of France and Algeria would be a certain success. He remarked, moreover, that the more the sponges advanced towards the north, the finer and compacter their tissues became ; and he argued from this fact, that a considerable improvement in the quality would result from the experiment. The only difficulty, then, would consist in the transplanting sponges from Syrian waters to the coasts of France and Algeria. A submarine boat, such as M. Lamiral makes use of for operations conducted in deep water, would, according to this naturalist, give every facility for collecting sponges for the purpose. This boat can descend to great depths, and its crew can dwell there a considerable time, for it is con- tinually fed with fresh air from above, which is conveyed by an air- pump and tube into the interior of the boat, so that the men could readily select such individuals as were suited for acclimatizing; removing the blocks of rock along with them, either by placing them in cases pierced with holes, or by towing them to their new abode. Everything seems to promise that in the following year the zoophytes would begin to multiply in their new country. The larvae might also be collected in the months of April and May, as they separate from the parent sponge, and be transplanted to 80 THE OCEAN WORLD. favourable localities. At the end of three years, when these true submarine fields would be ripe for harvesting, they could be put in train for methodical collection by means of diving boats. The toilet sponge is an article which produces a high price, often as much as forty shillings the pound for very choice specimens, a price which few commercial products attain, which prohibits its use, in short, to all but the wealthy. It is, therefore, very desirable to carry out the submarine enterprise of M. Lamiral. With the assistance of the Acclimatization Society of Paris, some experiments have already been made in this direction so far without any satisfactory results, it is true, but everything indicates that by perseverance we shall see the enterprise crowned by the success it merits. Such specimens as now reach our ports are chiefly distinguished by their appearance, quality, and origin. The fine soft Syrian sponge is distinguished by its lightness, its fine flaxen colour, its form, which is that of a cup, its surface con- vex, voluted, pierced with innumerable small orifices, the concave part of which presents canals of much greater diameter, which are prolonged to the exterior surface in such a manner that the summit is nearly always pierced throughout in many places. This sponge is sometimes blanched by the aid of caustic substances, acids, or alkalies ; but this preparation shortens its duration and changes its colour. This sponge is specially employed for the toilet, and its price is high. Those which are round-shaped, large, and soft, sometimes produce as much as five or six pounds. The Fine Sponge of the Archipelago is scarcely distinguishable from that of Syria, either before or after being cleansed ; nevertheless, it is weightier, its texture is not so fine, and the holes with which it is pierced are at once larger and less in number. It is nearly of the same country as the former, in fact, the fishing extending along the Syrian coast as well as the littoral of Barbary and the Archipelago. The Fine Hard Sponge, called Greek, is less sought for than either of the preceding ; it is useful for domestic and for certain industrial purposes. Its mass is irregular, its colour fauve ; it is hard and com- pact, and pierced with small holes n The White Sponge of Syria, called Venetian, is esteemed for its lightness, the regularity of its form, and its solidity. In its rough state it is brown in colour, of a fine texture, compact and firm. SPONGIA. 81 Purified, it becomes flaxen and of a looser texture. The orifice of the great channels which traverse it are edged with rough and bristly hairs. The Brown Barbary Sponge, called the Marseileise, when first taken out of the water, presents itself as an elongated flattened body, gela- tinous, round in shape, and charged with blackish mud. It is then hard, heavy, coarse, but compact, and of a reddish colour. By a simple wash- ing in water it becomes round, still remaining heavy and reddish. It presents many gaps, the intervals of which are occupied by a sinuous and (From Dr. Grant.) Fig. 11. Spongia oculata, showing the orifices and currents outwards. 2. Anastomosing horny sub- stance of Spongia communis. 3. Siliceous spiculum of S. papillaris. 4. Of S. cineria. 5. S. panicea. 6. Calcareous spiculum of S. compressa. 1, Transverse section of a canal of S. papillaris, showing the structure of the ova passing along the canal. 8. Ovum of S. panicea seen laterally the cilia? anterior. 9. The same seen on the end, with a circle produced by the ciliary action. 10. Young Spongia papillaris. tenacious network. It is valuable for domestic use, because of the facility with which it absorbs water, and its great strength. Other sorts of sponges are very abundant. The Blonde Sponge of the Archipelago, often confounded with the Venetian; the Hard Barbary Sponge, called Gelina, which only comes by accident into France; the Salonica Sponge is of middling quality; finally, the Bahama Sponge, from the Antilles, is wanting in flexibility and a little hard, and so is sold at a low price, having few useful properties to re- commend it. 82 THE OCEAN WORLD. Many species of Spongia are described as inhabiting British seas, but none of any commercial value. Kegarding them as apolypiferous zoophytes, Dr. Grant has pointed out certain principles of analysis on which they may be grouped, according to the arrangement of the horny fibres, the calcareous and siliceous spiculse, and the distribution and formation of their pores and orifices. I. GEOUPS OF WHICH THE CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE IS KNOWN. Spongia. Mass soft, elastic, more or less irregular in shape, very porous, traversed by many tortuous canals, which terminate at the surface in distinct orifices. Substance of the skeleton cartilaginous, fibres anastomosed in all directions, without any earthy spicula. Example, 8. communis (Fig. 11 [2]). Caloispongia (Blainville). Mass rigid or slightly elastic, of irregular form, porous, traversed by irregular canals, which terminate on the sur- face in distinct orifices; skeleton cartilaginous, fibres strengthened by calcareous spicula, often tri-radiate. Example, 8. compressa (Fig. 11 [6]). Halispongia (Blainville). Mass more or less rigid or friable, irre- gular, porous, traversed by tortuous irregular canals, which terminate at the surface in distinct orifices; substance cartilaginous, fibres strengthened by siliceous spicula, generally fusiform or cylindrical. Example, S. papillaris (Grant) (Fig. 11 [3]). Spongilla (Lamarck). Mass more or less rigid or friable, irregular? porous, but not furnished with regular orifices or internal canals. Example, S. fluviatalis (Linn.). II. GROUPS DEPENDING ON CHARACTERS OF SURFACE OR GENERAL FIGURE. Geodia (Lamarck). Fleshy mass, tuberous, irregular, hollow within, externally incrusted by a porous envelope, which bears a series of orifices in a small tubercular space. Example, G. gibberosa (Schmeiger). Coeloptychium (Goldfuss). Mass fixed, pedicled, the upper part expanded, agariciform, concave, and radiato-porose above, flat and radiato-sulcate below; substance fibrous. Example, C. agarisidioi- deum (Goldfuss). Fossils from the chalk of Westphalia. KHIZOPODA. 83 Sipkonia (Parkinson). Mass polymorphous, free or fixed, ramose or simple, concave or fistulous above, porous at the surface, and penetrated by anastomosing canals, which terminate in sub-radiating orifices within the cup. Myrmecmm (Goldfuss). Mass sub-globular, sessile, of a close fibrous texture, forming ramified canals which radiate from the base to the circumference. Summit with a central pit ScypJiia (Oken). Mass cylindrical, simple, or branched, fistulous, ending in a large rounded pit, and composed entirely of a reticulated tissue. Eudea (Lamouroux). Mass filiform, attenuated, sub-pedicellate at one end, enlarged and rounded at the other, with a large terminal pit ; surface reticulated by irregular lacunae, minutely porous. Halirrhoa (Lamouroux). Mass turbinated, nearly regular, circular, or lobate ; surface porous ; a large central pit on the upper face. Happalimus (Lamouroux). Mass fungiform, pedicellate below, ex- panding conically, with a central pit above ; surface porous and irre- gularly excavated. Cnemidium (Goldfuss). Mass turbinate, sessile, composed of close fibres and horizontal canals, diverging from the centre to the circum- ference ; a central pit on the upper surface, cariose in the exterior and radiate at the margin. lerea (Lamouroux). Mass ovoid, sub-pedicellate, finely porous; pierced on the upper part by many orifices, the terminations of the internal tubes. Tethium (Lamarck). Mass sub-globose, tuberose, composed of a cariose firm substance, strengthened by abundance of siliciary spicula, fasciculated, and diverging from the centre to the circumference. RHIZOPODA. Gervais and Van Beneden include under the name of RMzopods, or foot-rooted animals (so called fromptfa, root; TTOU?, TroSo?, footed ani- mals), those of the simplest organization, which may be characterised by the absence of distinct digestive cavities, and the presence of vibratile cilia, as well as by the soft parts of their tissues. This tissue emits prolongations or filaments which admit of easy extension, sometimes simple, sometimes branching. Occasionally we see these branching filaments withdraw themselves towards the mass of the body, disappear, *G 2 4 THE OCEAN WOKLD. and gradually melt into its substance in such a manner that the indi- vidual seems to absorb and devour itself. If, in exceptional cases, some of the superior animals, as the wolf, devour each other, the rhizo- pods go much farther : they devour themselves, so to speak ! The rhizopods are found both in fresh and salt water. They live, as parasites, on the body of worms and other articulated animals. The class is divided into many orders. We shall speak here only of three, namely, the Amoebss, Foraminifera, and Noctiluca. In nearly all ancient animal and vegetable infusions, not quite putrid upon all oozy beds covering bodies which have remained for some time in fresh or sea water we find the singular beings which belong to this order. They are the simplest organisms in creation, being reduced to a mere drop of living matter. Their bodies are formed of a gelatinous substance, without appreciable organization. The quantity of matter which forms them is so infinitesimal, that it becomes incredibly diaphanous, and so transparent that the eye, armed with the microscope, traverses it in all directions, so that it is necessary to modify the nature of the liquid in which it is held in suspension, and introduce the phenomenon of refraction in order to observe them. It would be difficult to say exactly what is the form these creatures assume. They frequently have the appearance of small rounded masses, like drops of water ; but, whatever their form may be, it is always so unstable, that it changes, so to speak, every moment, so that it is found impossible to make a drawing from the model under the microscope the design must be finished by an appeal to memory. This instability is the characteristic manifestation of life in the Amoebte, which are naked beings, without apparent organization ; in fact, they occupy the first step in the scale of creation. The transparent immovable drop under consideration emits an ex- pansion, and a lobe of a vitreous appearance upon its circumference, which, gliding like a drop of oil upon the object-glass of the microscope, begins by fixing itself to it as a supporting point, afterwards slowly attracting to itself the whole mass, and thus gradually increasing its bulk under the observer's eye. The Amoebte, according to their dimensions and degree of develop- AM.CEBM. 85 ment, successively emit a greater or smaller number of lobes, none of which are precisely alike, but, after having appeared for an instant, each successively re-enters into the common mass, with which it becomes completely incorporated. Variable in their respective forms, these lobes present appearances quite different in the several genera. They are more or less lengthy, more or less fringed, and often branching ; some- times they are filiform, sprouting in all directions over the animal mass, which rolls in the liquid like the husk of a small chestnut. If we ask how these animals are nourished, in which no digestive apparatus can be distinguished, the question is difficult to answer. It is thought that they are nourished by simple absorption, and by absorption only. In the interior of the gelatinous mass which constitutes the animals, however, granules and microscopic portions of vegetables are frequently discovered. " We can conceive," says Dujardin, " how these objects have penetrated to the interior, if we remark, on the one hand, that in creeping on the surface of the glass, to which they adhere very exactly, the Amoebse can be made to receive, by pressure, foreign substances into their own bodies, by means of the alternate contrac- tion and extension of the various parts natural to them, and, on the other hand, that the gelatinous mass is susceptible of spontaneous depressions here and there near to or even at the surface of the spherical cavities, which successively contract themselves and disappear in connection with the strange body which they have absorbed." The Amoebss are often observed to be tinted red or green ; this arises from the special colouring matter which has been absorbed into its mass. The question arises, How do these creatures, so simple in their organization, propagate their species ? We believe that they are chiefly multiplied by parting with a lobe, which, in certain conditions, is enabled to live an independent exist- ence, and develop itself, thus forming a new individual. This is what naturalists term generation by division fissiparism or fission. The absence of a nutritive and reproductive apparatus in the Amoebse, and the want of stability in their forms, explain how nearly impossible it is to characterise as species the numerous individuals daily met with in infusions of organic matter in stagnant water. In order to distinguish some of the groups, Dujardin bases his descriptions upon their size and the general form into which they expand. THE OCEAN WOELD. We shall be able to form some idea of the appearance of these beings, rendered mysterious by their very simplicity, by throwing a glance upon the two accompanying figures (Figs. 12 and 13), borrowed from the Atlas of Dujardin's great work, "Les Zoophytes Infusoires," which we shall have occasion to quote more than once. We have said that the Amoebae change their form every few moments under the eyes of the observer. Fig. 13 represents the changes of form through which they pass, according to Dujardin, when examined under the microscope. Dujardin points out very clearly the identity of structure between organisms like Amoebte and such forms as Difflugia and Arcella. All these crea- tures are without trace of mouth or digestive cavity, and the entire body is a single cell, or aggregation of cells, which receive their nutriment by absorption ; for, although the creatures have neither mouth nor stomach, yet, according to Professor Kolliker, they take in solid nutri- ment, and reject what is indigestible. When in its progress through the water one f these minute organisms ap- proaches one of the equally minute Algae, from which it draws nourish- ment, it seizes the plant with its tentacular filaments, which it gradually encloses on all sides; the filaments, to a11 appearance, becoming more or less shortened in the process. In this way the captive is brought close to the surface of the body ; a cavity is thus formed, in which the prey is lodged, which closes round it on all sides. In this situation it is gradually drawn towards the centre, and Fig. 12. Amcebse princeps (Ehrenberg), magnified 100 times. F01UMINIFERA. 87 passes at last entirely into the mass. The engulfed morsel is gradually dissolved and digested. FORAMINIFERA. There is nothing small in Nature. The idea of littleness or great- ness is a human conception a comparison which is suggested by the dimensions of his own organs. Nature, on the other hand, compen- sates smallness by numbers. The result produced by the bones of some large animals is also accomplished by the accumulated spoils of millions of animalcules. The history of the Foraminifera is a striking example of this great truth. What, then, is a Foraminifer ? It is a very small zoophyte, a shell nearly invisible to the naked eye ; for, in general, its dimensions rarely exceed the two hundredth part of an inch ; in short, it is strictly microscopic. Examine under a microscope the sand of the ocean, and it will be found that one-half of it consists of the debris of shells, of various but well-defined forms, each habitually pierced with a number of holes. To this they are indebted for their name Fora- minifera, horn, foramen, a hole. With these microscopic animalcules Nature has worked wonders in geological times ; nor have the wonders ceased in our days. Many beds of the terrestrial crust consist entirely of the remains of Foraminifera. In the most remote ages in the history of our planet, these zoophytes must have lived in innumerable swarms in the seas of the period ; they buried themselves in the bottoms of the seas, and their shells, heaped up during many ages, have finished by forming hills of great thickness and extent. We may say, to give an example, that during the Carboniferous period, a single species of these zoophytes has formed, in Russia alone, enormous beds of calcareous rock. Many beds of cretaceous formation are> in great part, composed of Forami- nifera, and they exist in immense numbers in the white chalk which covers and forms the vast mountains ranging from Champagne, in France, nearly to the centre of England. But it is to the Tertiary formation that these zoophytes have contri- buted the most enormous deposits. The greater part of the Egyptian pyramids is only an aggregation of Nummulites inserted in the syenite. A prodigious number of Foraminifera present themselves in the tertiary 88 THE OCEAN WORLD. deposits of the Gironde, of Italy, and of Austria. The chalk so abun- dant in the basin of Paris is almost entirely composed of Foraminifera. The remains of these creatures are so abundant in the Paris chalk, that M. d'Orbigny found upwards of fifty-eight thousand in a small block, scarcely exceeding a cubic inch of chalk, from the quarries of Chan- tilly. This fact, according to this author, implies the existence of three thousand millions of these zoophytes in the cubic metre (thirty-nine inches square and a small fraction) of rock ! As the chalk from these quarries has served to build Paris, as well as the towns and villages of the neighbouring departments, it may be said that Paris, and other great centres of population which surround it, are built with the shells of these, microscopic animals. The sand of the littoral of all existing seas is so full of these minute but elegant shells, that it is often half composed of them. Ehrenberg, the celebrated German microscopist, was recently invited by the Prussian government to assist in tracing the robbery of a special case of wine. It had been repacked in littoral sand only found in an ancient sea-board in Germany. The criminal was thus detected, M. d'Orbigny found in three grammes (forty-six grains troy) of sand from the Antilles, four hundred and forty thousand shells of Foraminifera. Bianchi found in thirty grammes (four hundred and sixty-seven grains) from the Adriatic, six thousand of these shells. If we calculate the proportion of these beings contained in a cubic metre alone of sea-sand, we reach a figure which passes all conception. What would this be if we could extend the calculation to the immen- sity of surface covered by the waves which surround the globe ? M. d'Orbigny has satisfied himself, by microscopic examination of sands from all parts of the globe, that it is the debris of Foraminifera which form, in all existing seas, those enormous deposits which raise banks, obstruct the navigation in gulfs and straits, and fill up ports, as may be seen in the port of Alexandria. In common with the corals and madrepores, the Foraminifera are the great agents in forming the isles which surge up under our eyes from the bosom of the ocean in the warmer regions of the globe. Thus shells, scarcely appreciable to the sight, suffice by their accumulations to fill up seas, while performing a very considerable part in the great operations of Nature, although it may not be apparent to us. Our exact knowledge of the Foraminifera is of very recent date. FORAMINIFERA. 89 Great numbers of minute particles, of regular and symmetrical form, were long distinguished on the sands of the sea shore. These corpus- cular atoms early attracted the attention of observers. But with the discovery of the microscope, these small elegant shells, which were among the curiosities revealed by the instrument, assumed immense importance. We have stated that these corpuscles are nothing but the shell or solid framework of a crowd of marine animalculse : we may then consider them as living species analogous to the Ammonites and Nautilus of geological times. Linnaeus has placed them in this last genus, which would include, according to that author, all the multilocular shells. In 1804, Lamarck classed them among the molluscous cephalopods. But Alcide d'Orbigny, who has devoted long years to study and observation, and may be considered the great historian of the Foraminifera, makes it appear that this mode of classification was inexact. Dujardin separated them altogether from the class of mollusks, and showed that they ought to be consigned to an inferior class of animals. These minute creatures, in short, are deficient in the true appendages analogous to feet, which exist in the higher mollusks. They simply possess filamentous expansions, very variable in their form. We have stated that the Foraminifera are of microscopic dimensions. With some trifling exceptions, this is generally true ; but there exist a number of species which are visible to the naked eye. The Fora- minifers found in the nummulite formation of Tremsted, in Bavaria, between Munich and Saltzberg, are still larger, being nearly double the size of the nummulite of the Pyramids ; in short, they are the giants of this tribe of animals. After these remarks, we may venture to give some idea of the structure and classification of these beings, whose part in the work of creation has, in former times, been so considerable. The bodies of the Foraminifera are formed of a gelatinous sub- stance, sometimes entire and round, sometimes divided into segments, which can be placed upon a line, simple or alternate, wound up into a spiral form or rolled round its axis, like a ball. A testaceous envelope, modelled upon the segments, follows the various modifications of form, and protects the body in all its parts. From the extremity of the last segment of one or many openings of the shell, or of the numerous pores, issue certain long and slender filaments, more or less numerous, 90 THE OCEAN WOKLD. which are divided and subdivided over their whole length, like the spreading branches of a tree. They can attach themselves to external bodies with force enough to determine the progression of the animal. Being formed of transparent non-colouring matter, they may be said to be mere expansions, which vary in form and length according to the conditions of the ambient medium. The filaments have also very variable positions : sometimes they form an unique and retractile band, issuing from a single opening ; sometimes they project them- selves across from numerous little pores in the shell, which covers the last segment of the animal. These pores, or openings, give the name to the creatures under consideration. In conclusion, the filaments, contractile and variable in their form, which constitute the feet and arms of these little creatures, appear to have something electric in them: it is stated that the Infusoria are at once paralysed in their motions when brought in contact with the minute arms of the Foraminifera. " It is probably by this means," says M. Fredol, " that these creatures succeed in catching their prey. Is it not worthy of remark that these beings, however small their size and slight their form, are unpitying flesh-eaters? The smallest, the weakest, and the most microscopic animal in existence thus becomes, by means of a homoeopathic dose of poison, a most formidable destroyer." Another singular observation on these little filaments or arms we owe to Dujardin. This naturalist observed that, when a miliola at- tempted to climb up the walls or sides of a vase, it could improvise, as it were, on the instant, and at the expense of its own substance, a pro- visional foot, which stretched itself out rapidly and performed all the functions of a permanent member. The occasion served, this tem- porary foot seemed once more to return to the common mass, and was absorbed into the body. It would thus appear that with these minute creatures the presence of a necessity gives the power to create an organ by the mere will of the creature, while man, with all his genius, cannot manufacture a hair. To the present day, however, we have not been able to discover any organ of nutrition in the Fora- minifera ; they have no stomach, properly so called, but Nature rids gifted them with a peculiar tissue, at once gelatinous and contrac- tile, and essentially simulative, which probably serves the same pur- pose. FOKAMINIFEKA. 91 We have already said that the shells of these minujte zoophytes vary much in form. They are generally many-chambered, each chamber communicating by pores in the walls ; the different gelatinous parts of the animalcules are, in this manner, placed in continual communi- cation with each other. Alcide d'Orbigny, to whom we owe almost all that is known of the class, has distributed them into six families, making the form of the shell the basis of their arrangement. These six families include sixty genera, and more than sixteen hundred species, the families being as follows : I. Monostega. Animals consisting of a single segment. Shell of a single chamber. II. Stichostega. Animal in segments, arranged in a single line. Shell in chambers, superimposed linearly on a straight or curved axis. III. Helicostega. Animal in segments, spirally arranged. Cham- bers piled or superimposed on one axis, forming a spiral erection. In Fig. 21 we have a horizontal section of Faujasina, in which the spiral convolutions are visible on the truncated half of the shell. IV. Entomostega. Animal composed of alternating segments form- ing a spiral. Chambers superimposed on two alternating axes, also forming a spiral. Y. Enallostega. Animal formed of alternate segments. Non-spiral chambers disposed alternately along two or three axes, also non- spiral. VI. Agathistega. Animal formed of segments wound round an axis. Chambers formed round a common axis, each investing half the circumference. The simplest form of Foraminifera is illustrated by Fig. 14 (OrbuUna universa), which is a small spherical shell, having a lateral aperture, the interior of which has been occupied by the living jelly, to which the shell owes its existence. In the second order, the shell (Fig. 15), Dentalina communis, advances beyond this simple type by a process of linear budding, the first cell being spherical, with an opening through which a second segment is formed, generally a little larger than the first. This new growth is successively followed by others developed in the same way, until the organism attains its maturity, when it exhibits a series of cells arranged end on end, in a slightly curved line. In the next group the gemmation takes a spiral bias, producing the 92 THE OCEAN WOULD. nautilus shape which misled the earlier naturalists. In some cases all the convolutions are visible, as in Operculina (Fig. 16). In others, the external convolute conceals those previously formed, as in Num- mulitis lenticularis (Fig. 17), Cassidulina (Fig. 18), Textilaria Fig. 14. Orbulina universa. Fig 16. Operculina. Fig. 15. Dentalina cornmuuis. Fig. 18. Cassidulina. Fig. 19. Textilaria. Fig. 17. Nummulitis lenticularis. Fig. 20. Spiroloculina. (Fig. 19), and Alveolina oblonga, d'Orbigny (Fig. 25), the latter forming part of the eocene formation in the quartz and greystone rocks of the neighbourhood of Paris; one figure representing the . shell entire, and the other a vertical section, while the small figure between represents it in its natural size. In the fourth group the shell is spiral, with the chamber equilateral, with a larger and smaller side, the position being alternately reversed as the segments are multiplied, as in Cassidulina (Fig. 18). In the succeeding group the new segments are arranged alternately on opposite sides of the central line, as in Textilaria (Fig. 19), thus forming two alternating non-spiral parallel segments, each connected by a single orifice. FORAMINIFERA. 93 The sixth family differ entirely in appearance and structure from the other Foraminifera. They are more opaque than the other orders, having a resemhlance to white porcelain, which presents a rich amber- brown hue when viewed by transmitted light. They are more or less oblong, each new segment being nearly equal to the entire length of the shell, so that the terminal orifice presents itself alternately at its opposite extremities, sometimes in one uniform plane, as in Spirolocu- lina (Fig. 20), and Faujasina (Fig. 21). At other times each new seg- ment, instead of being exactly opposite each other, is a little on one side. Professor Williamson has shown that the shell enclosing each new segment is at first very thin; but as additional calcareous chambers are formed, each addition not only encases the new gemmation of the soft animal, but extends over all the exterior of the previously formed shell. The exact manner in which this is accomplished is doubtful ; but the Professor thinks it prob- able that the soft animal has the power of Fi s 21 - diffusing its substance over the shell, and thus depositing upon its surface additional layers of calcareous matter. The fossil Foraminifera are chiefly distinguished from recent and existing species by the size of the former. While the living forms range from one-fourth to the one-hundredth part of an inch, the tertiary strata abound in examples of Nummulites varying from the eighth of an inch to the size of half-a-crown. The engraving is a drawing from Nature, by MM. d' Archaic and Haime, of a piece of nummulitic rock, of Nousse, in the Landes, in which a great variety of sizes and forms are exhibited. The Nummulina belong to the third family, or Helicostega, in which the outer convolutions completely embrace the earlier-formed ones. Hence it is only by making microscopic sections, or thin slices, that their structure can be fully seen. When such a section is carried horizontally through the centre of the shell, the segments present a spiral arrangement, which, like the convolutions, are remarkable for their small size, and consequent great number. With respect to the distribution of the Foraminifera according to THE OCEAN WORLD. geological periods, we may briefly state that they have been found in every formation from the Silurian to the Tertiary. The species, at first m Fig. 22. Nummulites Kouaultf(d'Arclniic and J. Haime). very simple in their forms, begin to appear in increasing numbers in the carboniferous formations. They become more numerous, and, at the Fig. 23. Siderolites calcitrapoides (Lamarck;. Natural size and magnified. same time, more complex in their forms, in the Cretaceous period ; they are still more diversified, and appear to have multiplied much more FOEAMINIFERA. 1)5 Fig. 24. Fabularia discolithes (Pefrance). Natural fcize and magnified. rapidly in the Tertiary period, where they attain the maximum of their numerical development. In the celebrated quarries of St. Peter, at Maestrecht, the Siderolites calcitrapoides of Lamarck are found in the upper chalk (Fig. 23). In the calcareous forma- tion of Chaussy, in the Seine and Oise district, and other parts of the Paris basin, the Fabularia discolitlies (Fig. 24) of Defrance is found. Finally, the Dactylopora cylindracea of Lamarck (Fig. 26) is found in the eocene formation of Val- mondois and in the chalk of Grignon. At first, this little creature was thought to be a polype ; but d'Orbigny, in his " Prodrome de Paleontologie," has placed it among the Fora- minifera, thinking that it ap- peared to occupy a place be- tween the two classes. The existing Foraminifera Hg 25. Alveolina oblonga (d'Orllgny). Natural size and magnified. are by no means equally dis- tributed in every ocean. Some genera belong to warm coun- . . , , , Fig. 26. Dactylopora cylindracea (Lamarck), tries, Others tO temperate and Natural size and magnified. cold climates. They are much more numerous, however, and much more varied in their forms, in warm than in cold climates, and, we may add, larger also, for Sir E. Belcher brought a recent species from Borneo which measured two inches in diameter. Before passing on to the study of the Infusoria, a few words may be offered on the Noctiluca, a genus of animals usually referred to the class ACALEPHJE. One species only of this genus has been described, which occurs occasionally on the English coast in prodigious numbers. It is a small creature, scarcely the hundredth part of an 96 THE OCEAX WORLD. inch in diameter, according to Mr. Huxley (Fig. 27, Nodiluca mili- aris). It was discovered by M. Surriray, in 1810, who describes it as a spherical gelatinous mass, scarcely bigger than a pin's head, with a long filiform tentacular appendage, a mouth, an oesophagus, one or many stomachs, and branching ovaries thus exhibiting a certain complexity of organization. De Blainville took the same view, and placed it among the Diphydss. Yan Beneden and Doyere, on the other hand, deny its F.g.27.' Nocdiucarniiiavis. relation to the Acdephv, conceiving Magnified. ft g organization to be much more simple : they place it with the Ekizopoda. Quatrefages adopts the same view, denying the existence of a true mouth or intestinal canal : he considers the so-called stomachs as simple " vacuales," simi- lar to those observed in the Ehizopoda and Infusoria. Mr. Huxley, describing it in the " Journal of Microscopical Science " (vol. iii.), says it has nearly the form of a peach, a filiform tentacle, equal in length to the diameter of the body, occupying the place where the stalk of the peach might be, which depends from it, and exhibits slow wavy motions when the creature is in full activity. " I have even seen a noctiluca" he adds, " appear to push against obstacles with this tentacle." "The body," he continues, "is composed of a structureless and somewhat dense external membrane, which is continued on to the tentacle. Beneath this is a layer of granules, or rather of gelatinous membrane, through whose substance minute granules are scattered without any very definite arrangement ; from hence arises a network of very delicate fibrils, whose meshes are not more than one three- hundredth part of an inch in diameter, which gradually pass internally the reticulation becoming more and more open into coarser fibres, taking a convergent direction towards the stomach and nucleus. All these fibres and fibrils are covered with minute granules, which are usually larger towards the centre." Mr. Huxley is inclined to think, from all he has observed, that the animal has a definite alimentary cavity, and that this cavity has an excretory aperture distinct from the mouth. INFUSOEIA. 97 Surriray discovered the noctiluca while investigating the cause of phosphorescence of sea water at Havre, where it was abundant in the basins; sometimes in such abundance as to form a crust on the surface of the water of considerable thickness. " This singular little creature," says M. Fredol, " offers here and there in its interior certain granules, probably germs, and also luminous points, which appear and disappear with great rapidity the least agitation determining their lustre." The noctiluca are so abundant in the Mediterranean and in some parts of the channel, that in a cubic foot of sea water, which has been rendered phosphorescent by their presence, it is calculated that there exist about twenty-five thousand. INFUSORIA. With the Infusoria we return to the domain of the infinitely little. Of this very interesting group a large proportion are marine, and numerous varieties of them are found in British seas. In their minuteness and variety they almost baffle the attempts of naturalists to classify them. The waters, both fresh and salt, are inhabited by legions of active, ever-moving beings, of dimensions so small as to be inappreciable to the naked eye ; these minute creatures are disseminated by millions and thousands of millions in the great deep, and all knowledge of them would have escaped us, as they escaped the knowledge of the ancients, but for the discovery of the microscope, the sixth sense of man, as it has been happily expressed by the historian and poet Michelet. Another writer of equally poetical mind, M. Fredol, tells us that " the infusorial animalcules are so small that a drop of water may contain them in many millions. They exist in all waters, the fresh as well as the salt, the cold as well as the hot. The great rivers are continually discharging them in vast quantities into the sea." The Ganges transports them in the course of one year in masses equal to six or eight times the size of the great pyramid of Egypt. Among these animalcules, according to Ehrenberg, we may reckon seventy-one different species. The water collected in vases between the Philippine and the Marianne Isles at the depth of twenty-two thousand feet (making H 98 THE OCEAN WORLD. some allowance for erroneous soundings), have yielded a hundred and sixteen species. Near the Poles, where heings of higher organization could not exist, the Infusoria are still met with in myriads ; those which were observed in the Antarctic Seas, during the voyages of Captain Sir James Boss, offer a richness of organization, often accom- panied by elegance of form, quite unknown in more northern regions. In the residuum of the blocks of ice floating about in latitude seventy- eight degrees ten minutes, nearly fifty different species were found. Many of them had ovaries, according to Ehrenberg, still green, which proved that they had struggled successfully with the rigours of the climate in searching for food. At a depth in the sea which exceeds the height of the loftiest mountain, Humboldt asserts that each bed of water is animated by an innumerable phalanx of inhabitants imperceptible to the human eye. These microscopic creatures are, in short, the smallest and the most numerous creations in Nature. They constitute with human beings one of the wheels of that very complicated machine, the globe. They are in the rank and at the station willed for them, as determined in the great First Thought. Suppress these microscopic beings, and the world would be incomplete. It was said, and wisely said, long, long ago, " there is nothing so small to the view but that it may become great by reflection." The Infusoria, in short, abound everywhere. We find their remains on the loftiest mountain ridges, and in the profoundest depths of the sea. They increase and multiply alike under the Equator, and towards the polar regions. The seas, rivers, ponds the flower vase which rests upon the casement even our tissues, and the fluids of our bodies all contain infusorial animalcules. Whole beds of strata, often many feet thick, and covering a surface of considerable extent, are almost exclusively formed of their accumulated debris. It is to the Infusoria that the mud of the Nile and other fluviatile and lacustrine deposits owe their prodigious fertility. To them also is due the red or green layer of colouring matter found in ponds and tanks at certain seasons. When exposed to great solar heat, in order to extract the salt, as it is in the vast artificial basins hollowed out for the purpose in the salt marshes near the sea-shore in the south of France, the salt water, when it reaches a certain degree of concentra- tion, acquires a fine rose colour, which is due to the presence of in- INFUSOKIA. 99 numerable masses of small Infusoria having a reddish shell. Finally, let us add that the solid debris of certain fossil Infusoria, of surprising minuteness, have formed the stone so much used by workers in metal, which is known as tripoli. The study of these creatures is intensely interesting to the naturalist, the philosopher, the physician, and the general reader. They have had a great part assigned to them in Nature, as is evident in the forma- tion of certain beds of rock of immense extent, in which the geologist traces their action. Our earliest knowledge of the Infusoria is traceable to the seven- teenth century; to the celebrated naturalist, Leuwenhoek, we are indebted for their discovery. On the 24th of April, 1676, this observer saw for the first time some infusorial animalcules. Fifty years later, Baker and Trembley studied them anew. In 1752, Hill essayed the first attempt at their classification. In 1764, Wiesberg gave them the name of Infusoria, because he found them in such great abundance in animal and vegetable infusions. Miiller pub- lished a special book upon them. From that time the Infusoria have been considered as forming a special group among the radiate animals ; afterwards, in the pages of Baer and of De Blainville, we see in these creatures, so imperfect in appearance, only the indeterminate prototype of other classes. But ideas changed altogether respecting them when microscopes of great power, and armed with achromatic lens, were employed in their study. Thanks to the labours of Ehrenberg and Dujardin, we have arrived at a better comprehension of the organization of these infinitely small beings. Naturalists have established, with more exactness, the limits of the zoological group to which they belong. Some stagnant waters are so filled with Infusoria that it is only necessary to dip at random into the liquid medium to procure them in abundance. In other waters they form a bed, occupying the whole basin. In general, it is necessary to search for them where the water is calm, and occupied by vegetation of some kind, such as the confervas, or lemna, &c., in the marshes, and ceramium if in the sea. Certain Infusoria live not only in water, but also in places habitually moist, as among tufts of mosses ; in beds of oscittaria, on moist soil, or on air- damp walls. Others live as parasites on the exterior or in the interior of animals, such as hydra, lombrics, and naiads. Quantities of them H 2 100 THE OCEAN WOKLD. are found in the liquid excrements and other products of certain organisms, and they have heen noted even in women's milk. But, as their name indicates, it is in aqueous infusions, vegetable or animal, that these animalcules abound. Armed with a microscope, the reader may, with very little trouble, afford himself the pleasure of studying these animals. It is only necessary to place some organic debris the white of an egg, or some grass, for example in a vase with a large mouth, filled with water, and expose it to the light and air. Certain reagents, as phosphate of soda, the phosphates, nitrates, or oxalates of ammonia, or carbonate of soda added to these infu- sions, will singularly favour the development of Infusoria. There are also some accidental infusions which seem to furnish these microscopic beings in great abundance. Water which stagnates in garden soil or in vegetable mould, in the watering-cart or in flower vases, is filled with myriads of these beings. So much for the medium in which they live, move, and have their being. Let us pass on to their organization. We have already dwelt on their extreme minuteness; their mean size is a fifth of a line or the sixtieth part of an inch ; the largest species scarcely reveal themselves to the naked eye. They are generally colourless ; some of them are, nevertheless, green, blue, red, brown, and even blackish. Seen on the object-glass of the microscope, they appear to be gelatinous, trans- parent, and naked, or invested with an envelope more or less resistant, which we shall designate after Dujardin by the term Sarcoda, a sub- stance which is homogeneous, diaphanous, elastic, contractile, and, above all, destitute of every kind of organization. They are usually ovoid or globular. Those most frequently met with, and which attract the most attention from observers, are. furnished with vibratile cilia, which cover the whole body, acting as paddles. These organs are evidently intended to propel the animal from one place to another. At other times they appear to be employed in conveying food to the mouth, if we may use the expression. Some Infusoria are without these cilia, having only one or many very slender filaments, the undulating movement of which suffices to determine their progression through the liquid which surrounds them. Authors who have written on the Infusoria have sometimes, like Leuwenhoek, Ehrenberg, and Pouchet, attributed to them a very com- INFUSORIA. 101 plex structure. Others, like Miiller, Cuvier, and Lamarck, have con- sidered them to be gifted with an organization extremely simple. We shall probably find that the truth lies between these two extremes. In the superior Infusoria, besides the granules, the interior globules, vesicles full of liquid, vibratile cils, and a tegumentary system, more or less complex, we find the substance which is called Sarcoda. The digestive apparatus of the Infusoria has been the subject of numerous observations, and has been provocative of very animated discussions. In the inferior order of the class, which comprehends the very smallest animalcules, it has not been found possible to observe the organization of the digestive apparatus in a satisfactory manner. Some writers think they have no mouth, what has been taken for that organ being only hollow dimples on the surface of the body ; others recognize the existence of a buccal orifice, sometimes furnished with a solid armature. As to the arrangements of the interior cavities in which digestion takes place, we know nothing certain. The digestive apparatus is better understood in the superior Infusoria, called ciliate, namely, those provided with vibratile cils. These cils seem to determine the currents of the liquid, leading the nutritive cor- puscles suspended in the water towards the entrance of the digestive apparatus. They form, in some sort, the prehensile organs which seize the aliment. The cils are, at the same time, the organs intended to facilitate respiration; in short, these little whips playing upon the water unceasingly round the Infusoria, is just the action required for the absorption of the oxygen contained in the water. These cils, then, serve at once for the propulsion of the animal, for its nutrition, and for its respiration, presenting a remarkable example of cumulative functions in physiology. The corpuscles of nutritive substances directed towards the buccal orifice by the vibratile cils soon disappear in the interior of the animal. Availing himself of this fact and the transparency of the animal, Herr Gleichen, a German physiologist of the last century, conceived the happy idea of colouring the water which contained these animalcules with a finely-powdered carmine; he traced the colouring matter in the bodies of some of them. But it was reserved for Ehrenberg to avail himself of the same artifice in order to study the internal structure and mode of absorbing nutritive matter in these minute creatures. This physiologist fed many groups of Infusoria, some of them with water 102 THE OCEAN WORLD. coloured with carmine, others with, indigo and other colouring matters. He saw, besides, some coloured globules, nearly uniform in size, in different individuals of the same species. From this he arrived at the conclusion that the colouring matter was deposited in many of the surrounding dimples. Ehrenherg thought that each of these dimples was a stomach, and that the introduction of the food into the interior of these reservoirs, as well as the evacuations, were produced by means of an intestine around which these stomachs are arranged. In some cases he even thought he could distinguish the outlines of this intestinal canal, and its connection with numbers of ampula or bladders. Gene- ralizing the conclusions drawn from his observations, in short, we find that his class, Infusoria, embraced two very different forms of animal life, which he divided into Infusoria, Polygastrica, and Roti/era, the latter division including those known as Wheel animalcules ; the Polygastrica being so called from his idea that the typical forms possessed a number of stomachs. In some, Ehrenberg counted four stomachs, an organization which brings these microscopic beings into a strange kind of comparison with the ox and the goat. In others he counted two stomachs. Other observers were not slow in raising objections to these views. Dujardin, especially, was much opposed to the batch of stomachs attri- buted to these creatures by the German physiologist. He attempted to establish the fact that the coloured globules which appeared in the bodies of the Infusoria, while subjected to a regimen of carmine and indigo, are not confined by a membrane ; that is to say, they are not contained in intestinal sacs. According to Milne Edwards, " they are a species of basins, constituted," he says, " by the alimentary matter with which each is gorged, united into a rounded pasty mass, where it could no longer be dispersed, but would continue to advance, still pre- serving its form. We have, in short, seen these spherules changing their places, and passing one another in their progress from the mouth to the intestinal canal. That they could not do this is evident, if many stomachs were attached to the intestinal canal !" This opinion, due to the patient and precise studies of Dujardin, has been adopted by most naturalists of eminence. Besides, this learned microscopist does not admit that there was in the sarcodic mass of Infusoria any pre-existent cavity destined to receive the food. In a word, he does not recognise any stomach whatever. This view of INFUSOKIA. 103 the extreme simplicity of structure in the Infusoria has, however, met with much opposition. To accord them neither four nor two stomachs, it is not necessary to deprive them of the organ altogether. Meyen represents them as having one great hollow stomach occupied by a pulpy matter, into which the alimentary masses are successively absorbed. " All recent observations," says Milne Edwards, " tend to establish the fact that the digestive apparatus of the ciliate Infusoria consists of first, a mouth ; second, of a pharyngeal canal, in which the food often assumes the form of a bolus ; third, of one great stomach with distinct walls, and more or less distant from the common tegu- mentary membrane ; fourth, of an excretory orifice." This mouth presents sensible differences both as to its position and conformation, often occupying the bottom of a hollow, the edges of which are furnished with well-developed cilia, the action of which attracts the aliment ; in short, the mouth is a sort of decoy at the bottom of a simple pit, being at once contractile and prehensile, the interior part being sometimes capable, according to Milne Edwards, of being turned inside out in the form of a trumpet, while in a great many species it is provided with a peculiar armature, consisting of a band of rigid bristles disposed in the form of a bow-net, and suscep- tible of dilatation and contraction, according to the wants of the animal. The oesophagus, which is connected by means of the canal with the mouth, has generally an oblique direction backwards, often terminating in a great undivided stomach. The reproduction of the Infusoria exhibits some very surprising phenomena, while it offers another proof of the wonderful means Nature employs for perpetuating the races of animals. They can be reproduced by three different processes : 1. By gemmation, or budding, somewhat after the manner of plants. 2. By sexual reproduction ; for in these little creatures it has recently been discovered that sexual differences exist. 3. By the spontaneous division of the animal into two individuals a process known to zoologists as fissiparism or fission. Among these three processes, that which appears best understood is the last. The singular phenomenon of spontaneous division may be witnessed by any one having patience to examine the creature long enough, isolated from its innumerable companions, under the micro- scope. The oblong body of the animal will soon be observed to con- tract at the middle, the compression becoming more and more marked. 104 THE OCEAN WORLD. The lower segment soon begins to show a few vibratile cils, thus indi- cating the place which will soon be a new mouth ; the organ soon becomes more and more distinct, and now the Infusoria literally cuts itself into two parts. We see, at first, the fragment of glutinous substance fluttering on the edge of the plate ; the two halves then separate from each other very quickly, each moiety having finally a perfect resemblance to the primitive animal. This process is repre- sented in Fig. 28, A and B being the adult, c the same in course of separation, D after its completion. Assuredly this is one of the most remarkable phenomena which the study of living beings can present. " By this mode of propagation," says Dujardin, "an infusoria is the half of the one which preceded it, the fourth of the parent of that, Fig. 28. Propagation of an Infusorfk by spontaneous division. the eighth of its grand-parent, and so on, if we can apply the terms father or mother to animals which must see in its two halves the grandfather himself by a new division again living in his four parts. We might imagine such an infusoria to be an aliquot part of one like it, which had lived years, and even ages before, and which by con- tinued subdivision into pairs might continue to live for ever by its successive development." This mode of generation, however, enables us to comprehend the miraculous fecundity of these beings. The process defies calculation, if we wished to be precise. We may, however, arrive at a proximate estimate of the number which may be derived from a single individual INFUSORIA. 105 by this process of fission. It has been found that at the end of a month two 8tyloniclii& had a progeny of more than one million and forty-eight thousand individuals, and that in a lapse of forty-two days a single Parameoium had produced more than one million three hundred and sixty-four thousand forms like itself. Life is spread over Nature in such abundance that the smallest infusoria has its parasite a little smaller ; these in their turn serving as " a dwelling and pasture ground," to use Humboldt's words, for still smaller animalcules, as represented in Fig. 29 a being parasites in various stages ; I, the larger animalcule on which they have estab- lished themselves. a Fig. 29. Paramecium aurelia and its Parasites. The prodigious number to which the calculation would reach, if we were to add the other modes of propagation, viz., by germs aud :by budding, we dare not mention : it would only be necessary to place a single germ in a favourable condition for its development, in order to produce myriads of these microscopic animalcules in a very few days. We have seen three modes of reproduction in the Infusoria ; it is possible that a fourth mode exists, to which its partisans give the name of spontaneous generation. According to their views, an infusoria can be produced without egg-germ or pre-existent parent. It would be sufficient to expose organic matter, animal or vegetable, to the action of the air and water at a suitable temperature, in order 106 THE OCEAN WORLD. / to see this matter organize itself, and form itself into living infusorial animals. Such is the general enumeration of the question of spontaneous or heterogeneous generation, on which so much has heen written in the last ten years. The great expounders of the doctrine have heen the two French naturalists, MM. Pouchet and Joly. Their views have, however, made little progress ; they have, on the contrary, met with vigorous opposition from the generality of French naturalists, and from most of the memhers of the Academie des Sciences of Paris, who have raised their voices against a doctrine which is contrary to the ordinary course of nature. In short, the direct observations made upon the theory of " primitive generation " are as yet wanting in necessary exactness ; those observers who profess to have witnessed the sudden origin of the minutest of the infusoria from elementary substances have in all probability overlooked the organic structure of these elementary bodies. The wonderful changes of form undergone by many infusoria have their limits, and the laws governing them have still to be defined. With the poet we may say : " Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice lis est." Many of the Infusoria are subject to metamorphoses, and it has already been ascertained that certain species which have been con- sidered as distinct are only transition forms of the same species depending on age. We know that it is common for insects to enclose themselves in protecting envelopes, and to remain for whole months shut up in this their retreat, to all appearance dead. Similar facts have been observed in the Infusoria. We have even seen some of these beings surrounding strange bodies as if in a mass of jelly, forming a sort of living envelope around them. The average duration of life with them is only a few hours ; but certain species present, in relation to the duration of life, phenomena which are only imperfectly known, but which never fail to excite the surprise and admiration of the naturalist. By drying certain infusoria with care, it is possible to suspend and indefinitely prolong its life. Thus dried, and covered with a powder, which shelters it from every breath of wind, it may be carried to any given distance, through any indefinite period of time abandoned on some ledge of rock, on a INFUSOKIA. 107 housetop, in the cleft of a wall, or under the capital of a column ; but let a drop of water approach it, and the dormant being awakes imme- diately the microscopic Lazarus springs again into existence : feeds and multiplies as before : and its life, suspended possibly for years, resumes its interrupted course ! Into what a world of reflection does not a revelation of this mysterious property of a living creature plunge us ! The physiologist Miiller has noted another peculiarity in infusorial life. These animalcules can lose a part of their bodies without being destroyed ; the dead part disappears, and the individual, diminished by one-half, or reduced to a fourth of its former size, continues to live as if nothing had happened. Miiller has observed a kalpode (Kolpoda meleagris) thus melt before his eyes until scarcely a sixteenth part of its body remained. After its loss, this sixteenth part of an animal continued to swim about without troubling itself as to its diminished proportions. " The infusoria," says Fre'dol, in " La Monde de la Mer," " present yet another kind of decomposition. If we approach the drop of water in which it swims with the barb of a feather dipped in ammonia, the animalcule is arrested in its movement, but its cils continue to move rapidly. All at once, upon some point of its circum- ference, a notch is formed, which increases bit by bit until the whole animal is dissolved. If a drop of pure water is added, the decom- position is suddenly stopped, and what remains of the animalcule recommences its swimming movements." (Dujardin.) We may divide the Infusoria into two orders the Ciliate Infusoria, namely, those provided with vibratile cilia, and the Flagelliferous Infusoria, those, namely, which have arms or branches. The greater part of Infusoria belong to the first order, which comprehends many families; our space limits us to the mention here of a few typical forms only -in each group, selecting those which appear the most interesting, from their size, structure, rarity, or abundance. FLAGELLIFEROUS INFUSORIA. The family of Vibrionidse, so named from their darting or quivering motion, includes the eel-like microscopic animalcules which occur in stale paste, vinegar, &c., with some others, which are parasitic on living vegetables, such as Vibrio tritici, which infest the grains of 108 THE OCEAN WORLD. wheat, producing the destructive disease called corn-cockle or purples. They are filiform animals, extremely slender, without appreciable organization, internal stomach, or apparent organs of locomotion. They are the first animalcules which show themselves in any infusion of organic matter. By using microscopes of the highest magnifying power, traces of very thin, short lines can he perceived, either straight or sinuous, the thickest of them not exceeding the thousandth part of the fraction of an inch. They are contractile, and propagated by spontaneous division, or fission. Among them some resemble right lines, more or less distinctly articulated, and endowed with a very slow movement ; these are Bacttridde. Others are flexuous and undulating, and more or less lively ; these are true Vibrions. Others have the body fashioned in the form of a corkscrew, turning unceasingly upon themselves with great rapidity ; these are the Spirillidse, having an oblong fusiform or filiform body, which undulates or turns spirally upon itself. The Bacterium termo (Fig. 30) is the smallest of the Infusoria. It is found, at the end of a short time, in all vegetable or animal infusions exposed to the air. It shows itself in infinite ;/ ^ . numbers, forming swarms of animalcules, I {l ( n a ^ G^^*. which disappear as other species multiply 11 * *""/ B ^^ss, in the liquid, to which animals it serves for 't \ * 1 n * ** nourishment. When the infusion becomes too foetid for these new species to live in it, Fig. 30. Bacterium. The same, r termo (Muiierx magnified i n consequence of fermentation or putrefac- magnitied 600 times. 1600 times. J- . tion, the Bacterium termo reappears. This species was one of the first observed ; Leuwenhoek found it in the white matter in the teeth and gums, which is called teeth tartar. It is also found in the fluids of various animals which have been affected by disease. The Wand-like Vibrion (Fig. 31) has the body trans- parent, filiform, with long articulations, often appear- ing as if broken at each connection. It moves very slowly in the water. Leuwenhoek observed this second Fig. 31. Vibrion J baguette (Mailer), species pined to the first in the teeth tartar, and also magnified 300 . * ... . times. m a great number of organic infusions. " There is no microscopic object," says Dujardin, " which excites the admiration of the observer more vividly than the twisting spirillum (Fig. 32). He INFTJSOKIA. 109 is struck with surprise when he first contemplates this little creature, which, under the greatest magnifying power, only presents the appear- ance of a thin black line, fashioned like a corkscrew, which every instant turns upon itself with marvellous velocity, such as the eye can scarcely follow, or the mind divine the cause which produces this startling r Fi<*. 32. Spirillum phenomenon. tonraoyant (Ehr.), The Monads are other infusorial animalcules which magniiie make an early appearance in vegetable infusions. They constitute a family that are destitute of any covering. The substance of their bodies can swallow itself, or draw itself out more or less ; many of the whip-like filaments serve as organs of locomotion. They are sometimes provided with lateral appendages disposed as a kind of tail. Their organization is extremely simple ; their whip-like filaments are so fine as to be scarcely perceptible, their length being sometimes double and even quadruple the length of the animal itself. The Lentille Monad (Fig. 33) is a species which is frequently met with in vegetable and animal infusions. The older microscopists had it indicated under the form of a globule, moving in a slow and vacillating manner. The globule is formed of a homogeneous trans- parent substance, swollen into tubercles on its surface, and throws out obliquely a whip-like filament,, three, four, or even five times the length of the body of the Monad. The Cereomonad of Davaine was discovered by this gentleman in the still warm ejections of cholera patients. Its body is pyriform, having, in front, a vibratile filament, very long, very flexible, and easily agitated. Behind the body there is a thicker straight filament attaching itself sometimes to neighbouring corpuscles, round which, in this case, the Cereomonad oscillates like the ball of Fig a pendulum round its stem. The Volvocinese are inhabitants of fresh limpid water 100 times ' full of confervse and other aquatic plants. The Volvocinede are, ac- cording to Dujardin, animalcules of a green or yellowish brown colour, regularly disseminated in the thickness and near the surface of a gelatinous and transparent globe, which would become hollow and be filled with water in its perfect state. In this state, from five to eight smaller globules, with the same organization, appear destined to 110 THE OCEAN WORLD. undergo the same changes when they are released hy the rupture of the globule. These animalcules are each furnished with one or two flagelliform filaments, which, by their agitation, determine the move- ment by rotation of the mass. A very remarkable phenomenon is recorded in the Transactions of the Microscopic Society, namely, the conversion of the contents of an ordinary vegetable cell into a free moving mass of Protoplasm, bearing a strong resemblance to the animal Amoeba? (Fig. 20). This, it is affirmed by Dr. Hicks, takes place in Yolvox, under circumstances which suggest a vegetable transformation. But Dr. Carpenter does not consider that this involves any real confusion in the boundaries of Animal and Vegetable Life. The Eevolving Volvox, V. glolator (Figs. 34 and 35), is found in great abundance, during summer, in tanks and ponds of stagnant water. It consists of green or brownish- yellow globules about the eighth part of an inch, formed of animalcules scattered round a gelatinous and diaphanous sphe- rical membrane, each furnished with a flagelliform filament and with a reddish interior point, which Ehrenberg took for an eye. Leuwenhoek first observed this Volvox in marshy waters. This eminent naturalist has left a very interesting account of his observations on these mi- croscopic inhabitants of the waters, dis- playing an amount of patience and address which cannot be too much admired ; his observations were made with a simple lens, which he constructed himself. In one hand he held his instrument, which was very coarse if we compare it to the more perfect and infinitely more powerful instruments now in use ; whilst, in the other hand, he carried to his eye the glass tube full of water which contained the object under observation. " The microscopes of Leuwenhoek," says Dujardin, " were the very smallest bi-convex lenses, mounted in a silver frame. He made a collection of twenty-six, which he bequeathed to the Koyal Society of London. These instruments, subject to all the Figs. 34 and 35. Volvox globator (Muller), magnified 700 times. INFUSOKIA. Ill inconveniences of a maximum of spherical aberration and a total want of stability, were only fit for use in the hands of Leuwenhoek himself, who had acquired, in his labour of twenty years, habits of observation which compensated, in great part, for the want of perfection in his instruments." The Euglenise are infusoria usually coloured green or red. Their form is very variable. They are oblong or fusiform in shape, swelling at the middle during action, and contracted or bowl-shaped in repose, or after death. They are furnished with the usual whip-shaped filament, which issues from an opening in front, and from one or many reddish points irregularly placed anteriorly. Euglenia viridis (Fig. 36) is the most common species, and, per- haps, the most widely diffused of all the Infusoria. It is this animalcule which habitually covers stag- nant pools with its floating sur- face of green, and which forms, on the surface of marshy waters, the shining pellicle so strongly coloured, which, collected upon paper, so long preserves its bril- liant tint. The Euglenia sanguinea, at first green, becomes subsequently of a blood colour. It has often been met with by microscopists. Ehrenberg, who first described it, attributes to its great abun- dance the red colour of some stagnant waters. Its presence explains the pretended miracle of water changing into blood, which was frequently invoked by the Egyptian priests. s Fig. 36. Euglenia viridis (Ehr.), magnified 350 times. CILIATE INFUSORIA. Let us now take a glance at some of the more remarkable species of Ciliate Infusoria. TLe bodies of these creatures are all more or less translucent. They have not substance enough, in fact, to reach a U2 THE OCEAN WORLD. state of opacity. Their bodies are more or less globular or ovoid, sometimes fashioned like a shuttle, or curved while growing, sometimes swollen in the middle like an ampulla, or bell- shaped, and flattened into a discoid shape ; some slightly resemble a tadpole, a thimble, a shoe, a rose-bud, a flower, even a seed. The Paramecians have a soft flexible body, usually of oblong form, and more or less de- pressed. They are provided with a loose reticu- lated covering, through which issue numerous vibratile cilia, arranged in a regular series. They were known to the older naturalists ; and it is in this group that organization is carried to the highest perfection it attains among the Infusoria. 'The Paramecium possess, besides their reticulated and contractile tegument, cilia Fig 37. Cothurnia pyxidiformis -. n . , (Udckem). disposed in such a manner as to serve at once for locomotion, for prehension, that is, for seizing its food, and as a means of respiration. They are furnished with a mouth, at the bottom of which the whorl excited by the cilia determines, according to Dujardin, the hollowing out of a cavity, formed after the manner of a cul-de-sac, and also the formation of vacuoles with permanent parti- tions, in which are enclosed the substances which the animalcules have swallowed along with the water. The Paramecium are propagated by spontaneous division, as already described. They abound, as we have said, in stagnant water, or in pure water which is occupied by aquatic plants, sometimes in such Fig. 38. Parameciura bursaria .... . . , , , (Pritchard). prodigious quantities that they be- come troublesome. They occur also in flower vases where the water is not frequently renewed. The species of this genus have an oblong compressed body, with an oblique longitudinal fold, directed towards the mouth, which is INFUSORIA. 113 lateral. They are sufficiently large to be observe! by the common lens, or eye-glass. Paramecium aurelia appears chiefly in vege- table infusions. It is common in ditches and moats with aquatic plants. Humboldt's assertion is fully verified in the case of the Infusoria under consideration, which is often found with its parasites. These are small creatures, cylindrical in form, and provided with suckers. Swimming vigorously in the water, they devote themselves to chasing the Paramecium. When they have overtaken the fugitive, they throw themselves upon it, and establish themselves there. They soon multiply in the interior of its body, and their starving progeny suck and devour the unfortunate animalcule, which serves them at once for dwelling-house and larder. Another of the parasites which prey upon the Paramecium, in place of pursuing it, remains perfectly quiet until one of these approach, when it throws itself upon its victim, and is carried along with it. It buries itself in the body of the Paramecium, and, in a short time; multiplies to such a degree, that some- times fifty of them are found on a single individual. Poor victim ! The Nassula have the body entirely covered with cilia ; they are ovoid or oblong in form, con- tractile, the mouth placed late- rally and dentate, or surrounded with a band of horny bristles, the band dilating and contract- ing according to the size of the prey which it would swallow. It either advances to seize the prey, which the movement of vibratile cilia have failed to draw within the vortex of its mouth, or, as in the case of the Paramecium, it is sometimes obliged to seek for its prey. These curious infusoria 1H THE OCEAN WORLD. live in stagnant waters, feeding on the debris of aquatic plants, from which they draw their chief nourishment as well as their colour. The Bursarians are animals with an oval or oblong contractile body, provided also with vibratile cilia, especially on the surface, having also a large mouth, surrounded with cilia, forming a sort of microscopic moustache, spirally arranged. Among the species belonging to this group may be noted the Con- dylostoma patens (Fig. 39), remarkable for its size and voracity. It sometimes attains the twelfth of an inch, and abounds on every shore from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. Another Bursarian, a species of Pfagiostoma, lives between the intestines and the external muscular bed of the earth-worm, Lumbricus terrestris. To the group of Urceolarians belong the Stentors, which are in number the most numerous of the Infusoria; they are, for the most part, visible to the naked eye. The Stentor s are inhabitants of fresh, tranquil water, not subject to agitation, and covered with water plants. They are nearly all coloured green, blackish, or blue ; their bodies covered with cilia. They are eminently con- tractile, and very variable in form. They can attach themselves temporarily, by means of the cils at their posterior extremities, when they assume a trumpet-like form, the bell of which is closed by a convex membrane, the edge being furnished with a row of very strong obliquely-placed cilia, ranged in a spiral, meet- ing at the mouth, which is placed near this edge. When they swim freely, they alter- nately resemble a club, a spindle, or a sphere. The Stentor Muelleri is seen in ponds in the neighbourhood of Paris and elsewhere ; it has been found even in the basins of the Jardins des Plantes (Fig. 40). The animals which constitute this genus are fixed in the first part of their existence, but free in the second. So long as they are fixed, they resemble, in their expanding state, a bell or funnel, with the edges reversed and ciliate. When they become i*. 40. Stentor Muelleri (Enr.), magnified 75 times. INFUSORIA. 115 free, they lose their crown of cilia, take a cylindrical form, more or less ovoid and elongated, and move themselves by means of a new organ. " There is no animal," says Dujardin, " which excites our admiration in a higher degree than the Vorticellate Infusoria, by their crown of cilia, and by the vortex which it produces ; by their ever-varying forms ; above all, by their pedicle, which is susceptible of rapid spiral contraction, by drawing the body backward and again extending it. This pedicle is a flat membranous band, thicker upon one of its edges than the other, and containing on the thicker side a continuous channel, occupied, at least in part, by a fleshy substance, analogous to that of the interior of the body. During contraction, this thick edge is shortened more than the thin side, and hence results the precise form of the spiral of the corkscrew." We cannot conclude our brief history of these curiously-organized beings without recording the doubt which still exists in the minds of our most eminent naturalists, whether some of those we have named are animal or vegetable in their origin. The Desmidese, long classed among animals, are now generally recognized as plants. The group of Diatomacece are still considered doubtful, and the Monads and Volocina are still subjects of discussion, the evidence inclining in favour of those who argue for their vegetable nature. Messrs. Busk, Williamson, and Cohn, have published in the " Microscopical Trans- actions " minute details of the evolutions of these curiously-organized globules, which seem to prove their vegetable nature. On fhe other hand, it is difficult to imagine so accurate an observer as Agassiz writing so positively as he does on a doubtful subject. Eemarking on a former paper, in which he had shown that the .embryo hatched from the egg of a Planaria was a true polygastric animalcule of the genus Paramecium, he adds, that in former writers a link was wanting, viz., tracing the young hatched from the egg of Distoma. " This deficiency," he says, "I can now fill. It is another Infusorium, a genuine Opalina. With such facts before us there is no longer any doubt left respecting the character of all these Polygastria ; they are the earliest larvse condition of worms." Amid these friendly disputes we congratulate ourselves that we have to do with the oceanic creations, both animal and vegetable. i 2 THE OCEAN WORLD. CHAPTEE Y. POLYPIFEEA. " Happy is he who, satisfied with his humble fortune, lives contentedly in the obscure state where God has placed him." RACINE. ENTERING on the class Polypifera, we leave the domain of the infi- nitely small to enter the world of the visible. Beside the Infusoria, the Polypifera, which are sometimes several inches in length, are very important beings. Science has made great advances towards giving us an exact knowledge of these singular animals. Many scientific pre- judices have been dissipated, many errors have been corrected. The Polyps, as they are denned in the actual state of Science, correspond not only with the Polypes, properly so called, of Cuvier and De Blain- ville, buf also with the acaleplious zoophytes of the same authors. "We now know that certain Polyps engender medusw, or acalephous zoophytes, and that there exist some medusae scarcely differing in their structure and habits of life from the ordinary Polyps. Thus regarded, the Polyps comprehend a great variety of animals, the bodies of which are generally soft or gelatinous substances. The principal and smaller divisions, to the number of more than two, are arranged round an imaginary axis, represented by the central part of the body. These divisions of the body have in their ensemble the appearance of a regular cylinder, of a truncated cone, or of a disk. They are invested with a skin or envelope of calcareous or siliceous corpuscles, and even a portion of the deepest-lying tissues may be invaded by a calcareous deposit, the mass of which belongs some- times to an individual ; sometimes it is common to many, constituting what Dr. Johnston calls the Polypidom, of which Professor Grant POLYPIFEEA. 117 says, " there is but one life and one plan of development in the whole mass, and this depends, not on the Polypi, which are but secondary, and often deciduous parts, but on the general fleshy substance of the body ;"* " the ramifications," says Dr. Johnston, " being disposed in a variety of elegant plant-like forms. The stem and branches are alike in texture : slender, horny, fistular, and almost always jointed at short and regular intervals, the joint being a mere break in the continuity of the sheath, without any character of a proper hinge, and formed by regular periodical interruptions in the growth of the polypidoms. Along the sides of these, or at their extremities, we find the denticles or cup-like cells of the polypi arranged in a determinate order, either sessile or elevated on a stalk." Near the base of each of these there is a partition or diaphragm, on which the body of the polyps rests, with a plain or tubulous perforation in the centre, through which the connection between the individual polyps and the common medullary pulp is retrained. Besides the cells, there are found at certain seasons a larger sort of vesicle, readily distinguished from the others by their size, and the irregularity of their distribution, which are destined to contain and maturate the ovules. With these animals the digestive tube is very simple, and presents only one distinct orifice; the same opening serving at once for re- ceiving the food and the expulsion of the residuum of digestion. This is one of Nature's economies, which it is not for us to dispute : we must record it without further remark. In nearly all the Polyps the sexes are separate ; the generation is sometimes sexual ; but these beings multiply also by what the zoolo- gists call gemmation, or buds. They are provided with organs of the senses ; nearly all of them have eyes an immense progress in organ- ization as compared with the animals which have hitherto engaged our attention. Their respiration is effected by the skin another instance of the economy of Nature. The apparatus of their circulation is indis- tinct, but they have a nourishing fluid analogous to the blood in vertebrated animals. Yibratile cilia and stinging hairs often cover the entire surface of the Polyps. These general remarks may appear obscure and insufficient to the larger number of our readers. They are necessarily so; they are generalities upon animals very little known, even to naturalists. We * " Outlines of Comparative Anatomy." 118 THE OCEAN WORLD. quit this difficult ground, trusting to make the special study of the several types we shall have to describe more interesting. The group of Polyps divide themselves into many classes, namely, the Alcyonidte, the Zoanthina, the Discophora, and Ctenophora. It will be our task to describe in succession the habits and characters of each of these classes, dwelling on such species as appear to us to offer to the reader most real interest. CHAPTER VI. CORALLINES. " As for your pretty Htlle seed-cups or vases, they are a sweet confirmation of the pleasure Nature seems to take in superadding elegance of form to most of her works. How poor and bungling are all the imitations of art! When 1 have the pleasure of seeing you next, we shall sit down nay, kneel down and admire these things." HOGARTH xo ELLIS. THE Alcyonaria are so designated from their principal type, that of the Alcyons. The fresh-water species are composed of a fleshy, sponge-like mass, consisting of vertical, aggregated, memhranaceous tubes, which are open on the surface. In these tubes the polyps, which are Isidians, are located. The mouth is encircled with a single series of filiform tentacula, which, like those of the whole family, are depressed or incomplete on one side. The eggs are contained in the tubes, and are coriaceous and smooth. The tentacula of these polyps are generally eight, disposed somewhat like the barbs of a feather, and toothed on their edges like a saw, which has procured them the name of Ctenoceros, from the Greek word %ret9, a comb. Their bodies present eight perigastric lamellse ; their coral is often formed of spiculse. We shall see, farther on, that among the Gorgonidae the coral ceases to be parenchymous that is, spongy and cellular ; that its axis assumes a horny and resistant consistence, which becomes stony in the corallines. In this last group, the external bed, which is the special lodging of the polyps, always remains soft on the surface. We shall have a general idea of the organization, manners, and mode of multiplication among the Alcyonaria when we come to treat of corals and their strange history. The class Alcyonaria is divided into many orders. We shall consider I. The Tubiporinse. II. The Gorgoniadte. III. The Pennatulidve. IV. The Alcyonaria, properly so called. 120 THE OCEAN WORLD. I. THE TUBIPORIN^E form a group consisting of several species, which live in the bosom of tropical seas, in which the Coral Islands form so prominent a feature. The group is exclusively formed of the curious genus Tubipora. The Tubipora is a calcareous coral, formed by a combination of distinct, regularly-arranged tubes, connected together at regulated distances by lamellar expansion of the same material. The aggregate formation resulting from this combination of tubes constitutes a rounded mass, which often attains a very considerable size. In Fig. 41 we have a representation of the zoophyte Tubipora musica and its product, which is sometimes designated by the vulgar name of Sea- Organ. In the engraving, 1 is the calcareous product, reduced to half its size ; 2, is a portion in its natural size ; 3, the tubes magnified, and containing the polyp which occupies the summit of the tube, the whole 8 41. Tubipora musica (T.inn.), half the natural size. of which constitutes this curious coral ; 4, is the polyp magnified ; 5, the head or collection of tentacula of the individual polyp. CORALLINES. 121 Zoologists of the last century confounded all the species of this genera inhabiting the tropical seas, making only one species, to which they gave the name of Tubipora musica. But it is now known that there are many species of Tubiporw, readily distinguishable in a fresh condition by a difference in the colour of the polyps. The tissue of these singular beings is of an intensely red colour. The disposition of their tubes in the style of organ pipes has always attracted the atten- tion of the curious inquirer into the secrets of Nature. II. GORGONIAD^E. Milne Edwards divides this order into three natural groups : I. The Gorgoniadte. II. The Isidians. III. The Corallines. The Gorgonians are composed of two substances : the one external, Fig. 42. The Sea Fan, Gorgonia flabellum (Linn.). .sometimes gelatinous and fugitive ; sometimes, on the contrary, creta- ceous, fleshy, and more or less tenacious. Animated with life, this 122 THE OCEAN WORLD. membrane is irritable and encloses the polyp ; it becomes friable or arenaceous in drying. The second substance, internal and central, sustains the first, and is called the axis. This axis presents a horny appearance, and was formerly believed to possess chemical characters analogous to the horns and hoofs of some of the vertebrated animals. It has recently been asserted that the tissues of these corals consist essentially of a particular substance which resembles horn, but which is called Corneine. A little carbonate of lime is sometimes found united with this substance, but never in a sufficient quantity to give it a stony consistence. This outer covering developes itself in con- centric beds, between the portion of the axis previously formed and the internal surface of the sclerotic covering. The mode of growth in this axis presents great variations. Sometimes it remains simple and rises like a slender rod, some- times it has numerous branches. It is arbores- cent when the branches and their accompaniments take different directions so as to constitute tufts. It is panicked when they arrange themselves on both sides of the stem or principal branches, after the manner of the barbs of a feather. It is fldbelliform when the branches rise irregularly under the same plane ; reticulated, when branches are so disposed as to be attached to each other by network in place of remaining free. The Gorgoniadse are found in every sea, and always at considerable depths. They are larger and more numerous between the Tropics Fig. 43. Fan Gorgon, magnified. CORALLINES. 123 than in cold or even temperate climates. Some of these corals scarcely attain the twelfth of an inch in height, while others rise to the height of several feet. Fig. 44. Gorgonia verticellata (Pallas). Formed in the hosom of the ocean, it is only necessary to hehold these singular creations in order to admire the brilliant colours which decorate their semi-membranaceous branches. The brilliancy of their robes are singularly diminished, have almost entirely disappeared, 124 THE OCEAN WORLD. indeed, when they make their appearance in the cases of our natural history collections. The Fan Gorgon, from the Antilles (Fig. 42), is a species which often attains the height of eighteen or twenty inches, and nearly as much in hreadth. The network of its interstices with its unequal and serried meshes, resembling fine lace, have led to its designation of Sea Fan. Its colour is yellow or reddish. In Fig. 43 we have the Sea Fan magnified to twice its natural size, showing the curious details of its organization. The Whorled Gorgon (G. verticellatd), which is found in the Mediterranean, is yellowish in colour, and also of elegant form. It is sometimes called the Sea Pen. This species is represented in Fig. 44, while Fig. 45 represents a small branch magni- fied four times, in order to give an exact idea of its form. The Gorgons are not known to be useful either in the arts or in medicine. They are ornamental in cabinets, and interesting both as objects of study and of zoological curiosity. Fig. 45. Gorgonia verticellata (Pallas), magnified four times. ISIDIANS. The Isidce constitute an intermediate group between the Gorgons and Corallines. Their polypidorn is arborescent, but its axis is formed of articulations alternately calcareous and horny. The principal genus is that of the Isis, which is met with in the Indian Ocean, on the American coast, and in Oceania. The inhabitants of the Molucca Islands use these animals medicinally as a remedy in certain diseases ; but as .they use them for the most opposite maladies, it may be doubted if they are really efficacious in any medicinal point of view. The Isis corollo'idis of Oceania has a coral with numerous slender branches, furnished with cylindrical knots at intervals, con- tracted towards the middle, finely striated, and rose-coloured. Isis CORALLINES. 125 hippuris, represented in Fig. 46, has a singular resemblance to the Common Mare's Tail (Hippuris vulgaris). Fig. 46. Isis hippuris. Four other species of Isidians are known. The same family includes the genera of Melitsea and Mopsea, which, however, our limits forhid us to describe. CORALLINE. The group of Corallines consist of a single genus, Corallium, having a common axis, inarticulate, solid, and calcareous, the typical species of which furnishes matter hard, brilliant, and richly coloured, and much sought after as an object^ of adornment. This interesting zoophyte and its product require to be described with some detail. 126 THE OCEAN WORLD. From very early times, the coral has been adopted as an object of ornament. From the highest antiquity, also, efforts were made to ascertain its true origin, and the place assignable to it in the works of Nature. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny considered that the coral was a plant. Tournefort, in 1700, reproduced the same idea. Eeaumur slightly modified this opinion of the ancients, and declared his opinion that the coral was the stony product of certain marine plants. Science was in this state when a naturalist, who has acquired a great name, the Count de Marsigli, made a discovery which threw quite a new light on the true origin of this natural product. He announced that he had discovered the flowers of the coral. He repre- sented these flowers in his fine work, " La Physique de la Mer," which includes many interesting details respecting this curious product of the ocean. How could it be longer doubted that the coral was a plant, since he had seen its expanded flowers ? No one doubted it, and Eeaumur proclaimed everywhere the dis- covery of the happy Academician. Unhappily, a discordant note soon mingled in this concert. It even emanated from a pupil of Marsigli ! Jean Andre de Peyssonnel was born at Marseilles in 1694. He was a student of medicine and natural history at Paris when the Academie des Sciences charged him with the task of studying the coral on the sea-shore. Peyssonnel began his observations in the neighbourhood of Marseilles in 1723. He pursued it on the North African coast, where he had been sent on a mission by the Govern- ment. Aided by a long series of observations as exact as they were delicate, Peyssonnel demonstrated that the pretended flowers which the Count de Marsigli thought he had discovered in the coral, were true animals, and showed that the coral was neither plant nor the product of a plant, but a being with life, which he placed in the first " rung " of the zoological ladder. " I put the flower of the coral," says Peyssonnel, " in vases full of sea-water, and I saw that what had been taken for a flower of this pretended plant was, in truth, only an insect, like a little sea-nettle, or polyp. I had the pleasure of seeing removed the claws or feet of the creature, and having put the vase full of water, which contained the coral, in a gentle heat over the fire, all the small insects seemed to expand. The polyp extended his feet, and formed what M. de Marsigli and I had taken for the petals of a CORALLINES. 127 flower. The calyx of this pretended flower, in short, was the animal, which advanced and issued out of its cell." The observations of Peyssonnel were calculated to put aside altogether theories which had lately attracted universal admiration, but they were coldly received by the naturalists, his contemporaries. Reaumur distinguished himself greatly in his opposition to the young innovator. He wrote to Peyssonnel in an ironical tone: "I think (he says) as you do, that no one has hitherto been disposed to regard the coral as the work of insects. We cannot deny that this idea is both new and singular ; but the coral, as it appears to me, never could have been constructed by sea-nettles or polyps, if we may judge from the manner in which you make them labour." What appeared impossible to Reaumur was, however, a fact which Peyssonnel had demonstrated to hundreds by his experiments at Marseilles. Nevertheless, Bernard de Jussieu did not find the reasons he urged strong enough to induce him to abandon the opinions he had formed as to their vegetable origin. Afflicted and disgusted at the indifferent success with which his labours were received, Peyssonnel abandoned his investigations. He even abandoned science and society, and sought an obscure retirement in the Antilles as a naval surgeon, and his manuscripts, which he left in France, have never been printed. These manuscripts, written in 1 744, were preserved in the library of the Museum of Natural History at Paris. The title is comprehensive and sufficiently descriptive. It should be added, in order to complete the recital, that Reaumur and Bernard de Jussieu finally recognized the value of the discoveries and the validity of the reasoning of the naturalist of Marseilles. When these illustrious savants became acquainted with the experiments of Trembley upon the fresh-water hydrae ; when they had themselves repeated them ; when they had made similar observations on the sea anemone and alcyonidae ; when they finally discovered that on other so-called marine plants animal- cules were found similar to the hydra, so admirably described by Trembley ; they no longer hesitated to render full justice to the views of their former adversary. While Peyssonnel still lived forgotten at the Antilles, his scientific labours were crowned with triumph . at Paris ; but it was a sterile triumph for him. Reaumur gave to the animalcules which construct the coral the name of Polyps, and Coral to the product itself, for THE OCEAN WORLD. such he considered the architectural product of the polyps. In other words, Beaumur introduced into Science the views which he had keenly contested with their author. But from that time the animal nature of the coralline has never been doubted. Without pausing to note the various authors who have given their attention to this fine natural production, we shall at once direct our attention to the organization of the animalcules, and the construction of the coral. M. Lacaze-Duthiers, professor at the -Jardin des Plantes of Paris, published in 1864 a remarkable monograph, entitled "L'Histoire Naturelle du Corail." This learned naturalist was charged by the French Government, in 1860, with a mission having for its object the study of the coral from the natural history point of view. His observations upon the zoophytes are numerous and precise, and worthy of the successor of Peyssonnel ; but for close observation, practical conclusions, and popular exposition, the world is more indebted to Charles Darwin than to any other naturalist. A branch of living coral, if we may use the term, is an aggregation of animals derived from a first being by budding. They are united among themselves by a common tissue, each seeming to enjoy a life of its own, though participating in a common object. The branch seems to originate in an egg, which produces a young animal, which attaches itself soon after its birth, as already described. From this is derived the new beings which, by their united labours, pro- duce the branch of coral or polypidom. This branch is composed of two distinct parts : the one central, of a hard, brittle, and stony nature, the well-known coral of commerce ; the other altogether external, like the bark of a tree, soft and fleshy, and easily impressed with the nail. This is essentially the bed of the living colony. The first is called the polypidom, the second is the colony of polyps. . This bed (Fig. 47) is much contracted when the water is withdrawn from the colony. It is covered with salient mammals or protuberances, much wrinkled and furrowed. Each protuberance encloses a polyp, and presents on its summit Fig. 47. Living Bed of Coral after the entrance of the Polyps. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) COEALLINES. 129 Fig. 48. Three Polyps of the Coral. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) eight folds, radiating round a central pore, which presents a star-like appearance. This pore as it opens gives to the polyps the op- portunity of coming out. Its edge presents a reddish calyx, like the rest of the hark, the festooned throat of which pre- sents eight dentations. The polyp itself (Fig. 48) is formed of a whitish membra- nous tube, nearly cylindrical, having an upper disk, surrounded by its eight tentacula, bearing many delicate fibres spreading out laterally. This assemblage of tentacula resembles the corolla of some flowers ; its form is very variable, but always truly elegant. Fig. 49 (which is borrowed from M. Lacaze-Duthiers' great work) represents one of these forms of the coral. The arms of the polyps are at times subject to violent agitation : the tentacula become much excited. If this excitement continues, the tentacula can be seen to fold and roll themselves up, as shown in Fig. 50. If we look at the ex- panded disk, we see that the eight tentacula attach themselves to the body, describing a space perfectly circular, in the middle of which rises a small mammal, the summit of which is occupied by a small slit like two rounded lips. This is the mouth of the polyps, the form being very va- riable, but well represented in Fig. 50, where the organ under consideration is displayed. 130 THE OCEAN WORLD. Fig. 50. Another form of the Coral Polyp. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) A cylindrical tube connected with the mouth represents the oeso- phagus or gullet ; but all other portions of the digestive tube are very rudimentary. The oesophagus connects the general cavity of the body with the exterior, and looks as if it were suspended in the middle of the body by certain folds, which issue with perfect symmetry from eight points of its circumference. The folds which thus fix the oesophagus form a series of cells, above each of which it attaches itself, and supports an arm or tentaculum. Let us pause an instant over the soft and fleshy bark in which the polyps are engaged. Let us see also what are the mutual relations which exist between the several inhabitants of one of these colonies, how they are attached to one another, and what is their connection with the polypidom. The thick fleshy body, soft, and easily impressed with the finger, is the living part which produces the coral ; it extends itself so as ex- actly to cover the whole polypidom. If it perishes at any one point, that part of the axis which corresponds with the point no longer shows any increase. An intimate relation, therefore, exists between the bark and the polypidom. If the bark is examined more closely, three principal elements are recognized a common general tissue, some spicula, and certain vessels. The general tissue is transparent, glossy, cellular, and contractile. The spiculse are very small calcareous concretions, more or less elongated, covered with knotted joints bristling with spines, and of regular determinate form (Fig. 51). They refract the light very vividly, and their colour is that of the coral, but much weaker, in consequence of their want of thickness. They are uniformly dis- tributed throughout the bark, and give to the coral the fine colour which generally characterises it. The vessels constitute a network, which ex- tends and repeats itself in the thickness of the crust. These vessels Fig 51 . Coralline SpicuU. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) COKALLINES. 131 are of two kinds (Fig. 52); the one, comparatively very large, is imbedded in the axis, and disposed in parallel layers ; the others are regular and much smaller. They form a network of unequal meshes, which occupies the whole thickness of the external crust. This net- work has direct and important connection with the polyps on the one hand, and with the central substance which forms the axis on the other. It communicates directly with the general cavity of the body Fig. 52. Circulating Apparatus for the nutritive fluids in the Coral. (Lacazo-Duthiers.) of the animal, by every channel which approaches it, while the two ranges of network approach each other by a great number of anas- tomosing processes. Such is the vascular arrangement of the coral. The circulation of alimentary fluids in the coral is accomplished by means of vessels near to the axis, without, however, directly anasto- mosing with the cavities containing the polyps which live in the polypidom ; they only communicate with those cavities by very deli- cate intermediary canals. The alimentary fluids they receive from the K 2 132 THE OCEAN WORLD. secondary system of network, which brings them into direct commu- nication with the polyps. The alimentary fluids elaborated by the polyps pass into the branches of the secondary and irregular network system, in order to reach the great parallel tubes which extend from one extremity of the organism to the other, serving the same purpose to the whole community. When the extremity of a branch of living coral is torn or broken, a white liquid immediately flows from the wound, which mingles with water, and presents all the appearance of milk. This is the fluid aliment which has escaped from the vessel containing it, charged with the debris of the organism. What occurs when the bud produces new polyps ? It is only round well-developed animals, and particularly those with branching ex- tremities, in which this phenomenon is produced. The new beings resemble little white points pierced with a central orifice. Aided by the microscope, we discover that this white point is starred with radia- ting white lines, the edge of the orifice bearing eight distinctly-traced indentations. All these organs are enlarged step by step until the young animal has attained the shrub-like or branched aspect which belongs to the compound polypidom. The tube is branching, and the orifices from which the polypi expand become dilated into cup-like cells. The coral of commerce, so beautiful and so appreciated by lovers of bijouterie, is the polypidom. It is cylindrical, much channeled on the surface, the lines usually parallel to the axis of the cylinder, the depres- sions sometimes corresponding to the body of the animal. If the transverse section of a polypidom be examined, it is found to be regularly festooned on its circumference. Towards its centre certain sinuosities appear, sometimes crossing, sometimes tri- gonal, sometimes in irregular lines, Fig. 53. Section of a Branch of Coral. -, . ., . . , and in the remaining mass are red- dish folds alternating with brighter spaces which radiate from the centre towards the circumference (Fig. 53). In the section of a very red coral, it will be observed that the colour CORALLINES. 133 is not equally distributed, but separated into zones more or less deep in colour, containing very thin preparations which crack, not irre- gularly, but parallel to the edge of the plate, and in such a manner as to reproduce the festoons on the circumference. From this it may be deduced that the stem increases by concentric layers being deposited, which mould themselves .one upon the other. In the mass of coral certain small corpuscles occur, charged with irregular asperities, much redder than the tissue into which they are plunged. These are much Fig. 54. Birth of the Coralline Larvae. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) more numerous in the red than in the light band, and they necessarily give more strength to the general tint. To the mode of reproduction in the coral polyps, so well described by Lacaze-Duthiers, we can only devote a few lines. Sometimes, ac- cording to this able observer, the polyps of the same colony are all either male or female, and the branch is unisexual ; in others there are both male and female, when the branch is bisexual. Finally, but very rarely, polyps are found uniting both sexes. The coral is viviparous ; that is to say, its eggs become embryos inside the polyp. The larvae remain a certain time in the general 134 THE OCEAN WORLD. cavity of the polyp, where they can be seen through its transparency, as exhibited in Fig. 54. Aided by the magnifying powers of the microscope, coral larvae may here be perceived through the transparent membranous envelope. From this position they escape from the mouth of the mother in the manner represented in the upper branch. The animal then resembles a little white grub or worm, more or less elongated. The larva is, however, still egg-shaped or ovoid ; more- over, it is sunk in a hollow cavity, and covered with cilia, by the aid of which it can swim. Sometimes one of its extremities becomes enlarged, the other remaining slender and pointed. Upon this an opening is formed communicating with the interior cavity: this is the mouth. The larvae swim backwards; that is to say, with the mouth behind. It is only at a certain period after birth that the coral polyp fixes itself and commences its metamorphoses, which consist essentially in a change of form and proportions. The buccal extremity is diminished and tapers off, whilst the base swells, and is enlarged it becomes discoid ; the posterior surface of this sort of disk is a plane, the front representing the mouth, at the bottom of a depression edged with a great cushion. Eight mammillations or swellings now appear, corresponding to the chambers which divide the interior of the disk : the worm has taken its radiate form. Finally, the mammals are elongated and transformed into tentacula. In Fig. 55 a young coral polyp is represented fixed upon a bryozoa, a name employed by Ehrenberg for zoophytes having a mouth and anus. It forms a small disk, the fortieth part of an inch in diameter, and having its spicula already coloured red. Fig. 56 shows the successive forms of the young polyps in the progressive phases of their de- velopment being a young coralline polyp fixed upon a rock still con- Fig. 55. Very young Polyps, attached to a . , ,. \- . ., , Bryozoa. tracted. Fig. 57 is a similar coral- line attached to a rock and expanding its tentacula. Fig. 58 represents a small pointed rock covered with polypi and polypidoms of the natural size and of different shapes, but CORALLINES. 135 Fig. 56. A young Coral Polyp fixed upon a Kock. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) all young, and indicating the definite form of development which the collective beings are to assume. The simple isolated state of the animal, whose phases of de- velopment we have indicated, does not last long. It possesses the property of producing new beings, as we have already said, by budding. But how is the polypidom formed ? If we take a very young branch, we find in the centre of the thickness of the crust a nucleus or stony substance resembling an agglomeration of spicula. When they are sufficient in number and size, these nuclei form a kind of stony plate, which is imbedded in the thickness of the tissues of the animal. These laminee, at first quite flat, assume in the course of their development a horse-shoe shape. Figs. 59 and 60 will give the reader some idea of the form in which the young present themselves. Fig. 59 repre- sents the corpuscles in which the polypidom has its origin ; Fig. 60, the rudimentary form of the coralline polypidom. Our information fails to convey any precise notion of the time necessary for the coral to acquire the various proportions in which it pre- sents itself. Darwin, who examined some of these creatures very minutely, tells us that " several genera (Flustrse, Escharae, Cellaria, Cresia, and others) agree in having singular movable organs at- tached to their cells. The organs in the greater number of cases very closely resemble the head of a vulture ; but the lower mandible can be opened much wider than a 57. Young Coral Polyp attached to a Kock and expanded. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) Fig. 58. A Rock covered with young Polyps and Polypidom. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) 136 THE OCEAN WORLD. real bird's beak. The head itself possesses considerable powers of movement, by means of a short neck. In one zoophyte the head itself was fixed, but the lower jaw free ; in another it was replaced by a tri- angular hood, with a beautifully - fitted trap- door, which evidently answered to the lower mandible. In the greater number of species each cell was provided with one head, but in others each cell had two. "The young cells at the end of the branches Fig. 59. Corpuscles from which Fig. 60. First form of the originate the Polypidom. Polypidom. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) O f these COralHneS Contain quite immature polypi, yet the vulture heads attached to them, though small, are in every respect perfect. When the polypus was removed by a needle from any of the cells, these organs did not appear to be in the least affected. When one of the vulture-like heads was cut off from a cell, the lower mandible retained its power of opening and closing. Perhaps the most singular part of their structure is, that when there are more than two rows of cells on a branch, the central cells were furnished with these appendages of only one-fourth the size of the outside ones. Their movements varied according to the species ; but in some I never saw the least motion, while others, with the lower mandible generally wide open, oscillated backwards and forwards at the rate of about five seconds each turn ; others moved rapidly and by starts. When touched with a needle, the beak generally seized the point so firmly that the whole branch might be shaken." In the Cresia, Darwin observed that each cell was furnished with a long-toothed bristle, which had the power of moving very quickly ; each bristle and each vulture-like head moving quite independently of each other ; sometimes all on one side, sometimes those on one branch only moving simultaneously, sometimes one after the other. In these actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the zoophyte, though composed of thousands of distinct polyps, as in any COEALLINES. 137 distinct animal. " What can be more remarkable," he adds, " than to see a plant-like body producing an egg, capable of swimming about and choosing a proper place to adhere to, where it sprouts out into branches, each crowded with innumerable distinct animals, often of complicated organization ! the branches, moreover, sometimes pos- sessing organs capable of movement independent of the polypi." Passing to the coral fishing, it may be said to be quite special, presenting no analogy with any other fishing in the European seas, if we except the sponge fisheries. The fishing stations which occur are found on the Italian coast and the coast of Barbary ; in short, in most parts of the Mediterranean basin. In all these regions, on abrupt rocky beds, certain aquatic forests occur, composed entirely of the red coral, the most brilliant and the most celebrated of all the corals, Coralium decus liquidi! During many ages, as we have seen, the coral was supposed to be a plant. The ancient Greeks called it the daughter of the sea (Kopd\\tov KopTj aXo?), which the Latins translated into corraUum or coralium. It is now agreed among naturalists that the coral is con- structed by a family of polyps living together, and composing a poly- pidom. It abounds in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, where it is found at various depths, but rarely less than five fathoms, or more than a hundred and fifty. Each polypidom resembles a pretty red leaf- less under shrub bearing delicate little star-like radiating white flowers. The axes of this little tree are the parts common to the association, the flowrets are the polypi. These axes present a soft reticulated crust, full of little cavities, which are the cells of the polyps, and are permeated by a milky juice. Beneath the crust is the coral, pro- perly so called, which equals marble in hardness, and is remarkable for its striped surface, its bright red colour, and the fine polish of which it is susceptible. The ancients believed that it was soft in the water, and only took its consistence when exposed to the air : " Sic et coralium, quo primum contigit auras Tempore, durescit." OVID. The fishing is chiefly conducted by sailors from Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples, and it is so fatiguing, that it is a common saying in Italy that a sailor obliged to go to the coral fishery should be a thief or an assassin. The saying is a gratuitous insult to the sailor, but conveys a good idea enough of the occupation. 138 THE OCEAN WORLD. The barks sent to the fishing range from six to fifteen tons ; they are solid, and well adapted for the labour ; their rig is a great lateen sail, and a jib or staysail. The stern is reserved for the capstan, the fishers, and the crew. The fore part of the vessel is reserved for the requirements of the patron or master. The lines, wood, and irons employed in the coral fisheries are called the engine : it consists of a cross of wood formed of two bars, strongly lashed or bolted together at their centre ; below this a great stone is attached, which bears the lines, arranged in the form of a sac. These lines have great meshes, loosely knotted together, resembling the well-known swab. The apparatus carries thirty of these sacs, which are intended to grapple all they come in contact with at the bottom of the sea. They are spread out in all directions by the movement of the boat. The coral is known to attach itself to the summit of a rock and to develop itself, forming banks there, and it is to these rocks that the swab attaches itself so as to tear up the precious harvest. Experience, which in time becomes almost intuitive, guides the Italian fisher in discovering the coral banks. The craft employed in the great fishery have a " patron " or captain, the bark having a poop, with a crew of eight or ten sailors, and in the season it is continued night and day. The whole apparatus, and mode of using it, is shown in PL. III. When the patron thinks that he has reached a coral bank, he throws his engine overboard. As soon as the apparatus is engaged, the speed of the vessel is retarded, the capstan is manned by six or eight men, while the others guide the helm and trim the sails. Two forces are thus brought to act upon the lines, the horizontal action of the vessel and the vertical action of the capstan. In consequence of the many inequalities of the rocky bottom, the engine advances by jerks, the vessel yielding more or less, according to the concussion caused by the action of the capstan or sail. The engine seizes upon the rugged rocks at the bottom, and raises them to let them fall again. In this manner the swab, floating about, penetrates beneath the rocks where the coral is found, and is hooked on to it. To fix the lines upon the coral and bring them home, is a work of unheard-of labour. The engine long resists the most energetic and repeated efforts of the crew, who, exposed almost naked to the burning sun of the Mediter- ranean, work the capstan to which the cable and engine are attached, while the patron urges and excites them to increased exertion, and Plate III. Coral Fishing on the Coast of Sicily. CORALLINES. 139 the sailors trim the sail and sing with a slow and monotonous tone a song, the words of which improvise in a sort of psalmody the names of the saints most revered among the seafaring Italian population. The lines are finally hrought home, tearing or breaking hlocks of rock, sometimes of enormous size, which are hrought on board. The cross is now placed on the side of the vessel, the lines are arranged on the deck, and the crew occupy themselves in gathering the results of their labour. The coral is gathered together, the branches of the precious zoophyte are cleansed, and divested of the shells and other parasitic products which accompany them; finally, the produce is carried to and sold in the ports of Messina, Naples, Genoa, or Leghorn, where the workers in jewellery purchase them. Behold, fair reader, with what hard labour, fatigue, and peril, the elegant bijouterie with which you are decked is torn from the deepest bed of the ocean ! III. THE PENNATULID^E, OR SEA-PEN. This curious family received from Cuvier the name of Swimming Polypi, and from Lamarck that of Floating Polypi. The name of Pennatulse, by which they are generally known, is taken from their resemblance to a quill, penna. In the words of Lamarck, " It seems as if Nature, in forming this composite animal, had wished to copy the external form of a bird's feather." Our fishermen call it the cock's comb, which is not inapt, but less expressive of its peculiarities. This animal is " from two to four inches in length, of a uniform purplish- red colour, except at the hip or base of the stalk, where it is pale orange-yellow; the skin is thickish, very tough, and of a curious structure, being composed of minute crystalline cylinders, densely arranged in straight lines, and held together by a tenacious glutinous matter, the cylinders being about six inches in diameter, in length straight and even, or sometimes slightly curved, and of a red colour, which communicates itself to the zoophyte." (Johnston.) The animals by which it is formed constitute colonies, which, however, are only attached to the rocks by an enlarged basis ; it appears to live generally at the bottom of the sea ; its root, if we can use the term, buried in the sands or mud ; its polypiferous portion sallying out into the water. The agitation of the waves and the fishermen's nets often displace these aggregates of creation, and then they float at various depths in the bosom of the ocean. 140 THE OCEAN WORLD. The stalk of the polypidom is hollow in the centre, having a long slender hone-like substance, which is white, smooth, and square, hut tapering at each extremity to a fine point. The polyps, which are fleshy and white, are provided with eight long retractile tentacula, beautifully ciliated on their inner edge with two series of short pro- cesses strengthened with crystalline spicula. The mouth in the centre of the tentacula is somewhat angular, hounded by a white ligament, a process from which encircles the base of each tentaculum, which thus seems to issue from an aperture. The ova lie between the membranes of the pinnae ; they are globular, of a yellowish colour, and by a little pressure can be made to pass through the mouth. The polyps are distributed with more or less regularity in such a manner that one of the extremities of the common axis is always naked : this part has been compared to the tubulous part of a feather. The stem, common to the colony, is a solid central axis, more or less developed, which is covered with a fleshy fibrous substance, susceptible of dilatation and contraction. The Pennatulidse comprehend three genera ; namely, those with polyps on bipinnate wings, having according to Dr. Johnston Polypidoms plumose, in ..... Pennatula. Polypidoms virgate, or wand-sLaped . . . Virgularia. Polypi, unilateral and sessile . . . . ) Polypidom, linear-elongate } In the genus Pennatula, the polyps are disposed in transverse rows upon the outer and inner edge, in a series of prolongations in the form of a feather. These winged species of polypidom are somewhat scythe-shaped, well developed, and furnished with a great quantity of pointed spiculae, which are constituted of bundles at the base of the calyx. The space between the two rows of appendages is sometimes a tissue, sometimes scaly, sometimes granulous. Of the Pennatula five species are known, and all of them appear to be gifted with phos- phorescent properties. We may note among these species Pennatula spinosa (Fig. 61), which inhabits the Mediterranean, and takes its name from its colour ; Pennatula phosphorea, which abound in most European seas, being found in great plenty, clinging to the fishermen's lines round our own northern shores, more especially when they are baited with mussels. P. phospliorea is of a reddish purple, the base of the smooth stalk pale ; the raches roughened with close-set papillae, and furrowed clown CORALLINES. 141 the middle ; pinnae close ; polyp cilia uniserial, tubular, with spinous apertures. (Sibbald.) Bohadsch says the Pennatulx swim by means of their pinnas, which they use as fishes do their fins. Ellis says, " It is an animal that swims about in the sea, many of them having a muscular motion as they swim along ;" these motions being effected, as he tells us in another place, by means of the pinnules or feather-like fins, " evidently designed by Nature to move the ani- mal backward or forward in the sea." Cuvier tells us they have the power of moving by the contraction of the fleshy part of the polypidom, and also by the combined action of its polyps. Dr. Grant says, " A more singular and beau- tiful spectacle could scarcely be con- ceived than that of a deep purple P. plwspliorea with all its delicate trans- parent polypi expanded, and emitting their usual brilliant phosphorescent light, sailing through the still and dark abyss, by the regular and syn- chronous pulsations of the minute fringed arms of the whole polypi ;" while Linnaeus tells us that " the phosphorescent sea-pens which cover the bottom of the ocean cast so strong a light, that it is easy to count the fishes and worms of various kinds which sport among them." Lamarck, Schweigger, and other naturalists, however, reasoning from what is known of other compound animals, deny the existence of this locomotive power in these zoophytes ; " and there is little doubt," says Dr. Johnston, " that these authors are right, for, when placed in a basin of sea water, the Pennatulee are never observed to change their position ; they remain in the same spot, and lie with the same side up or down, just as they have been placed. They inflate the body until it becomes to a considerable degree transparent, and only streaked Fig. 61, Sea-pen, Pennatula spinosa. (Edes.) 142 THE OCEAN WORLD. with intercepted lines of red, which distend at one place and contract at another ; they spread out the pinnge, and the polyps expand their tentacula, but they never attempt to swim, or perform any process of locomotion." P. mirabilis is common in the east and north coasts of Scotland. The virgularias differ from the pennatula chiefly in their develop- ment, relative to the axis of the colony and the shortness of the pinnae, which carry the polyps ; and in this, that no spiculse enter into the composition of its softer parts. V. mirabilis is found in the North Sea, on the coast of Scotland, and as far north as Norway. In Zetland it is known as the sea-rush. It is abundant in Belfast Lough, but, from its brittle nature, perfect specimens are difficult to obtain. " It seems," says Sowerby, " to represent a quill stripped of its feathers. The base looks like a pen in this as in other species, swelling a little way from the end, and then tapering. The upper part is thicker, with alternate semicircular pectinated swellings, larger towards the middle, tapering upwards, and terminating in a thin bony substance, which passes through the whole extent, and is from six to ten inches in length." In a communication to Dr. Johnston, from Mr. E. Patterson of Belfast, commenting on Miiller's figure of Virgularia, he tells us that in the longest specimen he had, no two plumes were precisely alike so unlike, indeed, that the artist copying one, could not for a moment hesitate, after raising her eyes from her paper, to look at the animal, as to which she was copying. Its short waving and deeply dentated wings are of a brilliant yellow. The polyps, which appear upon their lobes, are whitish, transparent, and form a fringe of small diaphanous white stars (Figs. 62 and 63 /. We may figure to ourselves a slender wand-like and much-elongated polypidom, carrying only a non-contractile polyp on one side, which would give us an idea of the Pavonaria, of which we know only one species, which is from the Mediterranean. Virgularia mirabilis is undoubtedly one of the finest polypicloms found in the ocean. Two series of half-moon shaped wings, obliquely horizontal, are placed symmetrically round an upright axis. They embrace the stem somewhat in the manner termed petiolate by bota- nists, clasping it alternately ; or, shall we say, like two broad ribbons rolled round a stem in an inverse direction, in such a manner as to CORALLINES. 143 te produce the effect of two op- posing flights of stairs. These wings are waving, vandyked, and fringed on their outer edge, and of a brilliant yel- low ; the dentature of the fringe being the lodging of their pretty little . polyps, which display occasionally their gaping mouths and ex- panded gills. The polyps are white and semi-transpa- rent. When they display their rays, the margin of Fig. 62. Loose-winped Virgularia, Virgularu mirabilis (Lamarck). Fig. 63. Branch of Virgularia, enlarged. each wing presents an edging of silvery stars. The Umbellularia have a very long stem, supported by a bone (Fig. 64) of the same length, and terminated at the summit only by a cluster of polyps. They have been found in the Greenland and other northern seas. The Veretillum, which in- habit the Mediterranean (Fig. 65), have a simple cylindrical body, without branchiae, and Fig. 64. Umbellularia Greculan- drea (Lamarck). 144 THE OCEAN WORLD. a rudimentary polypidom, furnished with very large polyps of a whitish colour. IV. THE ALCYONARIA PROPER. The beings which compose this group have the fleshy polypidom always adherent, without axis or solid interior stem. They are divided into four families or tribes. One of these, the Gornularia, are zoo- phytes, and live in isolation, or gathered together in small numbers on the surface of a common membraniform expansion. The Cornularia cornucopia live on the coast of Naples, C. crassa on the Algerian coast. Other genera make their appearance on the coast of Scotland, of Norway, in the Eed Sea, and in the Indian Ocean they appear in great num- bers. In the Alcyonaria, properly so called, the polypidom is very thick, of a semi- cartilaginous consistence, granular, and rough to the touch. The genus Alcyonium is numerous in species and widely dispersed. A. digitatum is very common on our coasts, and on many parts of the coast scarcely a stone or shell is dredged up from deep water which does not serve as a support to some one or more species of Alcyonium. It is known by various popular names by our sea- side population, such as cow's paps, from its resemblance to the teats of the cow dead mans fingers, from the occa- sional resemblance of its finger-like lobes to a man's fingers. The polypidom is a simple obtuse process, the outer skin of which is tough and coriaceous, studded all over with star-like figures, which on examination are found to be divided into eight rays, indicating the number of the polyps enclosed in its transparent vesicular membrane. It is dotted with minute calcareous grains, and marked with eight Fig. 65. Veretillum cynomorium (Lamarck). CORALLINES. 145 longitudinal lines or septa, 'stretching between the membrane and the central stomach, which divide the intermediate space into an equal number of compartments. These lines not only extend to the base of the tentacula, but run across the anal disk, and terminate in a central mouth. The tentacula are short, obtuse, ciliate on the margins, and strengthened at their roots by numerous crystalline spiculae. The polyp cells are oval, placed just under the skin, and are the termi- nating points of certain long canals which traverse the whole polypi- dom. The polyps, which are distributed over the whole surface, can withdraw into the cavities ; they are, besides, of an extremely vital sensibility : the least shock impresses itself on the tentacula, the impulse of a wave even producing contraction; in response, the animal, which is well developed, sallies out perceptibly, but imme- diately retires again to hide itself in the cell. We find on the coast, in the Channel, and in the North Sea, Alcyonium digitatum, the mass of which is of a reddish white, ferruginous, or orange ; A. stellatum, found on the shores of the Mediterranean, is expanded in its upper part, narrow towards its base, very rough on the surface, and rose-coloured ; A. palmatum is cylin- drical, branching at the summit, of a deep red, except at the base, where it is yellow : this is met with in the Mediterranean. We may note as a type, altogether different from any yet touched upon, the Nepktys, in which the polypidom is a coriaceous tissue bristling with spiculae over its whole surface. In N. Chabroli, the polypidom is squat, with thick spreading arms covered with lobiliform branches, the tubercular polypidom of which are columnar and obtuse, the sicula green, and the tentacula of the polyps yellow. " On a cursory view," says Dr. Johnston, " the polypodium of the three families embraced appear very dissimilar, and accordingly, by many recent authors, they have been scattered over the class, and placed widely asunder. The affinity between them, however, is gene- rally acknowledged, and had been distinctly perceived by some of the earliest zoophytologists. Thus Bohadsch found so much in common in the typical pennatulae and a species of Alcyonium, that he has not hesitated to describe them as members of the same genus ; and, although the more systematic character of Pallas prevented him from falling into this error, if error it can be called, he did not the less recognize the relationship between the genera or families. Pallas also L 146 THE OCEAN WORLD. tells us that his Pennatula eynomorium differs from the Alcyonium only in this, that the former is a movable and the latter a fixed poly- pidom ; and he saw with equal clearness the connection which exists between these genera and the shrub-like Gorgonia. Of the Pennatula mirabiUs he had doubts whether it was not rather a species of Gorgonia, until he perceived that the stem was attenuated at each end, and free ; and of the Sea-pens generally, Ellis remarks that they are ' a genus of zoophytes not far removed from the Gorgtonias, on account of their polyp mouths, as well as having a bone in the inside and flesh without.' ' On the other hand, the Gorgonise seem,' says Pallas, ' with the exception of their horny skeleton, to be nearly similar in structure to the Alcyon^a ; but as there are species of Gorgonia which are suberose internally, and almost of a uniform medullary consistence, even this mark of distinction fails to separate the tribes, and we have little left to guide us in arranging these esculent species excepting their external habits.' " " With most corallines," says Fredol, " the elementary individual, in spite of the adhesion established among them, possesses a vital energy all its own ; it is in some respects quite independent. They have each its own particular will, which it is difficult to mistake for a common will ; but it is not thus with the Pennatula. Their asso- ciation consists of a non-adherent polyp, which moves obscurely, it is true but still it moves. To what does this lead ? To this : that the parts which they possess in common, in place of being horny or calcareous that is, completely inert are fleshy, with contractile powers ; that is to say, animated. Consequently, the polyp of the Pennatula are less independent of each other than the coral polyp, which have a central, perhaps a sensible organ, common to all, which binds them to each other, giving a certain unity to their acts. The Coralline polyps have no will ; the Pennatula have." ( 147 ) CHAPTEE YII. ZOANTHARIA, OB ANIMAL FLOWERS. " I saw the living pile ascend The mausoleum of its architects, Still dying upwards as their labour closed : Slime the material, but the slime was turued To adamant by their petrific touch." MONTGOMERY'S Pelican Island. THE zoophytes which constitute the class Zoantharia are quite great personages. Some of them are eighteen or twenty inches long ; at the same time, others scarcely exceed the eighth part of an inch in length. They live in all seas, and seem to have existed through many ages of the earth's history ; they appear at an early geological period, and they have performed an important part in its formation ; we shall see that, with great numhers of them, parts cut off from their bodies continue to live and become new individuals. The name of Zoantharia was first given to the class by Gray ; but here we give it a somewhat wider signification, embracing under it the madrepores and starred stones of Lasueur, who is reminded of a field enamelled with small flowers when he sees the little polyp of Forties Astroides in full blow. " But it is only," says Johnston, " when they lie with their upper disk expanded, and their tentacula dis- played, that they solicit comparison with the boasts of Flora ; for, when contracted, the polyp of the madrepores conceal themselves in their calcareous cups, and the actiniae hide their beauty, assuming the shape of an obtuse cone or hemisphere of a fleshy consistence, or elongating themselves into a sort of flabby cylinder that indicates a state of relaxation and indolent repose." These zoophytes are flesh-eaters, and consume quantities . truly L 2 148 THE OCEAN WORLD. prodigious, of animals such as the crustaceans, worms, and small fishes. They are all marine, nearly all attached to the same spot for life, and they live in colonies. Some few are isolated and live by themselves, either free or attached to the soil. They differ altogether from the animals belonging to the Alcyonaria by their disposal of, and mode of multiplying, tentacula. These appendages in the Zoantharia never present the lipinnate arrangement which is observable in the Alcy- onaria. They are habitually simple, and, if they present ramifications, these are only exceptional. In nearly every instance, the tentacles exist to the number of twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, and even larger numbers, which form a sort of concentric crown to the animal. Zoantha thalassanthos (Lesson), which has given its name to the group, consists of large turf-like tufts of coral attached to a rock. Its animalcules are packed closely together, and their expanded flower- like heads have a curious resemblance to a mass of flowers in full bloom. They are borne on bending root-like stems of pure white, interlacing one with the other, surmounted by a fusiform or spindle-shaped body, pediculate and swelling towards the middle, but truncate at the summit, of a reddish-brown colour, marked with longitudinal stripes more highly coloured; its consistence is firm and parchment-like. From the body issues a tube, narrow, muscular, contractile, and red in colour, terminating at the summit in eight elongated arms or tentacula, of a pure yellow, traversed by a nervure of the same colour. The edges of these arms are fringed with fine pinnae, parallel to each other, of a bright maroon colour, and resembling the barbs of a feather. According to Lesson, the arms of this Zoantha are kept un- ceasingly in motion, which produces in the water small oscillating currents, in the course of which the animalcules on which the polyps feed are precipitated into the stream leading to their mouths. The tendency to produce a calcareous polypidom is a property almost universal with animals of this class. Zoologists are agreed in dividing them into three very distinct orders namely, the ANTIPATHID^I, con- sisting of the genera Antipathes, Cirripathes, and Seipathes, in which the polypidom is of a horny consistence ; the MADREPORID^E, in which the polypidom is calcareous and stony ; finally, the ACTINHXE, which produce no polypidom. ZOANTHARIA. 149 ANTIPATHIIXE. We need not dwell upon this group, which is comparatively unin- teresting. They correspond with the family of Gorgonidse among the Alcyonarta, which they resemble in having the central axes branching after the manner of a shrub; but the polyps have the mouth surrounded with a crown of six simple tentacula. The axis is of a harder and denser tissue than that of the Gorgons, and presents on its surface small spiniform projections. The polypiferous crust, with which they are covered, is in general very arenaceous, and is so easily detached, that it is rare to see in collections anything but the denuded skeleton of the colony. In A. arborea, the polypidom is fragile and brittle ; when dry, the branches, always slender and delicate, re- semble the barbs of a feather. The colour is of a deep black, or rather bistre and terra de sienna tint. Under a powerful lens, the extremities of the branches appear to be covered with small spines, and the trunk is formed of oval and irregular concentric beds, which are the zones of growth. Its consistence is firm, so that it can be worked up and converted into chaplets for pearls and other bijouterie : it is known in commerce as Uack coral. MADRKPOEHXE. The Madrepora are better known than their congeners. They are sometimes, but erroneously, designated corals, since the coral forms no part of this group. The Madrepores are remarkable for the calcareous crust which always surrounds their tissue, and determines the formation of their polypidom. They are in other respects easily recognized by the star-like structure of their polypidom, in which may always be distinguished a visceral chamber, the circumference of which is furnished with perpendicular laminae or partitions, which are always directed towards the axis of the body. When sufficiently developed they constitute, by their as- semblage, a star-like body formed of a great number of rays. The polypidom is always calcareous. The consolidation of the envelope of each polyp produces at first a kind of sheath, to which Milne Edwards has given the name of the wall. The partitions which proceed from the interior towards the axis of the visceral chamber occupy the sub- tentacular cells ; the terminal and open portion designated the calyx is 150 THE OCEAN WORLD. in organic continuity with the polyp, which has retired thither more or less completely as into a cell. Milne Edwards remarks that the polypidom of the Madrepora pre- sent in their structure five principal modifications, due in part to the fundamental number of which the chambered cells are the multiple, and in part to the mode of division in the visceral chamber, and finally to the manner in which its tissue is constituted. M. Edwards avails himself of this peculiarity of structure in order to divide the Madrepores into fixed sections ; namely, Madrepores apores, Madrepores perfores, Madrepores tabules, Madrepores tuberleux, and Madrepores rugueux. In the group of Aporous Madrepores, the polypidom is perhaps the most highly organized. We find there a well-developed and very perfect wall, and a well-developed visceral apparatus. The calyx is neatly starred ; the number of rays in the earlier stages being six, which soon afterwards reach from twelve to twenty-four. The cells between the chambers are sometimes open in all their depth, sometimes more or less shut up by transverse plates ; these, being independent of each other, are never reunited in the breadth of the visceral cavity, so that they con- stitute discoid plates such as we find in tabular and rugose Madrepores. The animals belonging to this group, which may be characterised as steUiform or star-like, are very abundant in every sea, and in several geological formations. They constitute many families, among which may be noted the MILLEPORINA of Ehrenberg, the polypidom of which Dr. Johnston describes as " calcareous, fixed, plant-like, branching or lobed, with cells scattered over the whole surface, distinct, sunk in little fosses, obscurely stellate, the lamellae narrow and almost obsolete." (JOHNSTON'S Zoophytes, vol. i. p. 194.) In Turbinolia, the animal is simple, conical, striped, furrowed externally with larger and smaller ribs, the mouth surrounded by numerous tentacula, and solidified by a cal- careous polypidom, which is free, conical, and also furrowed externally ; attenuated at the base, but enlarged at the summit, and terminating in a shallow radiated lamellar cup or cell. Several species have been dredged off the coast of Cornwall, and the west coast of Scotland and Ireland. T. melletiana is described as coral-white, wedge-shaped, somewhat compressed, with interspaces or ribs equidistant, smooth, and glossy. Above, the ribs turn over the edge, and are continued into the centre of the enlarged cup, forming its lamellae. " That the zoophyte must have lived for some time after having become a movable thing, is , ZOANTHARIA. 151 proved," says Dr. Johnston, " by the ribs being continued beyond or round the point of attachment." The specimen here described was dredged alive, and Professor Forbes says of it that " it is a most inter- esting and beautiful species, the more so as it is certainly identical with Defrance's Turbinolia melletiana, found in both the crag formations." The Caryophillice (Lamarck), from /capita, a 1 nut, and (f)v\\ov, a leaf, have the polypidom permanently fixed, simple, striated longitudinally, and the summit hollowed into a lamellated star-like cup ; the animal, actinia-like, is provided with a simple, or double crown of tentacula, projecting from the surface of star-like, cylindrical, cone shaped cells. Fig. ti6. Caryophillia cyathus (Lamarck). In C. cyathus (Lamarck) (Fig. 66), which inhabits the Mediterranean, the polyps are of a greyish colour, the tentacula streaked with black. The polypidom is erect and upright, sometimes cylindrical, and generally so firmly attached to the rock as to seem a part of it. The lamellae are of three kinds : one large and prominent, between every pair of which there are three, sometimes five, smaller ones, the centre one being divided into two portions forming an inner series. The lamellse are arched entire and striated on the sides, whence the margin appears somewhat crenelated. " It is found," says Mr. Couch, " of all sizes, from a mere speck to an inch in height. In a very young state, it is sometimes found parasitical on Alcyonium digitatum, on shells, and on the stalks of seaweeds ; but as these substances are very perishable, 152 THE OCEAN WORLD. and offer no solid foundation, large specimens are never found on them. In its young state the animal is naked, and measures about the fifteenth of an inch in diameter, and about the thirty-second of an inch in height. In the earliest state in which I have seen the calcareous polypidom, there were four small rays, which were free or unconnected down to the base ; in others I have noticed six primary rays, but in every case they were unconnected with each other. Other rays soon make their appearance between those first formed; they are mere calcareous specks at first, but afterwards increase in size. The first union of rays is- observed as a small calcareous rim at the base of the polyp, which afterwards increases in height and diameter with the age of the animal." The animals of this interesting polypidom are vividly described by Dr. Coldstream, in a communication to Dr. Johnston, as he observed them at Torquay : " When the soft parts are fully expanded," he says> " the appear- ance of the whole animal closely resembles an actinia. When shrunk, they are almost entirely hid amongst the radiating plates. They are found pendent," he adds^ " from large boulders of sandstone, just at low- water mark. Sometimes they are dredged from the middle of the bay. Their colour varies considerably. I have seen the soft parts white, yellowish, orange-brown, reddish, and of a fine apple-green. The tentacula are usually paler." The Caryophillise are sometimes dredged from great depths ; Pro- fessor Travers dredged one in eighty fathoms, and Dr. Johnston re- marks that the existence of an animal so vividly coloured at so great a depth is worthy of remark. " When taken," says the professor, " the animal was scarcely visible, being contracted; when expanded, the disk was conspicuously marked by two dentated circles of bright apple- green, the one marginal and outside the tentacula, the other at some distance from the transverse and linear mouth. In the dark, the animal gave out a few dull flashes of phosphorescent light." In addition, we may mention the assertion of Mr. Swainson, that C. ramea, common in the Mediterranean, is occasionally found on the Cornish coast ; but Dr. Johnston thinks it improbable that it could have escaped the attention of Mr. Couch and Mr. Peach, had it been so. As belonging to this family, we present here illustrations of Fla- lellum pavoninum, Lesson (Fig. 67). ZOANTHAEIA. 153 Of the Occulinae, the animal is unknown, but it is contained in 3 Fig 67. Flabelluin pavoninum (Lessor). 1. Vertical position. 2. Upper edge, with its plates and median thread. 3. Form of the animal. regular round radiated cells, more or less prominent, and scattered on the surface of a solid, com- pact, fixed tree-like coral. The individuals dispose them- selves in ascending spiral lines, and appear to be re- gularly dispersed on the sur- face of the several branches. The typical species, 0. vir- ginea, formerly known as the White Coral, although it differs widely in reality from the true Coral, both in its structure and by its star-like polypiferous cells (Fig. 68), is found in the Mediterranean and also in the equatorial seas. Over the specimen we see (2) a portion of a branch magnified, in order that the reader may appreciate numerically the form of polype OVer its Cells. Fj g- C8 - Occulina virginea (Lamarck). The species formerly named Occulina flabelliformis, and which now 154 THE OCEAN WOULD. bears the name of Stylaster flabelliformis, which is represented in Fig. 69. Stylaster flabelliformis (Lamarck). Fig. 69, will give an excellent idea of these arborescent zoophytes. ZOANTHARIA. 155 The polypidom is in the form of a fan, with many very unequal branches; the larger branches are smooth, the middle-sized are covered with small points. This fine zoophyte is found in the seas which surround the Isle of Bourbon and the Mauritius, a fine example of which is to be seen in the collection of the Museum of Natural History of Paris. ASTR^ACEA. How diversified are the forms of aquatic life ! " Nature revels in these diversities," to paraphrase the saying of one of the ancient kings of France. Here are animals, the frame of which might have been - Fig. 70. Abtrea punctifera (Lamarck). designed by a geometrician. They are called Star Corals (Astrea). Their resemblance to the well-known figure was too striking to escape the observation of naturalists ; but the organization of these creatures of the ocean is far from being rigorously regular, for Nature rarely employs perfectly straight lines, giving an evident preference to circles and waving lines. The Astrea are inhabitants of the Indian Ocean, where they are found in a great variety of forms, which has led to their subdivision into many genera by Messrs. Milne Edwards and J. Haime. The animals are short, more or less cylindrical, with rounded mouth placed in the centre of a disk, covered with a few rather short tentacula ; the cells are shallow, with radiating lamellae in Astrea punctifera (Fig. 70), forming by their union a many-formed coral, which often encrusts 156 THE OCEAN WORLD. other bodies. In short, this polyp may be described as a parasite, for it generally attaches to some other bodies, and it is by no means unusual to meet with it attached even to shells. The Meandrina differ from the Astreas in having the surface hollowed out into shallow sinuous elongated cells, furnished on each side of the mesial line with hooked lamellae, ending against one or other of the ridges with separate valleys; the polypidom, which is calcareous, being fixed, simple, and inversely conical when young, and globular when old. The animals have each a distinct mouth, and Fig. 71. Meandrina cerebriformis (Lamarck). lateral series of short tentacula ; they are contained in shallow cells, meeting at the base, and forming by their union long and tortuous hollows. Meandrina cerebriformis (Fig. 71), so called from its resemblance to the folds of the brain, is a native of the American The Fungia, so called by Lamarck from their resemblance to the vegetable Fungi, are too remarkable in their appearance to be passed ZOANTHAKIA. 157 over in silence. The major part of the species only occur in recent geological strata. Nevertheless some of the species were very numerous in the Cretaceous period, and even find representatives in the Silurian period ; it is this group in which Madrepores of great size are found. The family, as we have already said, take their names from their supposed resemblance to the Mushroom. " But," says Peyssonnel, " there is this difference between terrestrial and marine mushrooms Fig. 72. Fungia echinata (Milne Edwards). that the former have leaflets below, and those of the ocean have them above (Fig. 72). These leaflets are only expansions of the Madre- pores. Now, although I have not actually examined these petrified Mushrooms of the sea, I have no reason to doubt but that they are true genera or species of Madrepores, containing, like others, the zoophytes which form them. In my travels in Egypt, in 1714 and 1715, I never heard it said that the Nile could produce them." In this last remark, Peyssonnel makes allusion to the opinion .entertained by many ancient authors, that the Fungia were productions of the Nile. The animal is gelatinous or membranous, generally simple, de- 158 THE OCEAN WOELD. pressed, and oval, with mouth superior and transverse, in a large disk, which is covered by many thick cirrhiform tentacula ; the polypidom is rendered solid internally by a calcareous solid deposit of a simple figure, having a star of radiating, acutely-pointed lamellae above, and simple rays, full of wrinkles, beneath. There are nine species, mostly natives of the Indian Seas, which De Blainville arranges in three .big. 73. .b'ungia agai icitoruiis (Lamarck). groups, according as they are simple and circular, simple and compressed, or complex and oblong. In Fungia echinata, represented in Fig. 72, we have a species which inhabits the Indian and Chinese Seas. It belongs to the last group, being oblong in form, convex above, and concave below. The hollow, from which the lamellae or chamber- walls proceed, are of considerable length ; the toothed partitions are very irregular, thin and prickly, resting upon their lower edge, in order to leave the concave portion of the field free to a host of excrescences, resembling the roof of a grotto studded with small stalactites. The conformation of the softer parts of this polypus has been ZOANTHARIA. 159 described by many travellers. The upper portion of the body of the animal, corresponding to the lamelliform part of the polypus, is fur- nished with scattered tentacula, very long in some species, and re- markably short in others. These tentacula appear to terminate in a small sucker, and the animal seems to recover its position with difficulty, when overturned. In order to complete our description of these curious madrepores, we may refer to Fungia agariciformis, repre- sented in Fig. 73. This remarkable species inhabits the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and is here represented with its polyps. De Blainville gave the name of MADEEPOK^EA to the second group of his stony Zoantharia, placing them after the Madrephyllise. The pro- ducts of this section are generally arborescent, with small, partially lamelliform cells, which are constantly porous in the interstices of the walls of the cells, this being its most important characteristic. Thus the visceral apparatus constitutes the essential part of the polypus, presenting no side plates, the visceral chamber being open from the base to the summit, and neither filled with dissepiments, pulpy matter, nor with plates. The history of these inhabitants of the deep is extremely obscure, and will probably always remain so ; the most beautiful of their pro- ductions are intertropical, and consequently beyond the reach of dis- criminating observers during the life of the animal. Solander proposed to divide the genus according to certain characteristics in the growth of the coral, and De Blainville has rearranged the groups formed by Lamarck, Lamouroux, and Groldfuss, with special reference to the soft parts of the animals figured by Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, and others, who have observed them in their native state. The perforated Zoantharia form three very natural families : the Eupsammidtz, the Madreporidse, and the Poriiidse. The first have the solid parts of the polyps, simple or complex, with well-developed lamellar portions, the central column spongious, walls granular, semi- ribbed, and perforated. The second are composite, increasing by gemmation; walls spongy and porous; septa lamellous, and well developed. In the third the visceral chambers are divided into two equal parts by the principal septa, which are more developed than the others, meeting by their inner edge. The Dendrophyllide (Fig. 74) are conspicuous among the Eupsammidse. 160 THE OCEAN WORLD. We shall describe three genera, the two first of which belong to the MADREPORE A, and the last of the family of the Porides. DendropTiyllia ramea, represented in Figs. 75 and 76, is an elegant madrepore of the Mediterranean. Its polyp presents a very large trunk charged with short ascending branches; it usually attains to about a yard and a half in height. The polyps are provided with a Fig. 74. Uendroph} Ilia ramea, half natural size (De Blainville). great number of tentacula, in the centre of which the mouth is placed. They are deeply buried in the cells, which radiate from numerous unequally saillant plates. Peyssonnel, who had seen the polyps of this colony, says : "I may observe that the extremities or summits of the branching madrepore, the species in question, which in the Pro- vencal we call Sea-fennel, is soft and tender, filled with a glutinous and transparent mucous thread, similar to that which the snail leaves on its ZOANTHABIA. 161 path. These extremities are of a fine yellow colour, five or six lines in diameter ; soft, and more than a finger's breadth in length. I have seen the animal nestling in them ; it seemed to be a species of cuttle- fish or sea-nettle. The body of this sea-nettle must have filled the centre ; the head being in the middle, surrounded by many feet or claws, like those of the cuttle-fish. The flesh of this animal is very delicate, and is easily reduced to the form of a paste, melting almost under the touch." The madrepores abound in all intertropical seas, taking a consider- able part in the constitution of the reefs which form the coral and Fig. 75. Dendrophylia ramea (De Blainville). Natural size, with polypi. Fig. 76. A part magnified. raadreporic islands so conspicuous in the ocean. The tree -like Den- dropliyllia (D. ramea, Figs. 75 and 76) have cells of considerable depth, radiating into numerous lamellae, forming a widely-branch- ing arborescent coral, externally striated, internally furrowed, and truncate at the extremities. The animals are actiniform, furnished with numerous cleft tentacula, in the centre of which is the polygonal mouth. In the LobophyUia, the tentacula are cylindrical, the cells conical, sometimes elongated and sinuous, with a sub -circular opening terminating the few branches of the polyp, which is fixed, turbinate, and striated. The Plantain Madrepore, M. plantaginea (Lamarck), is an interesting example, the polyp presenting itself, as in Fig. 77, in tufts, with slender and prolific branches. 162 THE OCEAN WOELD. In Madrepora palmata, vulgarly named Neptune's Car, we have a large and beautiful species, whose expanding branches are flat, round at the base, and forming in lobes, whose length is often as much j^iiiijfiji BPiiili, Fig. 11. Madrepora plantaginea (Lamarck). as three feet high, with a breadth of twenty inches, and a thickness of two to two and a half : this fine madrepore is found in the Caribbean Sea and among the Antilles. POEITES. The Porites are madrepores produced by a pitcher-shaped fleshy animal, with twelve short tentacula ; the cells are unequally polygonal, imperfectly defined, slightly radiating by thread-like pointed rays, with prickles placed at intervals. The polypus is polymorphous or many-formed, composed of a reticulated and porous tissue, the indi- viduals forming it being always completely united together. Exter- ZOANTHAKIA. 163 nally it presents the figure of an irregular trellis-work, more or less loosely connected in its meshes. As a type of this organization, we give a figure of the Forked Porites (P. furcata, Fig. 78), of the natural size. The branches are generally dichotomous, that is, rising in pairs obtusely lobed. In some of the species the rays are more fully marked, and resemble a bed of miniature anemones thickly crowded together, as in Gonispora columna, in which the polypi Fig. 18. Porites furcata (Lamarck), natural size. have a central mouth, round which the twelve short tentacula radiate ; the coral is stony, fixed, branched, or lobed, having a free surface covered with a great number of regular stars, which are highly characteristic, and cannot be confounded with those of an astrea or madrepore. In the Tabulate Madreporides, the polyp is essentially composed of a highly-developed mural system. The visceral chambers are M 2 164 THE OCEAN WORLD. divided into a series of stages or stories, by perfect diaphragms or plates placed transversely, the plates depending from the walls and forming perfect horizontal divisions, extending from one wall of the general cavity to the other. In order that the reader may form some idea of the Tabulate Madrepores, one of the polyps known as millepores is here represented. The millepores were first separated from the madrepores by Linnaeus, along with a great number of Fig. 79. Millepora alcicornis (Linn.), one-fourth natural size. species distinguished by the minuteness of their pores or polypiferous cells (Fig. 79), represented above, as nearly allied, and perhaps identical with Dr. Johnston's Cellepora cervicornis, a species found in deep water on the Devonshire and Cornwall coasts, and, indeed, all round our west coast. "A single specimen of this millepore is about three inches in height," says Dr. Johnston, "and somewhat more in breadth. It rises from a broad flattened base, and begins immediately to expand and divide into kneed branches or broad seg- ments, many of which anastomose, so as to form arches and imperfect ZOANTHAPJA. 165 circles. The extreme segments are dilated and variously cut, some- times truncate, both sides being perforated with numerous pores just visible to the naked eye, and arranged in rows ; the pores circular, and level with the surface on the smooth and newly-formed parts ; but in the older parts they form apertures of urceolate cells, which appear to be formed over the primary layer of cells, giving to the surface a roughish or angular appearance. The orifice is simple, contracted, with a very small denticle on one side ; the thickness of the branches varies from one half to two lines ; the interior is cellular ; the new parts are formed of two layers of horizontal cells, but the older parts are thickened by cells superimposed on the primary layers." Millepora moniliformis is a species which attaches itself to the branches of the gorgons, and forms there a series of little rounded or lateral lobes. The animal is unknown, the cells very small, unequal, completely immersed, obsoletely radiate and scattered ; the polypier fixed, cellular within, finely porous and reticulated externally, extend- ing into a palmated form. Of tuberous or wrinkled madrepores, which consist almost entirely of fossil species chiefly belonging to the Silurian formation, we shall only note OyatkophyUwn as one of the best known species. There is no spectacle in Nature more extraordinary, or more worthy of our admiration, than that now under consideration. These zoo- phytes, whose history we are about to investigate wretched beings gifted with a half-latent life only these animalcules so small and so fragile labour silently and incessantly in the bosom of the ocean, and, as they exist in innumerable aggregated masses, their cells and solid axes finish by producing in the end enormous stony masses. These calcareous deposits increase and multiply with such incalculable rapidity, that they not only cover the submarine rocks as with a carpet, but they finish by forming reefs, and even entire islands, which rise above the surface of the ocean in a manner remarkable at once for their form and the regularity with which they repeat themselves. In noting the Indian and Pacific Oceans, navigators had long been struck with the appearance of certain earthy bases, which presented a conformation altogether singular. In 1601, Pyrard de Laval, speak- ing of the Malouine (now the Falkland) Islands, said: "They are 166 THE OCEAN WORLD. divided into thirteen provinces, named atollons, which is so far a natural division in that place, that each atollon is separated from the other, and contains a great number of smaller islands. It is a marvel to see each of these atollons surrounded on all sides hy a great hank of stone walls such as no human hands could huild on the space of earth allotted to them. These atollons are almost round, or rather oval, heing each ahout thirty leagues in circumference, some a little less, others a little more, and all ranging from north to south, without any one touching the other. There is between them sea channels, one broad, the other narrow. Being in the middle of an atollon, you see all around you this great stone bank, which surrounds and protects the island from the waves ; but it is a formidable attempt, even for the boldest, to approach the bank and watch the waves as they roll in and break with fury upon the shore." Since the publication of Laval's description, many circular isles, or groups of islands, analogous to these atollons, since called atolls > have been discovered in the Pacific Ocean and other seas. The naturalist Forster, who accompanied Cook in his voyage round the world, first made known the more remarkable characteristics of these gigantic for- mations. He perfectly comprehended their origin, which he was the first to attribute to the development of the calcareous zoophytic polypier. After Forster, many other naturalists Lamouroux, Chamisso, Quoy, Gaimard, Ehrenberg, Ellis, Darwin, Couthony, and Dana have fur- nished Science with many precious lessons on the natural history of coral islands and madreporic reefs. We can only glance at a few 'of the more remarkable genera of these interesting creatures. " Those occupying the same Coral," says Fredol, " live in perfect harmony ; they constitute a family of brothers, physically united in the closest bonds of union. They occupy the same dwelling, each having its separate chamber ; but the power of abandoning it is denied them. Attached each to its cell, they are driven to trust in Providence for the food which never fails them ; moreover, what is eaten by each mouth profits the whole community. Urged on by a wonderful instinct, the polypes labour together at the same work ; isolated, they would be weak and helpless ; in combination, they are strong." M. Lacaze-Duthiers has even demonstrated that Antipatlies ylaberrima, Gorgonia tiiberculata (Lamarck), Leiopatlies glabemma COKALLINES. 167 (Gray), and Leiopafhes Lamarckii (Haime), were present on the same coral, the Gerardia of Lamarck. It is thus recognized that, under the general denomination of polyps, very distinct genera are found, some being of the Hydra type, others belonging to the Plumularia. The first are very common on our coast : they include the Tubularia, the Campanularia, and the Sertularia. The Eeed Tubularia (T. indivisa) is remarkably curious : its numerous stems are horny, yellow, and marked at intervals with irregular knots, resembling the joints of a straw. Their lower ex- tremity is tortuous, and apt to adhere to foreign bodies ; the upper part is nearly upright, and slightly flexuous, the whole resembling some flowering plant, without leaves or lateral branches. The Campanularias are altogether different ; the end of the branches whence the polyps issue are broad and bell-shaped, 0. dichotoma presenting a stem of brownish colour, thin as a silken thread, but strong and elastic. The polyps are numerous, a branch eight inches in height being inhabited by as many as twelve hundred individuals. The Sertularias have a horny stem, sometimes simple, sometimes branching, and may easily be mistaken for small plants. Their name is derived from the Latin sertum, a bouquet ; and, indeed, they can only be described as trees in miniature, with branches yellow and semi-transparent, each tree having seven, eight, twelve, or twenty small panicles, each of which will contain about five hundred animals, the tree itself containing probably an association of ten thousand. Occasionally Sertularia argentea is said to afford shelter and employ- ment for a hundred thousand of these creatures. S.falcata, having all the grace and elegance of the delicate and slender Mimosa, is now placed among the Bryozoares. The minute cells in which the polyps are lodged are not always arranged in the same manner. Sometimes the cells occupy one side only; in other instances they occupy both; sometimes they are grouped like the pipes of an organ, at others they are ranged spirally round the stem, or arranged at intervals, forming horizontal rings round it. The Aleyonaria are very common on some parts of our coast, where scarcely a stone or shell is dredged up that does not support one or more specimens known to the fishermen as " cow's paps,*' " dead men's fingers," and other popular names. This round and lobed fleshy mass 168 THE OCEAN WORLD. is quite a colony in itself; placed in pure sea water, it very soon pre- sents certain yellow or grass-like points, which gradually expand and display themselves in their native transparent and animated coralline. Each of these polyps have eight dentate petals, in the centre of which is the mouth ; the body of the polyp is tubular, varying exter- nally in length, traversed internally throughout its entire mass by a tissue studded with reddish spiculae, and furrowed with small reed-like ribbons, common to all the individuals of the association. Among the Tiibiporidse may be noted Tubipora musica (Linnaeus), from the Indian Ocean, characterised by its stony tubes, simple, numerous, straight or flexible, parallel, and slightly radiating, of a fine purple, and united together at intervals by transverse bands, so as to resemble the pipes of an organ. The polyp is a brilliant grass green, according to Peron ; the tentacula furnished on each side with two or three rows of granulous fleshy papillae, to the number of sixty to eighty (Lesson). The Gorgonia is studded with calcareous or siliceous spiculas which form a crust in drying. This crust is friable, and frequently preserves the colours more or less brilliant which characterise it. Their cells are sometimes hollowed out of the plain surface ; sometimes they occur in the projecting mammals ; these are smooth, rough, or scaly some- times pendent the one from the other. These animals attach themselves to solid bodies, sometimes even to each other, grafting themselves or interlacing each other in all directions. In colour they are whitish, pure white, yellow, and apple- green; their shades, passing from olive-brown to deep blue, from vermilion to violet, and from pale yellow to pearly-grey. Each tube or cell contains an individual. The cells are more or less deep, accord- ing to the species. The polyps are composed generally of a hidden portion more or less tubular, and of a star-like portion more or less displayed. This latter portion presents from eight to twelve soft and granulous wattles, susceptible of expansion, like the petals of a flower. When these appendages are displayed, they often attain twice the height of the body ; in this state they are nearly transparent, except towards the extremity. They extend or compress these wattles, dilate or contract the mouth according to their wants ; but their digestive tube is firmly soldered to the cell, while the axis which supports the cells is motionless. What a singular combination is here presented ! CORALLINES. 169 Trees, one-half of which, are animated, growing at the hottom of the sea; polyps, one-half of which is imprisoned, and riveted to their person ; their stomachs in the hark, their arms on a branch, their movements perfect repose ! These minute silent workers are active and indefatigable ; their task is to separate the salt and other chemical particles from the waters of the ocean, and, while feeding themselves, secrete and organise the axis which bears their lodging. They love the warmer regions of the ocean ; in colder regions, the results of their labours are extremely limited : the one forms a sward of submarine life, which carpets the rocks ; the other produces animated stalactites, great shrubs, whole forests of small trees. The electric cable which unites Sardinia to the Genoese fort was so encrusted with corals and bryozoares, that certain portions taken from the water for repairs had attained the size of a small barrel. The atolls present three unfailing and constant peculiarities. Sometimes they constitute a great circular chain, the centre of which is occupied by a deep basin, in direct communication with the exterior sea, through one or many breaches of great depth. These are the atolls, described more than two centuries ago by Pyrard de Laval ; sometimes they surround, but at some distance, a small island, in such a manner as to constitute a sort of skeleton or girdle of reefs ; finally they may form the immediate edging or border of an island or continent. In this last case they are called fringing littorals, or edging reefs. At the distance of a few hundred yards only from the edge of some of these reefs, the sea is of such a depth that the sounding-lead has failed to reach the bottom. In order to give an idea of the general form of these atolls, although they are rarely so regular, the reader is referred to PL. III., which represents one of these islands of the Pomotouan Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean. It represents the island of Clermont-Tonnerre, figured by Captain Wilkes in the American Exploring Expedition. The exterior girdle of rocks here surrounds a basin nearly circular. Such is the general form the typical form, so to speak of the coral isles, of which this is a fair representation. The zoophytes which form these mineral accumulations belong to diverse groups, and nowhere have the results of observations made upon these atolls been more minutely described than in Mr. Darwin's 170 THE OCEAN WORLD. remarks on the grand Cocos Island situated to the south of Sumatra, in the Indian Ocean. No writer, it seems to us, has reasoned on these atolls more compre- hensively than the author of the " Origin of Species." " The earlier voyagers," he says, " fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up their great corals to afford themselves protection in the inner parts ; but so far is this from the truth, that those massiye kinds, to whose growth on the exposed outer shores the very existence of the reef depends, cannot live within the lagoon, where other delicately- branching kinds flourish. Moreover, in this view, many species of distinct genera and families are supposed to combine for one end ; and of such a combination ndt a single instance can be found in the whole of nature. The theory that has been most generally received is, that atolls are based on submarine craters, but when the form and size of some of them are considered, this idea loses its plausible character. Thus, the Suadiva atoll is forty-four geographical miles in diameter in one line by thirty-four in another ; Bimsky is fifty-four by twenty miles across ; Bow atoll is thirty miles long, and, on an average, six miles broad. This theory, moreover, is totally inapplicable to the Northern Maldivian atolls in the Indian Ocean, one of which is eighty- eight miles in length, and between ten and twenty in breadth." The various theories which had been propounded failing to explain the existence of the coral islands, Mr. Darwin was led to reconsider the whole subject. Numerous soundings taken all round the Cocos atoll showed that at ten fathoms the prepared tallow in the hollow of the sounding rod came up perfectly clean, and marked with the impression of living polyps. As the depth increased, these impressions became less numerous, but adhering particles of sand succeed, until it was evident that the bottom consisted of smooth sand. From these obser- vations, it was obvious to him that the utmost depth at which the coral polyps can construct reefs is between twenty and thirty fathoms. Now, there are enormous areas in the Indian Ocean in which every island is a coral formation raised to the height to which the waves can throw up fragments and the winds pile up sand ; and the only theory which seems to account for all the circumstances embraced, is that of the subsidence of vast regions in this ocean. "As mountain after mountain and island after island slowly sunk beneath the water," he says, " fresh bases would be successively afforded for the growth of the CORALLINES. 171 corals. I venture to defy any one to explain in any other manner how it is possible that numerous islands should be distributed throughout vast areas, all the islands being low, all built of coral absolutely re- quiring a foundation within a limited depth below the surface." The Porifes, according to Mr. Darwin, form the most elevated deposits of those which are situated nearer the level of the water : Millepora complanata also enters into the formation of the upper banks. Various other branched, corals present themselves in great numbers in the cavities left by the Porites and Millepora crossing- each other. It is difficult to identify species occupying themselves in the deeper parts, but, according to Darwin, the lower parts of the reefs are occupied by polyps of the same species as in the upper parts ; at the depth of eighteen fathoms and upwards, the bottom consists alter- nately of sand and corals. The total breadth of the circular reef or ring which constitutes the atoll of the Keeling or Cocos Island varies from two hundred to five hundred yards in breadth. Some little para- sitic isles form themselves upon the reefs, at two or three hundred yards from their exterior edge, by the accumulation of the fragments thrown up here during great storms. They rise from two to three yards above the sea level, and consist of shells, corals, and sea urchins, the whole consolidated into hard and solid rock. Mr. Darwin's description of a kind of Sea-pen, Virgularia Patagonia, throws some curious light on the habits of these creatures. " This zoo- phyte consists of a thin, straight, fleshy stem, with alternate rows of polypi on each side, and surrounding an elastic stony axis, varying in length from eight inches to two feet. The stem at one extremity is truncate, but at the other is terminated by a vermiform fleshy append- age. The stony axis, which gives strength to the stem, may be traced at the extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At low water, hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen projecting like stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the surface of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled, they suddenly drew themselves in with force, so as nearly, or quite, to disappear. By this action, the highly elastic axis must be bent at the lower extremity, where it is naturally slightly curved ; and I imagine it is by this elasticity alone that the zoophyte is enabled to rise again through the mud. Each polyp, though closely united to its brethren, has a distinct mouth, body, and tentacula. Of these polyps, in a large 172 THE OCEAN WOULD. specimen there must be many thousands, yet we see that they act by one movement. They have also one central axis connected with a system of obscure circulation, and the ova are produced in an organ distinct from the separate individuals. For," adds Mr. Darwin, in a note, "the cavities leading from the fleshy compartments of the extremity were filled with a yellow pulpy matter which, under a microscope, consisted of rounded semi-transparent grains aggregated together into particles of various sizes. All such particles, as well as separate grains, possessed the power of rapid motion, generally revolv- ing round different axes, but sometimes progressive." The description of the Island of Cocos or Keeling is as follows : " The ring-formed reef of the lagoon island is surmounted, in the greater part of its length, by linear islets. On the northern, or leeward side, there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the scene was very curious, and rather pretty ; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding colours. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, resting in its greater part on white sand, is, when illu- mined by a vertical sun, of the most vivid green. This brilliant ex- panse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving waters of the ocean, or from the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land crowned by the level tops of the cocoa-nut tree. As a white cloud here and there affords a pleasing contrast to the azure sky, so in the lagoon bands of living coral darken the emerald-green water. " The next morning I went ashore on Direction Island. The strip of dry land is only a few hundred yards in width ; on the lagoon side there was a white calcareous beach, the radiation from which, under this sultry climate, was very oppressive. On the outer coast, a solid broad flat of coral rock served to break the violence of the open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the intertropical regions alone could produce so vigorous a vegetation. On some of the smaller islets, nothing could be more elegant than the manner in which the young and full- grown cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each other's symmetry, were mingled into one wood. A beach of glittering white sand formed a border to those fairy spots. COEALLINES. 173 " The natural history of these islands, from its very paucity, possesses peculiar interest. The cocoa-nut tree, at the first glance, seems to compose the whole wood ; there are, however, five or six other trees. One of these grows to a very large size, hut, from the extreme softness of its wood, it is useless ; another sort affords excellent timher for shipbuilding. Besides the trees, the numher of plants is exceedingly limited, and consist of insignificant weeds. In my collection, which includes, I believe, nearly the perfect Flora, there are twenty species, without reckoning a moss, lichen, and fungus. To this numher two' trees must he added, one of which was not in flower, and the other I only heard of. The latter is a solitary tree of its kind, and grows near the beach, where, without doubt, the one seed was thrown up by the waves. " The next day I employed myself in examining the very interesting yet simple structure and origin of these islands. The water being unusually smooth, I waded over the flat of dead rock as far as the living mounds of coral, on which the swell of the open sea breaks. In some of the gulleys and hollows there were beautiful green and other coloured fishes, and the forms and tints of many of the zoophytes were admirable. It is excusable to grow enthusiastic over the infinite number of organic beings with which the sea of the Tropics, so prodigal of life, teems ; yet I must confess, I think those naturalists who have described in well-known words the submarine grottoes, decked with a thousand beauties, have indulged in rather exuberant language. " I accompanied Captain Fitzroy to an island at the head of the lagoon ; the channel was exceedingly intricate, winding through fields of delicately-branched corals. At the head of the lagoon we crossed a narrow islet, and found a great surf breaking on the windward coast. I can hardly explain the reason, but there is, to my mind, much grandeur in the view of the outer shores of these lagoon islands. There is a simplicity in the barrier-like beach, the margin of green bushes and tall cocoa-nuts, the solid flat of dead coral-rock, strewed here and there with great loose fragments, and the line of furious breakers, all rounding away towards either hand. The ocean, throw- ing its waters over the broad reef, appears an invincible, all-powerful enemy ; yet we see it resisted and even conquered by means which at first seem most weak and inefficient. It is not that the ocean spares the rock of coral ; the great fragments scattered over the reef, and 174 THE OCEAN WORLD. heaped on the beach whence the tall cocoa-nut springs, plainly be- speak the unrelenting power of the waves. Nor are any periods of repose granted ; the long swell caused by the gentle but steady action of the trade-winds, always blowing in one direction over a wide area, causes breakers almost equalling in force those during a gale of wind in the temperate regions, and which never cease to rage. It is impos- sible to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that an island, though built of the hardest rocks let it be porphyry, granite, or quartz would ultimately yield and be demolished by such an irre- sistible power. Yet these low, insignificant coral islets stand, and are victorious ; for here another power, as an antagonist, takes part in the contest. The organic forces separate the atoms of carbonate of lime, one by one, from the foaming breakers, and unite them into a symme- trical structure. Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge frag- ments, yet what will that tell against the accumulated labour of myriads of architects at work night and day, month after month ? Thus do we see the soft and gelatinous body of a polyp, through the agency of the viial laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of Nature could successfully resist." We have said that madreporic or coralline formations affect three forms, to which the names of atolls, barrier reefs, and fringing reefs have been applied. We have spoken of atolls ; we shall now say a few words on barrier and fringing reefs. Barrier reefs are formations which surround the ordinary islands, or stretch along their banks. They have the form and general structure of atolls. Like atolls, the barrier reefs appear placed on the edge of a marine precipice. They rise on the edge of a plateau which looks down on a bottomless sea. On the coast of New Caledonia, only two lengths of his ship from the reef, Captain Kent found no bottom in a hundred and fifty fathoms. This was verified at Gambier Island in the Pacific Ocean, in Qualem Island, and at many others. According to Mr. Darwin, the barrier reef situated on the western coast of New Caledonia is four hundred miles long ; that along the eastern coast of Australia extends almost without interruption for a thousand miles, ranging from twenty or thirty to fifty or sixty miles from the coast. As to the elevation of the islands thus surrounded CORALLINES. 175 with reefs, it varies considerably. The Isle of Tahiti rises six thousand eight hundred feet above the level of the sea ; the Isle of Maurua to six hundred ; Aituaki to three hundred ; and Manonai to about fifty feet only. Around the Isle of Gambier the reef has a thickness of a thousand and sixty feet, at Tahiti of two hundred and thirty. Bound the Fiji Islands it is from two to three thousand. The fringing reefs immediately surrounding the island, or a portion of it, might be confounded with the barrier reefs we have been describing, if they only differed in their smaller breadth ; but the circumstance that they abut immediately on the coast in place of being separated by a channel or lagoon more or less deep and continuous, proves that they are in direct communication with the slope of the submarine soil, and permits of their being distinguished from the barrier reefs. The dangerous breakers which surround the Mauritius are a striking example of the fringing reef. This island is almost entirely surrounded by a barrier of these rocks, the breadth of which varies from a hundred and fifty to three hundred and thirty feet ; their rugged and abrupt surface is worn almost smooth, and is rarely uncovered at low water. Analogous reefs surround the Isle of Bourbon ; all round this island the polyps construct on the volcanic bottom of the sea detached mammalons, which rise from a fathom to a fathom and a half above the water. Madreporic coasting reefs present themselves also on the eastern coast of Africa and of Brazil. In the Bed Sea, reefs of corals exist which may be ranked among the madreporic coasting reefs, in conse- quence of the limited breadth of the gulf. Ehrenberg and Hemprich examined a hundred and fifty stations in the Ked Sea, all of which had outlying fringing reefs of this description. It may be asked, With what rapidity are these coral and madreporic banks formed, so as to become atolls and fringing reef si To answer this question even approximately is very difficult. On the coast of the Mauritius, according to M. d' Archaic,* the learned professor of the Jardin des Plantes, the edge of the reef is produced by Madrepora corymbosa, M. pocillifera, and two species of Astrea, which pursue * " Cours de Paleontologie Stratigraphique." ] 76 THE OCEAN WORLD. their operations at the depth of from eight to fifteen fathoms. At the base is a bank of Seriatopora, from fifteen to twenty fathoms in height. At the bottom, the sand is covered with Seriatopora. At twenty fathoms we also meet with fragments of Madrepora. Between twenty and forty fathoms the bottom is sandy, and the sounding- rod brings up great fragments of Caryophylla. According to MM. Quoy and Gaimard, the Astreas, which, as these naturalists consider, constitute the greater part of the reefs, cannot live beyond four or five fathoms deep. Millepora alcicornis extends from the surface to the depth of twelve fathoms ; the Madrepores and Seriatopores down to twenty fathoms. Considerable masses of Meandrina have been ob- served at sixteen fathoms ; and a Caryophylla has been brought up from eighty fathoms in thirty- three degrees south latitude. Among the polyps which do not form solid reefs, Mr. Darwin mentions Cellaria, found at a hundred and ninety fathoms deep, Gorgonia at a hundred and sixty, Corallines at a hundred, Millepora at from thirty to forty- five, Sertularias at forty, and Tubulipora at ninety-five fathoms. According to Dana, none of the species which form reefs namely, Madrepora, Millepora, Forties, Astreas, and Meandrineas can live at a greater depth than eighteen fathoms. It is only near the surface of the water that the zoophytes which produce minerals and form madreporic banks put forth their powers ; the points most exposed to the beating of the waves is that which is most favourable to their growth ; it is there that the Astreas, Porites, and Millepores most abound. The proportionate increase of the structures, according to Mr. Darwin, depends at once upon the species which construct the reefs and upon various accessary circumstances. The ordinary rate of in- crease of the madrepores, according to Dana, is about an inch and a half annually ; and, as their branches are much scattered, this will not exceed half an inch in thickness of the whole surface covered by the madrepore. Again, in consequence of their porosity, this quantity will be reduced to three -eighths of an inch of compact matter. It is, besides, to be noted that great spaces are wanting ; the sands filling up the destroyed part of the polyp are washed out by the currents in the great depths where there are no living corals, and the surface occupied by them is reduced to a sixth of the whole coralline region, which reduces the preceding three-eighths to one-sixth. The shells CORALLINES. 177 and other organic debris will probably represent a fourth of the total produce in relation to corals. In this manner, taking everything into account, the mean increase of a reef cannot exceed the eighth of an inch annually. According to this calculation, some reefs which are not less than two thousand feet thick would require for their formation a hundred and ninety-two thousand years. It is necessary to add, however, that in favourable circumstances the increase of the masses of coral may be much more rapid. Mr. Darwin speaks of a ship which, having been wrecked in the Persian Gulf, was found, after being submerged only twenty months, to be covered with a bed of coral two feet in thickness ; he also mentions experiments made by Mr. Allen on the coast of Madagascar, which tend to prove that in the space of six months certain corals increased nearly three feet. We proceed to the theoretic explanation of these curious mineral formations. Naturalists and navigators have been much divided in opinion as to the true origin of these madreporic islands. Most of them have admitted that these enormous banks are composed of the mineral spoils and earthy detritus of the madrepores and corals, which, de- veloping themselves in their midst, or upon the bed of the ocean, multiplying and superposing themselves, age after age, and genera- tion after generation, have finally concluded by forming deposits of this immense extent. The growth of the vast madreporic column would be finally arrested by the want of water when its summit approached the level of the sea. It is thus that Forster, Peron, Flinders, and Chamisso have explained the formation of the atolls and madreporic reefs. This opinion has also found a supporter, in our times, in the French admiral, Du Petit Thouars. But he objects, with reason, that the corals cannot live at the prodigious depth of sea at which the base of these islets lie. It has therefore been found necessary to seek for another cause to satisfy the diverse conditions of the phenomena, and explain, at the same time, the strange circular arrangement of these islands, which is almost constant, and which it is essential to keep in view. Sir Charles Lyell was of opinion that the base of an atoll was always the crater of an ancient submarine volcano, which, when M 178 THE OCEAN WOKLD. crowned with corals and madrepores, would naturally reproduce this circular wall formed of heaped-up corals. This theory supposes the existence of volcanic craters in the neighbourhood of all the coral islands. It is quite certain that these islands are often found not far from extinct volcanoes, and Sir Charles Lyell has published a very curious map in connection with the sub- ject ; nevertheless, the coincidence does not always exist. We have already remarked on the theory by which Mr. Darwin seeks to explain the complicated conditions of the phenomena. The expla- nation proposed accounts for the known facts, as well as the present appearance of the madreporic islands. The circular atolls and madre- poric banks which are disposed as a sort of girdle, are principally formed of porites, mittepora, and astrea, zoophytes which cannot exist at any great depth in the ocean, but which swarm on the rocks at some few fathoms only below the limits of the tide. These animals, by means of their accumulated debris, soon form a sort of coating round the island, which constitutes the littoral reefs : this marginal tongue or shoulder, according to Mr. Darwin, is the first stage in the existence of a madreporic island. At this point the author intro- duces a geological cause, namely, a great subsiding movement of the soil, in which the madreporic colony is sunk under the water. It is evident that after submersion the zoophyte will only continue to develop itself on the upper surface, and within the limits which its nature prescribes. The madrepores exhibiting their greatest vitality at the points most exposed to the fury of the waves, it will be near the outer edge of the reef that the development will be most rapid. If the subsidence of the island thus surrounded should still continue, as mountain after mountain and island after island slowly sink beneath the water, fresh bases would be successively afforded for the growth of the corals, and the outer edge elevated by their continual labour, thus transforming the space into a sort of circular lagune. The madreporic deposits would thus form an isolated girdle, and the lagune, which occu- pies the centre, would become deeper and deeper in proportion to the lowering of the soil. This is the second stage of the madreporic isle. The existence of the atolls are thus subordinated to two principal conditions : the progressive subsidence of the shore washed by the sea, and the existence of coral formed of stony cells, the growth and multiplication of which are extremely rapid. CORALLINES. 179 It follows from this that madreporic isles cannot exist in all seas ; that they only have their birth in the Torrid zone, or at least near the Tropics, for it is only in these regions where the warmth exists, so necessary to their development, that the madrepores show them- selves in greatest abundance. The great field of madreporic formations, in short, is found in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean. It is from this point, as from a common centre, round which are ranged the series of madreporic isles and islets, that it will be useful, in concluding this chapter, to trace their geographical distribution. We borrow the materials for this from Milne Edwards's tableaux of their distribution in the principal seas of the world. It is, as we have said, only in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean that the great mass of these islands are found. They give birth towards the south to the group of atolls known as the archipelago of the Bashee Islands, the extreme limit of the region being the Isle of Ducie. A multitude of other islands of the same nature are sparsely scattered over the sea, up to the east coast of Australia. There are enormous areas here, in which every single island is of coral for- mation, and is raised to the height at which the waves can throw up fragments. The Kadack group is an angular square, four hundred miles long by two hundred and forty broad. Between this group and the Low Archipelago itself, eight hundred and forty miles by four hundred and twenty, there are groups and single islands covering a linear space of more than four thousand miles. To the north of the Equator, the archipelago of the Caroline Islands constitutes a very considerable group of madreporic formation, comprehending upwards of a thousand, extending in a broad belt over nearly forty degrees of longitude. On the other hand, all along the coast of the American con- tinent, round the Galapagos and the Isle of Paques, we find no trace of them. The reason assigned is, that in these regions a great current of cold water, flowing from the Antarctic Pole, so much lowers the tempera- ture of the sea, that the zoophytes no longer possess the requisite vigour. We still meet with atolls in the Chinese Seas, and madreporic barrier reefs are abundant round the Marianne and Philippine Islands. These marginal reefs form also an immense tract, from the Isle of Timor, along the south coast of Sumatra, up to the island of Nicobar, in the Bay of Bengal. N 2 180 THE OCEAN WORLD. To the west of the Indian Peninsula, the Maldive and Laccadive Islands form the extremity of another group of atolls, and important madreporic reefs, which extend towards the south, by the Maldives and the Chagos Islands ; they consist of low coral formations, densely clothed with cocoa-nut trees. The Maldives, the most southerly cluster, include upwards of a thousand islands and reefs ; the Lacca- dives, seventeen in number, are of similar origin. The Saya de Malha bank, towards the south-east, constitutes a further group of madre- poric islets. Finally, the coast of the Mauritius, of Madagascar, of the Seychelles, and even the African continent, from the northern extremity of the Mozambique Channel to the bottom of the Red Sea, are studded with numerous reefs of the same nature. They fail, however, almost completely, along the coast of the Asiatic continent, where, among others, the waters of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges, enter the sea, and diversify its inhabitants. The western coast of Africa, and the east coast of the American continent, are almost entirely destitute of great madreporic reefs, but they abound in the Caribbean Seas. In the Gulf of Mexico, where the vast fresh- water current of the Mississippi debouches into the sea, they are unknown. It is principally on the north coast and upon the eastern flanks of the chain of West Indian Islands that the madreporic reefs show themselves in these regions. The polyps which have produced these vast ranges of islands would be set down, at first sight, as the most incapable objects in creation for accomplishing it. In the case of the Pennatulidte, the case is coriaceous, strengthened with calcareous particles ; the interior is a fibrous net-work containing a transparent jelly in the squares, and permeated by a certain number of longitudinal cartilaginous tubes ; the soft part is uniformly gelatinous, but the skin is also coriaceous, with a great number of calcareous spicula placed parallel to one another, adding greatly to its strength and consistency. The polyps are placed in this external fleshy crust ; their position being marked by an orifice on the surface, distinguished by eight star-like rays, which open when the upper portion of the body is forced outwards, in which state it resembles a cylindrical bladder or nipple crowned with a fringe of tentacula, which surround the mouth. Under this orifice is the stomach, occupying the centre of the cylinder. ACTINIAEIA. 181 The space between this stomach and the outer envelope is divided into eight equal compartments or cells by as many thin septa, ori- ginating in a labial rim or lip between the basis of the tentacula, which descend through the cylinder attached on the one side to the inner tunic of the body, and on the other to the stomach, which is thus retained in its position. The protruding portion of the polyp is very delicate, the internal viscera being, as it were, enclosed in a bladder formed of two very thin membranes in intimate union, so transparent as to permit a view of their arrangement. At the base of the body, where thickest, it coalesces with the base of the adjacent polyp ; thus constituting the common cortical portion into which each animal retreats at will, by a process in many respects resembling that by which a snail draws in its horns. In the greater number of Asteroids this common portion secretes carbonate of lime, which is deposited in the meshes of its tissues either in granules or in crystalline spiculaB, which imparts a solid consistency to the whole. The inner tissue meanwhile continues unaltered, being prolonged throughout the polypiferous lining of the cell, the abdominal cavity, and the longitudinal canals which permeate the whole polyp, as well as the tubular net-work with which the space between the canals is occupied. It is among these inner tissues that the buds or gemmae are generated, by whose increase and evolu- tion the polyp mass is enlarged, the shape and size depending on the manner in which the buds are evolved ; for in some, as in the Pen- natulidas, determinate spots only have the appropriated organization, while in others, as in Alcyonium, the generative faculty appears to be undefined and more diffused. THE ACTINIARIA. Here we leave the group of polyps which form united families. The Sea Anemones, of which the Actinia are the type, consist of Zoanthaires, which produce no corals, that is to say, of polyps whose covering remains always soft, and in whose interior nothing solid is produced. This order is usually divided into two families the Adiniadse, having the tentacles in uninterrupted circles, with no corallum, and the Minyadinse, having globose bodies, and very short tentacula. 182 THE- OCEAN WORLD. The modern aquarium exposes the spectator to many wonderful surprises. Coiled up against the transparent crystal walls of the basin, he observes living creatures of the most brilliant shades of colour, and more resembling flowers than animals. Supported by a solid base and cylindrical stem, he sees them terminate like the corolla of a flower, as in the petals of the anemone : these are the animals we call Sea Anemones curious zoophytes, which, as all persons familiar with the sea shore may have observed, are now seen suspended from the rocks, and presently buried at the bottom of the sea, or floating on its surface. These charming and timid creatures are also called Actinia, as indicating their disposition to form rays or stars, from the Greek d/crlv, a ray. The body of these animals is cylindrical in form, terminating beneath in a muscular disk, which is generally large and distinct, enabling them to cling vigorously to foreign bodies. It terminates above in an upper disk, bearing many rows of tentacles, which differ from each other only in their size. These tentacles are sometimes decorated with brilliant colours, forming a species of collarette, consist- ing of contractile and often retractile tubes, pierced at their points with an orifice, whence issue jets of water, which is ejected at the will of the animal. Arranged in multiples of circles, they distribute them- selves with perfect regularity round the mouth. These are the arms of this species of zoophyte. The mouth of the Actinia opens among the tentacles. Oval in form, it communicates by means of a tube with a stomach, broad and short, which descends vertically, and abuts by a large opening on the visceral cavity, the interior of which is divided into little cells or chambers. These cells and chambers are not all of the same dimen- sions ; in parting from the cylindrical walls of the body, they advance, the one increasing, the others getting smaller, in the direction of the centre. Moreover, they have many kinds of cells, which dispose them- selves in their different relations with great regularity their tenta- cula, which correspond with them, being arranged in circles radiating more or less from the centre. The stomach of the sea anemones fulfils a multitude of functions. At first, it is the digestive organ ; it is also the seat of respiration ; and is unceasingly moistened by the water, which it passes through, imbibes, and ejects. The visceral cavity absorbs the atmospheric air contained ACTINIAKIA. 183 in the water ; for the stomach is also a lung, and through the same organ it ejects its young ! In short, the reproductive organs, the eggs, and the larvae, are all connected with the tentacles or arms. In the month of September the eggs are fecundated, and the larvae or embryos developed. As Fredol says in " La Monde de la Mer," " These animals bear their young, not upon their arms, but in their arms. The larvae generally pass from the tentacula into the stomach, and are afterwards ejected from the mouth along with the rejecta of their food a most singular formation, in which the stomach breathes, and the mouth serves the purposes of accouchement facts which it would be difficult to believe on other than the most positive evidence." " The Daisy-like Anemones (Sagartia lettis Gosse), in the Zoo- logical Gardens of Paris," says Fredol, " frequently throw up little embryos, which are dispersed, and attach themselves to various parts of the aquarium, and finally become miniature anemones exactly like the parent. An actinia which had taken a very copious repast ejected a portion of it about twenty-four hours later, and in the middle of the ejected food were found thirty-eight young individuals." According to Dalyell, an accouchement is here a fit of indigestion. The lower class of animals have, in fact, as the general basis of their organization, a sac with a single opening, which is applied, as we have seen, to a great variety of uses. It receives and rejects ; it swallows and it vomits. The vomiting becomes necessary and habi- tual the normal condition, in short, of the animal and is perhaps a source of pleasure to it, for it is not a malady, but a function, and even a function multiplied. In the sea anemone it expels the excre- ment, and lays its eggs ; in others, as we have seen, it even serves the purposes of respiration ; so that the animal flowers may probably be said to enjoy their regular and periodical vomit. The sea anemones multiply their species in another manner. On the edge of their base certain bud-like excrescences may often be ob- served. These buds are by-and-by transformed into embryos, which detach themselves from the mother, and soon become individuals in all respects resembling her. This mode of reproduction greatly re- sembles some of the vegetative processes. Another and very singular mode of reproduction has been noted by Mr. Hogg in the case of Actinia oeillet. Wishing to detach this anemone from the aquarium, this gentleman used every effort to effect his purpose; but only 184 THE OCEAN WOELD. succeeded, after violent exertions, in tearing the lower part of the animal. Six portions remained attached to the glass walls of the aquarium. At the end of eight days, attempts were again made to detach these fragments ; hut it was observed, with much surprise, that they shrank from the touch and contracted themselves. Each of them soon hecame crowned with a little row of tentacula, and finally each fragment hecame a new anemone. Every part of these strange crea- tures thus "becomes a separate being when detached, while the mutilated mother continues to live as if nothing had happened. In short, it has long heen known that the sea anemones may he cut limb from limb, mutilated, divided, and subdivided. One part of the body cut off is quickly replaced. Cut off the tentacles of an actinia, and they are replaced in a short time, and the experiment may be repeated in- definitely. The experiments made by M. Trembley of Geneva upon the fresh-water polypi were repeated by the Abbe Dicquernare on the sea anemones. He mutilated and tormented them in a hundred ways. The parts cut off continued to live, and the mutilated creature had the power of reproducing the parts of which it had been deprived. To those who accused the Abbe of cruelty in thus torturing the poor creatures, he replied that, so far from being a cause of suffering to them, " he had increased their term of life, and renewed their youth." The Actiniadte vary in their habitat from pools near low-water mark to eighteen or twenty fathoms water, whence they have been dredged up. " They adhere," says Dr. Johnston, " to rocks, shells, and other extraneous bodies by means of a glutinous secretion from their en- larged base, but they can leave their hold and remove to another station whensoever it pleases them, either by gliding along with a slow and almost imperceptible movement (half an inch in five minutes), as is their usual method, or by reversing the body and using the tentacula for the purpose of feet, as Keaumur asserts, and as I have once witnessed ; or, lastly, inflating the body with water, so as to render it more buoyant, they detach themselves, and are driven to a distance by the random motion of the waves. They feed on shrimps, small crabs, whelks, and similar shelled mollusca, and probably on all animals brought within their reach whose strength or agility is insufficient to extricate them from the grasp of their numerous tentacula ; for as these organs can be inflected in any direction, and greatly lengthened, they are capable ACTINIAEIA. 185 of being applied to every point, and adhere by suction with consider- able tenacity, throwing out, according to Gaertner, of their whole surface a number of extremely minute suckers, which, sticking fast to the small protuberances of the skin, produce the sensation of roughness, which is so far from being painful that it even cannot be called dis- agreeable. " The size of the prey is frequently in unseemly disproportion to the preyer, being often equal in bulk to itself. I had once brought me a specimen of A. crassicornis, that might have been originally two inches in diameter, which had somehow contrived to swallow a valve of Pecten maximus of the size of an ordinary saucer. The shell, fixed within the stomach, was so placed as to divide it completely into two halves, so that the body, stretched tensely over, had become thin and flattened like a pancake. All communication between the inferior portion of the stomach and the mouth was of course prevented ; yet, instead of emaciating and dying of atrophy, the animal had availed itself of what undoubtedly had been a very untoward accident to in- crease its enjoyment and its chance of double fare. A new mouth, furnished with two rows of numerous tentacula, was opened up on what had been the base, and led to the under stomach ; the individual had indeed become a sort of Siamese Twin, but with greater intimacy and extent in its unions !" The sea anemones pass nearly all their life fixed to some rock, to which they seem to have taken root. There they live a sort of un- conscious and obtuse existence, gifted with an instinct so obscure that they are not even conscious of the prey in their vicinity until it is actually in contact, when it seizes it in its mouth and swallows it. Nevertheless, though habitually adherent, they can move, gliding and creeping slowly by successive contractile and relaxing movements of the body, extending one edge of their base and relaxing the opposite one. At the approach of cold weather the Actiniadse descend into the deepest water, where they find a more agreeable temperature. We have said that the sea anemones are scarcely possessed of vital instinct ; but they are capable of certain voluntary, movements. Under the influence of light, they expand their tentacles as the daisy displays its florets. If the animal is touched, or the water is agitated in its neighbourhood, the tentacles close immediately. These ten- tacles appear occasionally to serve the purpose of offensive arms. The 186 THE OCEAN WORLD. hand of the man who has touched them becomes red and inflamed. M. Hollard has seen small mackerel, two to three inches long, perish when touched by the tentacles of the Green Actinia (Comactis viridis Allman). This is a charming little animal. " The brilliancy of its colours and the great elegance of its tentacular crown when fully expanded," says Professor Allman, " render it eminently attractive ; hundreds may often be seen in a single pool, and few sights will be retained with greater pleasure by the naturalist than that presented by these little zoophytes, as they expand their green and rosy crowns amid the algee, millepores, and plumy corals, co-tenants of their rock- covered vase." The toxological properties of the Actinia have been attributed to certain special cells full of liquid ; but M. Hollard believes that these effects are neither constant enough nor sufficiently general to con- stitute the chief function of these organs, which are found in all the species and over their whole surface, external and internal. Though quite incapable of discerning their prey at a distance, the sea ane- mone seizes it with avidity when it comes to offer itself up a victim. If some adventurous little worm, or some young and sluggish crustacean, happens to ruffle the expanded involucrum of an actinia in its lazy progress through the water, the animal strikes it at once with its ten- tacles, and instinctively sweeps it into its open mouth. TJiis habit may be observed in any aquarium, and is a favourite spectacle at the " Jardin d'Acclimitation " of Paris, at noon on Sunday and Wednesday, when the aquatic animals are fed. Small morsels of food are thrown into the water. Prawns, shrimps, and other crustaceans and zoophytes inhabiting this medium, chase the morsels as they sink to the bottom of the basin ; but it is otherwise with the Actinia ; the morsels glide downwards within the twentieth part of an inch of their crown without its presence being suspected. It requires the aid of a pro- pitious wand, directed by the hand of the keeper, to guide the food right down on the animal. Then its arms or tentacles seize upon the prey, and its repast commences forthwith. The Actinia are at once gluttonous and voracious. They seize their food with the help of the tentacula, and engulf in their stomach, as we have seen, substances of a volume and consistence which contrast strangely with their dimensions and softness. In less than an hour, M. Hollard observed that one of these creatures voided ACTINIAEIA. 187 the shell of a mussel, and disposed of a crab all to its hardest parts ; nor was it slow to reject these hard parts, by turning its stomach inside out, as one might turn out one's pocket, in order to empty it of its contents. We have seen in Dr. Johnston's account of A. erassicornis that when threatened with death by hunger, from having swallowed a shell which separated it into two halves, at the end of eleven days it, had opened a new mouth, provided with separate rows of tentacula. The accident which, in ordinary animals, would have left it to perish of hunger, became, in the sea anemone, the source of redoubled gas- tronomical enjoyment. " The anemones," Fredol tells us, " are voracious, and full of energy ; nothing escapes their gluttony; every creature which approaches them is seized, engulfed, and devoured. Nevertheless, with all the power of their mouth, their insatiable stomachs cannot retain the prey they have swallowed. In certain circumstances it contrives to escape, in others it is adroitly snatched away by some neighbouring marauder more cunning and more active than the anemone. In PL. IV. are represented the principal species of Anemone usually observed in the aquarium. Figs. 1, 2, and 3, A. sulcata, is surmised by Johnson to be the young of A. effoeta (Linn.). It is also quoted as a synonyme of Anthea cereus, from Drayton's stanza : " Anthea of the flowers, that hath a general charge, And Syrinx of the weeds, that grow upon the marge." Fig. 4, Phymactis Sanctse Helena (Edw.) ; Fig. 5, A. Capensis (Lesson) ; Fig. 6, A. Peruviana (Lesson) ; Fig. 7, A. Sanctte Cathe- rine; Fig. 8, A. amethystina (Quoy); Fig. 9, Comactis viridis (Milne Edwards). "It is sometimes observed in aquariums that a shrimp, which has seen the prey devoured from a distance, will throw itself upon the ravisher, and audaciously wrest the prey from him and devour it before his eyes, to his great disappointment. Even when the savoury morsel has been swallowed, the shrimp, by great exertions, succeeds in ex- tracting it from the stomach. Seating itself upon the extended disk of the anemone, with its small feet it prevents the approach of the tentacles, at the same time that it inserts its claws into the digestive cavity and seizes the food. In vain the anemone tries to contract its gills and close its mouth. Sometimes the conflict between 188 THE OCEAN WOKLD. the sedentary zoophyte and the vagrant crustacean becomes serious. When the former is strong and robust, the aggression is repelled, and the shrimp runs the risk of supplementing the repast of the anemone." If the actinias are voracious, they can also support a prolonged period of fasting. They have been known to live two and even three years without having received any nourishment."* Although the sea anemone is said to be delicate eating, man derives very little benefit from them in that respect. In Provence, Italy, and Greece, the Green Actinia is in great repute, and Dicquemare speaks of A. crassicornis as delicate food. " Of all the kinds of sea anemones, I would prefer this for the table ; being boiled some time in sea water, they acquire a firm and palatable consistence, and may then be eaten with any kind of sauce. They are of an inviting appearance, of a light shivering texture, and of a soft white and reddish hue. Their smell is not unlike that of a warm crab or lobster." Dr. Johnston admits the tempting description, and does not doubt their being not less a luxury than the sea urchins of the Greeks, or the snails of the Eoman epicures, but he was not induced to test its truth. Eondeletius tells us, having, as Dr. Johnston thinks, A. crassicornis in view, that it brings a good price at Bordeaux. Actinia dianthus also is good to eat, quoth Dicquemare, and Plaucus directs the cook to dress it after the manner of dressing oysters, with which it is frequently eaten. Actinia coriacea is found in the market at Kochefort during the months of January, February, and March. Its flesh is said to be both delicate and savoury. With these general considerations, we proceed to note some of the more remarkable genera and species of these interesting creatures. Among these, the species represented in PL. IV. are those usually seen collected in such aquariums as those of the Zoological Gardens of London and the Gardens of Acclimatization of Paris. The first section of the Actiniadte, according to Milne Edwards, in- cludes the Common Actinia, the feet of which are broad and adherent, the lateral walls soft and imperforate. To this section belongs, among others, the genera Anemonia, Actinia, and Metridium. The Green Actinia (A. viridis) has very numerous tentacula, some- times as many as two hundred, exceeding in length the breadth of the * " On en a vu vivre deux et meme trois ans, sans reeevoir de nourriture." Vie de$ Animaux, p. 117, 1 ACTIKIAEIA. 189 body, of a fine brownish or olive green, and rose-coloured at the extremity. The trunk is of a greyish green or brown ; the disk is brown with greenish rays. This species is plentiful in the Mediterranean and in the Channel. When attached to the vertical sides of a rock, a little below the surface of the water, in which position it is often seen on the shores of the Mediterranean, the tentacles hang suspended as if the animal had no power to display them in their radiate form ; but when fixed horizontally in a calm sea, they are spread out in all direc- tions, and are kept in a state of continual agitation ; its long, mane- like tentacula, fully expanded, float and balance themselves in the water in spite of the action of the waves, presenting a most interesting spectacle as it displays its beauties a few feet below the passing boat. A. dianthus (Ellis), having a number of synonymes, is represented in PL. Y. Fig. 1 ; its body is smooth and cylindrical ; the disk marked in the centre with clavate radiating bands; tentacula numerous, irregular, the outer small, and forming round the margin a thick filamentous fringe. This species attaches itself to rocks and shells in deep water, or within low-water mark, to which it permanently attaches itself, and cannot be removed without organic injury to the base. When contracted, the body presents a thick, short, sub-cylin- drical form, about three inches long, and one and a half in diameter, and about five inches when fully expanded ; the skin is smooth, of an uniform olive,. whitish, cream, or flesh colour. The centre of the disk is ornamented with a circle of white bands, radiating from the mouth, the lamellae running across, the circumference being perceptible through the transparent skin. From the narrow, colourless inter- spaces between the lamellae the tentacula originate. "They are placed," says Dr. Johnston, "between the mouth and the margin, which is encircled by a dense fringe of incontestable beauty, composed of innumerable short tentacula or filaments, forming a thick, furry border." In PL. Y. Fig. 2, we have probably Gaertner's AntTiea cereus, the body of which is a light chestnut colour, smooth, sulcated length- wise, with tentacula rising from the disk to the number, in aged animals, of two hundred. Sagartia viduata Grosse (Fig. 4) has the body adherent, cylindrical, without a skin, destitute of warts, emitting capsuliferous filaments from pores; nettling-threads short, densely armed with a brush of hairs ; tentacles conical. A. picta (?L. IY. Fig. 6), which Professor Edward Forbes changes to Adamsia palliata, 190 THE OCEAN WORLD. is described by Mr. Adams, who first discovered it, "as longitudi- nally sulcated, having the edges of the base crenated ; the lower part an obscure red, and the upper part transparent white, marked with fine purple spots ; the outer circumference of the aperture has a narrow stripe of pink. When expanded, the superior division of the body seems formed of membrane. From perforated warts placed without order on the outer coat, issued white filamentous substances variously twisted together. I have observed," he adds, "similar bodies ejected from the mouths of all the species of this genus which have fallen within my notice." A. mesembryanthemum (Johnston). The A. equina of Lesson (PL. IY. Fig. 6), known in France as the Cul d'ane, is extremely common in the Channel on rocks between the tide marks. It attaches itself chiefly to rocks beaten by the waves and exposed to view at the moment of reflux. The body is from two to three inches in height, and from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter ; hemispherical when contracted, it resembles a bell perforated at the summit, dilated into a cylinder. When fully extended the tentacula are nearly equal to the height of the body, of a uniform liver colour, or olive green, and sometimes streaked with blue, having a greenish line either continuous or in spots, the base generally of a greenish colour encircled with an azure blue line, often streaked with red. The tentacula are terminated by a small pore. Its colour is variable, but generally it is of a violet-red. Sometimes it preserits round spots of a fine green ; at other times it is only of a greenish hue ; the edge of the feet have a narrow border of red, with green and blue beneath. Metridium dianthus has a' thick body with russet grey skin, the disk strongly lobed, thin and transparent round the mouth; the tentacula very numerous, very short, and occupying a broad, strong zone upon the disk. The mesial lines are whitish and wide apart ; externally they are closer, papiliform, and brown. This species is found on stones and shells in the North Sea and in the Channel. The verrucous, or warty section of the Actiniadte, have the lateral walls of the body covered with agglutinated tubercles, and well- developed feet. To this section belong the Coriaceous Cereus, Actinia crassicornis (Johnston), and A. senilis (Hollar d and Dicquemare), which seem to vary in habit. Hollard describes them as frequently buried ACTINIARIA. 191 in the sands on the shore, while Cocks describes them " as attaching themselves to shells and stones in deep water, or attached on the littoral to the sides of rocks, in crevices, or on the face of clean stones in sheltered places." The hody is variegated, green, and red ; the tentacles thick, short, and greyish, with broad roseate bands. The Anemones belonging to the fourth section, or tap-rooted actinia, have the base small, and terminating in a rounded point, and the body much elongated, as in Edwardsia Calimor- pha (Fig. 80), in which the body is non-adherent, somewhat worm-like, having the mouth and tentacula seated on a retractile column, the lower ex- tremity inflated, membranous, and re- tractile. In the great family of the Actinia- rians, Milne Edwards forms a special group of the Phyllactinse. In this group the polyps are simple, fleshy, and present at once simple and com- posite tentacula. Such is Pliylladis prsetexta (Fig. 81), which is found in Fig ' 80 - Edwarilda Calimorpha (Gosse) ' the neighbourhood of Eio Janeiro. The zoophyte fixes itself upon the rocks on the sea shore, and covers itself with sand. Its trunk, of cylindrical form, is of a flesh-colour, with vertical lines, having red points. The interior tentacles form two simple elongated rows ; the exterior tentacles are spatulate and lobed, not very unlike the leaves of the oak. Another group, that of the Thalassianthidae, is distinguished from the preceding by having all its tentacula short, pinnate, and branching, or papilliferous. One species only is known, T. aster, of a slate colour, which inhabits the Red Sea. In the last group of Actiniadre, as arranged by Milne Edwards, the polypes occur in clusters, and are multiplied by buds, rising from a common creeping, root-like, fleshy base ; they thus present a sort of coriaceous polypier, as in Zoanthus socialis (Fig. 82). In the British Channel this species, which Dr. Johnston has named Z. Couchii, after 192 THE OCEAN WORLD. Mr. Couch, jun., is found along the Cornish coast, on flat slates and rocks, in deep water, and from one to ten leagues from the shore. It is very small, resembling, both in shape and size, a split pea. When living, its surface is plain but glandular, becoming corrugated when preserved. When semi-expanded, which is its favourite state, it elevates itself to twice its ordinary height, becoming contracted about the middle, like an hour-glass. When the creature is fully expanded, Fig. 81. Phyllactus praetexta (Dana), natural size. the tentacula become distended and elongated to about the length of the transverse diameter of the body ; and they are generally darker at their extremities than towards the base. Like all the Actiniadae, the present species possess a power of considerably altering their shape ; sometimes the mouth is depressed, and at others it is elevated into an obtuse cone. " This is one of the most inactive of its order," says Mr. A. Couch ; " for, whether in a state of contraction or expansion, it will remain so for many days without apparent change. In its ex- panded state a touch will make it contract, and it will commonly remain ACT1NIAKIA. 193 so for many clays." The trailing connecting-band is flat, thin, narrow, glandular, and of the same texture as the polyp, sometimes enlarging into small papillary eminences, which, as they become enlarged, be- come developed into polyps. Fig. 82. Zoantbus socialis (Cuvier), natural size. MlNYADINIANS. The Minyadinians seem to represent among the Zoanthairia the form peculiar to the Pennatuk among the Alcyonians. In the case of Fig. 83. Blue Minyade. Minyas caarnlea (Cuvier), natural t-ize. these animals, the base of the body, in place of extending itself in a disk-like form, in order to grapple with the rock and other projections o 194 TUB OCEAN WORLD. at the bottom of the sea, turns itself inwards, forming a sort of purse, which seems to imprison the air. From this results a sort of hydro- static apparatus, aided by which the animals can float in the water and transport themselves from one place to another. The Blue Minyade (Minyas cyanea Fig. 83) will serve as a type of this family ; its globose, melon-like form is of azure blue, studded with white wart-like excrescences ; it is flattened at its two extremities in its state of con- traction, and it has three rows of tentacula, which are short, cylindrical, and white. The internal organs are of a delicate rose colour. Cuvier places this species among the Echinodermata, but the observations of Lesueur and Quoy, who were acquainted with the living animal, place it among the Actiniadse. Many of the species, which are usually fixed, are still capable of swimming and of inflating their suctorial disks ; therefore it is by no means certain that the free habit of Minyas cyanea is constant, C 195 ) CHAPTEE VIII. ACALEPH^E, OR SEA NETTLES. In nova fert animus mutatis dicere formas corpora." OVID, MET. THE class Acalephse, from aKaXrifyy, a nettle, so called from the stinging properties which many of them possess, include a great number of radiate animals of which the Medusae are the type. They form the third class of Cuvier's zoophytes. The Acalephse, forming the first order, are characterised as floating and swimming in the sea by means of the contraction and dilation of their bodies, their substance being gelatinous, without apparent fibres. The great genus Medusa is characterised by having a disk, more or less convex above, resembling a mushroom or expanded umbrella the edges of the umbrella, as well as the mouth and suckers, being more or less prolonged into pedicles, which take their place in the middle of the lower surface; they are furnished with tentacula, varying in form and size, which have given rise to many subdivisions, with which we need not concern ourselves. The substance of the disk presents an uniform cellular appearance internally, but the cellular substance being very soft, no trace of fibre is observable. Taken from the sea and laid upon a stone, a Medusa weighing fifty ounces will rapidly diminish to five or six grains, sinking into a sort of deliquescence, from which Spalanzani concluded that the sea- water penetrated the organic texture of its substance, and constituted the principal volume of the animal. Those which have cilia round their margins have also cellular bands running along their bases, and most of the projectile and extensile tentacula and o 2 196 THE OCEAN WOULD. filaments have sacs and canals containing fluids at their roots. Suckers are also found at the extremities, and along the sides of these tentacles in several genera are suckers, by which they are able more securely to catch their floating prey, or to anchor themselves when at rest. The indications of nerves or nervous system are too slight to be received as evidence, although Dr. Grant observed some structure which he thought could only belong to a nervous system, and Ehrenberg thought he ob- served eyes in Medusa aurita, as well as a nervous circle formed of four ganglion-like masses disposed round the mouth. But most naturalists seem to be of opinion that touch is the only sense of which any con- clusive proof can be advanced. Here we behold a class of bell-shaped semi-transparent organisms? which float gracefully in the sea a great family of soft, wandering animals, constituted in a most extraordinary manner. They look like floating umbrellas, breeches, or, better still, floating mushrooms, the footstalk replaced by an equally central body, but divided into diver- gent lobes at once sinuous, twisted, and fringed, so that one is at first tempted to take them for a species of root. The edges of the umbrella or mushroom are entire or dentate, sometimes elegantly figured, often ciliate, or provided with long filiform appendages which float vertically in the water. Sometimes the animal is uncoloured, and limpid as crystal ; some- times it presents a slightly opaline appearance, now of a tender blue, or of a delicate rose colour; at other times it reflects the most brilliant and vivid tints. In certain species the central parts only are coloured, showing brilliant reds and yellows, blues or violets, the rest being colourless. In others the central mass seems clothed in a thin iridescent or diaphanous veil, like the light evanescent soap-bubble, or the trans- parent glass shade which covers a group of artificial flowers. The Acalephae are animals without consistence, imbued with much water, so that we can scarcely comprehend how they resist the agita- tion of the waves and the force of the currents ; the waves, however, float without hurting them, the tempest scatters without killing them. When the sea retires, or they are withdrawn from their native waters, their substance dissolves, the animal is decomposed, they are reduced to nothing ; if the sun is ardent, this disorganisation occurs in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak. ACALEPH.E. 197 When the Medusae travel, their convex part is always kept in advance, and slightly oblique. If they are touched while swimming, even lightly,, they contract their tentacula, fold up their umbrella, and sink into the sea. Like Ehrenberg, M. Kolliker thought he dis- covered visual and auditory organs in an Oceania, and Gegenbauer thought he detected them in other genera, such as Rhizostoma and Pelagia. The eyes are said to consist of certain small, hemispherical, cellulose, coloured masses, in which are sunk small crystalline globules, the free parts of which are perfectly naked. The supposed auditory apparatus is seated close to these organs ; they are small vesicles filled with liquid ; the eyes having neither pupil nor cornea, and the ears without opening or arch. But it is in their reproduction that these evanescent beings present the most marvellous phenomena. At one period of the year the Medusae are charged with numbers of very minute eggs, of the most lively colours, which are suspended in large festoons from their floating bodies. In some cases these eggs develop themselves grafted to their bodies, and are only detached at maturity. In other cases the larvae produced bear no resemblance to the mother ; they are elongated and vermiform, broad at their extremity ; we speak of the microscopic leeches, which have vibrating cilia, scarcely perceptible, by which they execute the most lively motions. At the end of a certain time they are transformed into polyps, and furnished with eight tentacula. This preparatory sort of animal seems to possess the faculty of reproduction by means of certain buds or tubercles which develop themselves on the surface of the body, and also by filaments which start up here and there, so that a single individual originates a numerous colony. This polyp is subjected to a transformation still more remarkable ; its structure becomes complex, its body articulate, and it seems to be composed of a dozen disks piled one upon the other, like the jars of a voltaic pile ; the upper disk is convex, and is separated from the colony after a convulsive effort ; it becomes free, and an excessively small, star-like Medusa is the result ; every disk, that is, every individual, is isolated one after the other in the same manner. Thus of the sexual zoophytes which propagate their kind according to the usual laws ; but others engender young which have no resem- blance to the parent zoophyte at all : in this respect they are neuter, 198 THE OCEAN WORLD. that is, non-sexual, or agamous. These are produced by budding, or fissiparity, from individuals like themselves. They can also give sexual distinctions ; but before this change takes place the creature, which was simple, is transformed into a composite animal, and it is from its disaggregation that individuals having sexual organs are produced, the process being that which has been called alternate gene- ration. It goes on in a perfectly regular manner, although it is a fact that the young never resemble their mothers, but their grandmothers. This great family of Zoophytes Grosse divides into Discophora, having the body in the form of a circular disk, more or less convex and umbrella-shaped, moving by alternate COD tractions and expansions of the disk. Fig. 84. JCquerea violacea, natural size (Milne Edwards). Ctenophora, body cylindrical, moving by means of many parallel rims of cilia set in longitudinal lines on the surface. Sophonopliora, body irregular, without central digestive cavity like the others, having sucking organs, and moving by means of a con- tractile cavity, or by air-vessels. The Discophora are again subdivided into Gijmnoplithalmata, having the eye-specks uncovered or wanting, a great central digestive cavity, circulating vessels proceeding to the margin quite simple or branched; and Steganoplitlialmata^&vi&g the eye- specks protected by ACALEPH.E. 199 membranous hoods, or lobed coverings, circulating vessels much ramified, and united with a net-work. Of the Gymnophthalmata we have an example in Mquerea violacea (Fig. 84), in which the disk is slightly convex, glass-like in appearance, and furnished all round with, very short, slender, thread-like, violet-coloured tentacula ; with circulat- ing vessels, eight in number, quite simple, and ovaries placed on them ; peduncle wide, expanding into many broad and long fringed lobes. Fig. 85. Aurelia uurita (^Lainarck). Cyanea aurita (Cuvier). Oue-third natural size. The Steganophthalmata include the Medusadas proper, in which the umbel is hemispherical, with numerous marginal tentacles, eight eyes covered by lobes, four ovaries, four chambers, four fringed arms, with a central and four lateral openings. Aurelia aurita (Fig. 85) is here represented as a type of the group ; it is plentiful in the Baltic, and has been carefully studied by the Swedish naturalists. Eosenthal has made its anatomy his special study. Sars has also made it the subject of observations. In the same group we find the Pelagia cyanella 200 THE OCEAN WORLD. of Peron, whose body is globose, scolloped with eight marginal ten- tacles, peduncles ending in four leaf-like, furbelowed arms, united at the base, having four ovaries, and appendages to the stomach, without orifices. The Pelagia, as the name implies, belong to the deep sea. P. noe- tiluca has a transparent, glass-like disk, of a reddish-brown colour and warty appearance. It is found in the Mediterranean, about the coast near Nice, and is still more plentiful on the coast of Sicily, and on the African coast. Another species, P. panopyra, is very common in the Atlantic and Pacific, between the Tropics. The naturalist Lesson met whole banks of them in the equatorial ocean, about the twenty- seventh degree north latitude and the twenty-second degree west lon- gitude. During the night, this species emits a brilliant phosphoric light, and living individuals, which Lesson succeeded in preserving, exhibited great luminosity in the dark. This medusa is remarkable for its semi-spherical disk, slightly depressed, umbilicate at the summit, a little compressed at the edges, and densely bristling on the surface with small elongated warts, but regularly festooned along the edges. In colour it is a delicate rose. The animals which constitute this class of Zoophytes, and, in former times, so curious and so imperfectly known, were designated Polypo- medusze, in order to remind us that at one time they were called Medusse, and at others ranged among the Polyps. It has,' however, been recently discovered that, shortly after they issue from the egg, these zoophytes show themselves in the form of polyps, and that, at a later period, they assume the animal form, to which we give the name of medusse. These animals are, then, true proteans : hence the very considerable difficulty of studying them difficulties which have long reduced naturalists to despair. Even now their history is too obscure and too complicated to justify us in presenting it, except in its general features. We shall, therefore, content ourselves here with a descrip- tion of the best known species of the class only those, namely, which have particularly attracted the attention of naturalists, and which are, at the same time, of a nature to interest our readers. The class of Discophorae may be divided into four orders or families, namely : I. THE HYDRAID^E, having single, naked, gelatinous, sub-cylindrical, but very con- ACALEPH^E. 201 tractile stems, mutable in form, mouth encircled with a single series of granulous fili- form tentacula. II. SEIITULARIADJS, plant-like and horny, rooted and variously branched, filled with semi-fluid organic pulp, the polyps contained within sessile cells disposed along the sides of the main stem or branchlets, but never terminal. III. MEDUSAD^. Umbel hemispherical, with marginal tentacula; having eight eyes covered by lobes, four ovaries, four cells, four fringed arms, a central opening, and four lateral openings. IV. SLPHONOPHORA, having the animals double, and bell-shaped, one fitting into the cavity of the other ; in Dyphyes the animal has a large air-vessel with numerous tenta- cula ; in Physalla, the animal stretches over a cartilaginous plane. The true form of the Medusa does not appear in the two first orders. The Hydraidae are, according to modern naturalists, Discophorse arrested in their development. They comprehend the single genus Hydra, of which many species are known, whose habits and metamor- phoses it will be our object to particularise. Hydra vulgar is inhabits stagnant ponds and slowly-running waters. It is of an orange-brown or red colour, the intensity of the colour de- pending on the nature of its food, becoming almost blood-red when fed on the small crimson worms and larvas to be found in such places. M. Laurent even succeeded in colouring them blue, red, and white, by means of indigo, carmine, and chalk, without any real penetration of the tissue, the buds from them acquiring the same colour as the mother, while the colour of the ova retains its natural tint, even when the Hydra mother has been fed with coloured substances during the pro- gress of this mode of reproduction. The tentacula, usually seven or eight in number, never exceed the length of the body, tapering insen- sibly to a point. Hydra viridis, the fresh-water polyp, being more immediately within the sphere of our observation, naturally presents itself to our notice. It is common in ponds and still waters. It was noticed by Pallas, who was of opinion that offspring was produced from every part of the body. De Blainville, on the contrary, was of opinion that offspring was always produced from the same place ; namely, at the junction of that part which is hollow and that which is not. Yan der Hoven, .the Leyden professor, agrees with Pallas, and Dr. Johnston's opinions accord with Pallas. The green Hydra is common all over Europe, in- 202 THE OCEAN WORLD. habiting brooks filled with herbage attaching itself particularly to the duckweed of stagnant ponds, and more especially to the under surface of the leaf. The animal is reduced to a small greenish tubular sac, closed at one of its extremities, open at the other, and bearing round this opening from six to ten appendages, very slender, and not exceeding a line in breadth. The tubulous sac is the body of the animal (Fig. 87), Fig. 86. Hydra vulgaris. 1. Hydra with ova and young, unliatd-ed. 2. Hydra of natural size attached to a piece of floating wood. 3. hgg icady to burst its shell. The opening is at once its mouth and the entrance to the digestive canal ; the appendages, the tentacula or arms. The Hydras have no lungs, no liver, no intestines, no nervous system, no heart. They have no organ of the senses, except those which exist in the mouth and the skin. The arms or branches are hollow inter- nally, and communicate with the stomach. They are provided with vibratile cells, furnished with a great number of tuberosities disposed spirally, and containing in their interior a number of capsules provided ACALEPH^E. 203 each with a sort of fillet. These threads, which are of extreme tena- city, are thrown out when the animal is irritated by contact with any strange body. We may see these filaments wrapping themselves round their prey, sometimes even penetrating its substance, and effectually subduing the enemy. The green Hydra has thus a very simple organisation. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to say the animal Fig. 87. Hydra viridris (TrembleyX 1. Hydra magnified, bearing an embryo ready to detach itself. 2. Animal, natural size. 3. Bud much magnified. 4. Bud, natural size. was imperfect, for it possesses everything necessary for its nourishment and for the propagation of its species. There are learned men who have composed hundreds of volumes, who have published whale libraries naturalists and physicists who have written more than Yoltaire ever penned, but whose names are utterly forgotten. On the other hand, there are some who have left only two or three monograms, and yet their names will live for ever. Of this number is the Genevois, A. Trembley. This writer published in 1741 a " Memoir on the Fresh-water Polyps." In this little work he 204 THE OCEAN WORLD. recorded his observations on some of these animals of smallest dimen- sions. He limited himself even to two sets of experiments : he turned the fresh- water polyp outside in, and he multiplied it hy cutting it up. These experiments upon this little creature, which few persons had seen, have sufficed to secure immortality to his name. Tremhley was tutor to the two sons of Count de Bentinck. He made his observa- tions at the country-house of the Dutch nobleman, and he had, as he assures us, " frequent occasion to satisfy himself, in the case of his two pupils, that we can even in infancy taste the pleasures de- rivable from the studies of Nature !" Let us hope that this thought, uttered by a celebrated naturalist, who spoke only from what he knew himself, may remain engraved on the minds of our younger readers. Trembley established by his observations, a thousand times repeated, that Hydra viridis can be turned outside in, as completely as a glove may be, without injury to the animal, which a day or two after this revolution resumes its ordinary functions. Such is the vitality of these little beings, that what was once the outer surface soon fulfils all the functions of a stomach, digesting its food, while the intestinal tube expanding its exterior performs all the functions of an outer surface ; it absorbs and respires. But we shall leave Trembley to relate his very remarkable experiments. " I attempted," he says, " for the first time to turn these polyps inside out in the month of July, 1741 but unsuccessfully. I was more successful the following year, having found an expedient which was of easy execution. I began by giving a worm to the polyp, and put it, when the stomach was well filled, into a little water which filled the hollow of my left hand. I pressed it afterwards with a gentle pinch towards the posterior extremities. In this manner I pressed the worm which was in the stomach against the mouth of the polyp, forcing it to open continuing the pinching pressure until the worm was partly pressed out of the mouth. When the polyp was in this state I conducted it gently out of the water, without damaging it, and placed it upon the edge of my hand, which was simply moistened, in order that the polyp should not stick to it. I forced it to contract itself more and more, and, in doing so, assisted in enlarging the mouth and stomach. I now took in my right hand a thick and pointless boar's bristle, which I held as a lancet is held in bleeding. I approached its thicker end to the posterior extremity of the polyp, which I pressed until it entered the stomach, which it does the ACALEPH^B. 205 more easily since it is empty at this place and much enlarged. 1 continued to advance the bristle, and, in proportion as it advanced, the polyp hecarne more and more inverted. When it came to the worm, by which the mouth is kept open on one side, and the posterior part of the polyp is passed through the mouth, the creature is thus turned completely inside out ; the exterior superficies of the polyp has become the interior." The poor animal would be justified in feeling some surprise at its new situation disagreeably surprised we may add, for it makes every imaginable effort to recover its natural position, and it always succeeds in the end. The glove is restored to its proper form. " I have seen polyps," says Trembley, " which have recovered their natural exterior in less than an hour." But this would not have served the purpose of our experimenter. He wished to know if the polyps thus turned outside in could live in this state ; he had consequently to prevent it from rectifying itself, for which purpose a needle was run through the body near the mouth in other words, he impaled the creature by the neck. "It is nothing for a polyp only to be spitted," says Trembley. It is in fact a very small thing, as we shall see, for thus reversed and spitted they live and multiply as if nothing had happened. " I have seen a polyp," says this ingenious experimenter, " turned inside out, which has eaten a small worm two days after the opera- tion. I have fed one in that state for more than two years, and it has multiplied in that condition. " Having experimented successfully myself, I was desirous of having the testimony of others capable of forming opinions on the subject. M. Allamand was persuaded to put his hand to the work, which he did with the same success I had met with. He has done more, having succeeded in permanently turning specimens which had been previously turned, and which continued to live in their re-inverted state ; he has seen them eat soon after both operations ; finally, he has turned one for the third time, which lived some days, but perished without having eaten anything, although it did not appear that its death was the result of the operation." We have said that the Hydra viridis has neither brain, nervous system, heart, muscular rings, lungs, nor liver; the organs of the senses namely, those of sight, hearing, and of smell have also been 206 THE OCEAN WOELD. denied them. Nevertheless, they act as if they possessed all these senses. Oh Nature ! how hidden are thy secrets, and how the pride of man is humbled by the mysteries which surround thee by the spectacles which strike his eyes, and which he attempts in yam to explain ! Trembley states that the fresh-water polyps, having no muscular ring, can neither extend nor contract themselves, nor can they walk. If touched, or if the water in which they are immersed is suddenly agitated, they are certainly observed to contract more or less forcibly, and even to inflect themselves in all directions ; and by this power of extension, of contraction and inflection, they contrive to move from place to place; but these movements are singularly slow, the utmost space they have been observed to traverse being about eight inches in the twenty-four hours. Painfully conscious of his powers of progression, however, he has found means of remedying it, and the aquatic snail is his steed; he creeps upon the shell of a Planorbis, or Limnsea, and by means of this improvised mount he will make more way in a few minutes than he would in a day by his own unassisted efforts. The Hydra viridis, although destitute of organs of sight, are never- theless sensible of light ; if the vase containing them is placed partly in shade and partly in the sun, they direct themselves immediately towards the light ; they appreciate sounds ; they attach themselves to aquatic plants and other floating bodies. Without eyes, without brain, and without nerves, these animals lie in wait for their prey, recognize, seize, and devour it. They make no blunder, and only attack where they are sure of success. They know how to flee from danger ; they evade obstacles, and fight with or fly before their enemies. There are, then, some powers of reflection, deliberation, and pre- meditated action in these insignificant creatures ; their history, in short, is calculated to fill the mind with astonishment. Trembley insists much upon the address which the Hydra employs to secure its prey : by the aid of its long arms, small animals, which serve to nourish it, are seized, for it is carnivorous, and even passably voracious. Worms, small insects, and larvae of dipterous insects are its habitual prey. When a worm or woodlouse in passing its portals happens to touch them, the polyp, taking the hint, seizes upon the wanderer, twining its flexible arms round it, and, directing it rapidly ACALEPH^B. 207 towards its mouth, swallows it. Trembley amused himself by feeding the Hydra, while he observed the manner in which it devoured its prey. " When its arms were extended, I have put into the water a wood- louse or a small worm. As soon as the woodlouse feels itself a prisoner it struggles violently, swimming about, and drawing the arm which holds it from side to side ; but, however delicate it may appear, the arm of the polyp is capable of considerable resistance; it is now gradually drawn in, and other arms come to its assistance, while the polyp itself approaches its prey ; presently the woodlouse finds itself engaged with all the arms, which, by curving and contracting, gradually but inevitably approach the mouth, in which it is soon engulfed." Fredol also notices a singular fact. " The small worms, even when swallowed by the polyp," he says, "frequently try to escape ; but the ravisher retains them by plunging one of its arms into the digestive cavity ! What an admirable contrivance, by which the worms are digested while the arm is respected !" The food of the fresh-water Hydra influences the colour of their bodies in consequence of the thinness and transparency of their tissues; so that the reddish matter of the woodlouse renders them red, while other food renders them black or green, according to its prevailing colour ! The multiplication of these creatures takes place in three different ways : 1. By eggs. 2. By buds, after the manner 'of vegetables. 3. By separation, in which an individual may be cut into two or many segments, each reproducing an individual. We shall only say a few words on the first mode of reproduction. The eggs, according to Ehrenberg, come to maturity in the H. viridis at the base of the feet, where the visceral cavity terminates. They are carried during seven or eight days, and determine by their fall the death of the animal. When the Hydra has laid its eggs, according to M. Laurent, it gradually lowers itself until it covers them with half its body, which, spreading out and getting proportionably thin, passes into the condition of a horny substance, that glues the eggs disposed in a circle round the body to plants and other foreign substances. She ends her career by dying in the midst of her ova. Trembley has studied with great care the mode of reproduction by budding a process which seems to prevail in the summer months. The buds which are to form the young polyp appear on the surface 208 THE OCEAN WORLD. of the body as little spherical excrescences terminating in a point. A few steps further towards maturity, and it assumes a conical and finally a cylindrical form. The arms now begin to push out at the anterior extremity of the young animal ; the posterior extremity by which it is attached to the mother contracting by degrees, until it appears only to touch her at one point. Finally, the separation is effected, the mother and the young acting in concert to produce the entrance of this interesting young polyp into the world. Each of them take with their head and arms a strong point of support upon some neighbouring body ; and a small effort suffices to procure the separa- tion : sometimes the mother charges herself with the effort, sometimes the young, and often both. When the young polyp is separated from the mother, it swims about, and executes all the movements peculiar to adult animals. The entrance into life and maturity takes place with these beings at one and the same moment. Infancy and youth are suppressed in this little world. So long as the young polyp remains attached to the mother, she is the nurse ; by a touching change, the young polyp nurses her in his turn. In short, the stomach of the mother and her young have communication; so that the prey swallowed by the parent passes partially into the stomach of her progeny. On the other hand, while still attached to the mother, the little ones seize the prey, which they share in their turn with their parent by means of the communication Nature has arranged between the two organisms. In the course of his experiments Trembley states another fact still more remarkable. Upon a young polyp still attached to its parent he observed a new polyp or polypule, and upon this unborn creature was another individual. Thus three generations were appended to the parent, who carried at once her child, her grandchild, and great-grandchild. "In observing the young polyps still attached to their parent," says Trembley, " I have seen one which, had itself a little one which was just issuing from its body ; that is to say, it was a mother while yet attached to its own parent. I had in a short time many young polyps attached to their parents which had already had three or four little ones, of which some were even perfectly formed. They fished for woodlice like others, and they ate them. Nor is this all. I have ACALEPILE. 209 Seen a mother-polyp which had carried its third generation. From the little one which she had produced issued another little one, and from this a third." Charles Bennet, the naturalist of Geneva, says wittily, that a polyp thus charged with all its descendants constitutes a living genealogical tree. We have just spoken of turning polyps inside out ! If one of these creatures is thus operated upon while it bears its young on the surface of its body, such of them as are sufficiently advanced continue to increase ; although they find themselves in this sudden manner im- prisoned in an internal cavity, they re-issue subsequently by the mouth. Those less advanced at the moment of reversal issue by little and little from the maternal sac, and complete their career of development on the newly-made exterior. The third and most extraordinary mode of reproduction in the polyps has been discovered by Trembley in the case of the green Hydra. So surprised was this naturalist at the strange anomalies which sur- rounded these creatures, that he began to have doubts, and gravely to ask the question, Was this polyp an animal ? Is it a plant ? In order to escape from this state of indecision, it occurred to him to cut a Hydra into pieces. Concluding that plants alone could repro- duce themselves by slips, he waited the result of the experiment for the conclusion he sought. On the 25th of November, 1740, he cut a polyp into sections. " I put,'* he tells us, " the two parts into a flat glass, which contained water four or five lines in depth, and in such a manner that each portion of the polyp could be easily observed through a strong magnifying glass. It will suffice to say that I had cut the polyp transversely, and a little nearer to the anterior. On the morning of the day after having cut the polyp, it seemed to me that on the edges of the second part, which had neither head nor arms, three small points were issuing from these edges. This surprised me extremely, and I waited with impatience for the moment when I could clearly ascertain what they were. Next day they were sufficiently developed to leave no doubt on my mind that they were true arms. The following day two new arms made their appearance, and, some days after, a third appeared, and I could now trace no difference between the first and second half of the polyp which I had cut." This is assuredly one of the most startling facts belonging to 210 THE OCEAN WORLD. natural history. Divide a fresh- water polyp into five or six parts, and at the end of a few days all the separate parts will be organized, deve- loped, and form so many new beings, resembling the primitive indi- vidual. Let us add, that the polyp which should thus have lost five- sixths of its body, the mutilated father of all this generation, remains complete in itself; in the interval, it has recuperated itself and re- covered all its primitive substance. After this, if a Hydra vulgaris wishes to procure for itself the blessings of a family, it has only one thing to do : cut off an arm ; if it desire two descendants, let it cut the arm in two parts ; if three, let it divide itself into three ; and so on ad infinitum. " Divide one of the animals," says Trembley, "and each section will soon form a new individual in all respects like the creature divided." " A whole host of polyps hewn into pieces," says Fredol, "will be far from being annihilated." " On the contrary," we may say, in our turn, " its youth will be renewed, and multiplied in proportion to the number of pieces into which it has been divided." " The same polyp," says Trembley, " may be successively inverted, cut into sections, and turned back again, without being seriously injured." If a green Hydra is cut into two pieces, and the stomach is cut off in the operation, the voracious creature will, nevertheless, continue to eat the prey which presents itself. It gorges itself with the food, without troubling itself with the loss which it has sustained ; but the food no longer nourishes it, for it merely enters by one opening, passes through the intestinal canal, and escapes by the other. It realizes Harleville's pleasantry of M. de Crac's horse, in the piece of that name, which eats unceasingly, but never gets any fatter. All these instances of mutilation, resulting in an increase of life, are very strange. The naturalists to whom they were first revealed could scarcely believe their own eyes. Reaumur, who repeated many of Trembley 's experiments, writes as follows : " I confess that when I saw for the first time two polyps forming by little and little from that which I had cut in two, I could scarcely believe my eyes ; and it is a fact that, after hundreds of experiments, I never couid quite reconcile myself to the sight." In short, we know nothing analogous to it in the animal kingdom. About the same period Charles Bennet writes : " We can only judge of things by comparison, and have taken our ideas of animal life from ACALEPH^;. 211 the larger animals ; and an animal which we cut and turn inside out, which we cut again, and it still bears itself well, gives one a singular shock. How many facts are ignored, which will come one day to derange our ideas of subjects which we think we understand ! At present we just know enough to be aware that we should be surprised at nothing." Notwithstanding the philosophic serenity which Bennet recom- mends, the fact of new individuals resulting from dividing these fresh-water polyps was always a subject of profound astonishment, and of never-ending meditation. SERTULARIAD.E. All Hydraidse, with the exception of the Hydra and a few other genera, are marine productions, varying from a few lines to upwards of a foot in height, attaching themselves to rocks, shells, seaweeds, and corallines, and to various species of shell-fish. Many of them attach themselves indiscriminately to the nearest object, but others show a decided preference. Thuiaria thrya attaches itself to old bi- valves ; Thoa halecuia prefers the larger univalves ; Antennularia antennina attaches itself to coarse sand on rocks ; Laomedea geni- culata delights in the broad frond of the tangle ; Plumularia catherina attaches itself in deep water to old shells, corallines, and ascidians, growing in a manner calculated to puzzle the naturalist, as it did Crabbe, the poet, who writes of it : " Involved in sea-wrack, here you find a race Which science, doubting, knows not where to place; On shell or stone is dropp'd the embryo seed, And quickly vegetates a vital breed." Sertularia pumila, on the other hand, loves the commoner and coarser wracks. " The choice," says Dr. Johnston, " may in part be dependent on their habits, for such as are destined to live in shallow water, or on a shore exposed by the reflux of every tide, are, in general, vegetable parasites ; while the species which spring up in deep seas must select between rocks, corallines, or shells." There seems to be a selection even as to the position on the rocks. According to Lamouroux, some polyps always occupy the southern slopes, and never that towards the east, west, or north ; others, on the contrary, grow only on these p 2 212 THE OCEAN WORLD. exposures, and never on the south, altering their position, however, according to the latitude, and its relation to the Equator. The Sertulariadse have a horny stem, sometimes simple, sometimes so branching that they might readily enough he mistaken for small plants, their branches being flexible, semi-transparent, and yellow. Their name is derived from Sertum, a bouquet. Each Sertularia has seven, eight, twelve, or twenty small panicles, each containing as many as five hundred animalcules ; thus forming, sometimes, an asso- ciation of ten thousand polyps. " Each plume," says Mr. Lister, in reference to a specimen of Plumularia cristata, " might comprise from four to five hundred polyps ;" " and a specimen of no unusual size now before me," says Dr. Johnston, " with certainly not fewer cells on each than the larger number mentioned, thus giving six thousand as the tenantry of a single polypidom, and this on a small species." On Sertularia argentea, it is asserted, polyps are found on which there exist not less than eighty to a hundred thousand. Each colony is composed of a right axis, on the whole length of which the curved branches are implanted, these being longest in the middle. Along each of these branches the cells, each containing a polyp, are grouped alternately. The head of the animal is conical, the mouth being at the top surrounded by twenty to twenty-four tentacles. These curious beings have no digestive cavity belonging to themselves ; the stomach is common to the whole colony a most singular combination, a single stomach to a whole group of animals ! Never have the principles of association been pushed to this length by the warmest advocates of communism. Certain species belonging to the colony, which seem destined to perpetuate the race, have not the same regular form. Destitute of mouth and tentacles, they occupy special cells, which are larger than the others. The entire colony is composed exclusively of individuals, male or female. "We have traced Sertularia cupressina through every stage of its development," say Messrs. Paul Gervais and Van Beneden. " At the end of several days, the embryos are covered with very short vibratile cells ; their movement is excessively slow ; then, from the spheroid form which they take at first, they get elongated, and take a cylindrical form, all the body inclining lightly sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. The vibratile cells fading afterwards, the embryo attaches itself to some solid body, a tubercle is formed, ACALEPHJS. 213 and the base extends itself as a disk. At the same time that the first rudiments of the polyp appear, the disk-like tubercle throws out on its flanks a sort of bud, and a second polyp soon shows itself; its surface is hardened; the polyp appears in its turn, and the same process of generation is repeated; a colony of Sertulariadde is thus established at the summit of a discoid projection. At the end of fifteen days the colony, which has been forming under our eyes, consists of two polyps and a bud, which already indicates a third polyp. The sea- cypress, as this species is called, is robust, with longish branches de- cidedly fan-shaped, the pinnae being closer and nearly parallel to each other. The cells form two rows, nearly opposite, smooth and pellucid. The branches in some specimens are gracefully arched, bending as it were under the load of pregnant ovaries which they carry, arranged in close-set rows along the upper side of the pinnae. They are found in deep water on the coast of Scotland, and as far south as the Yorkshire coast and the north of Ireland. The cells, which are the abode of the polyps, are not always alike in their distribution. Sometimes they are ranged on two sides, sometimes on one only. Sometimes they are grouped like the small tubes of an organ, at other times they assume a spiral form round the stem, or they form here and there horizontal rings round it." The Medusae comprehend, not only the animals so designated in the days of Cuvier under that name, but also the polyps known as Tubular iadte and Campanulariadas. If we walk along the sea shore, after the reflux of the tide, we may often see, lying immovable upon the sands, disk-like, gelatinous masses of a greenish colour and repulsive appearance, from which the eye and the steps instinctively turn aside. These beings, whose blubber-like appearance inspires only feelings of disgust when seen lying grey and dead on the shore, are, however, when seen floating on the bosom of the ocean, one of its most graceful ornaments. These are Medusae. When seen suspended like a piece of gauze or an azure bell in the middle of the waves, terminating in delicate silvery garlands, we cannot but admire their iridescent colours, or deny that these objects, so forbidding in some of their aspects, rank, in their natural 214 THE OCEAN WOELD. localities, among the most elegant productions of Nature. We could not better commence our studies of these children of the sea than by quoting a passage from the poet and historian Michelet: "Among the rugged rocks and lagunes, where the retiring sea has left many little animals which were too sluggish or too weak to follow, some shells will be there left to themselves and suffered to become quite dry. In the midst of them, without shell and without shelter, extended at our feet, lies the animal which we call by the very inappropriate name of the Medusa. Why was this name, of terrible associations, given to a creature so charming ? Often have I had my attention arrested by these castaways which we see so often on the shore. They are small, about the size of my hand, but singularly pretty, of soft light shades, of an opal white ; where it lost itself as in a cloud of tentacles a crown of tender lilies the wind had overturned it ; its crown of lilac hair floated about, and the delicate umbel, that is, its proper body, was beneath ; it had touched the rock dashed against it ; it was wounded, torn in its fine locks, which are also its organs of respira- tion, absorption, and even of love The delicious creature, with its visible innocence and the iridescence of its soft colours, was left like a gliding, trembling jelly. I paused beside it, nevertheless : I glided my hand under it. raised the motionless body cautiously, and restored it to its natural position for swimming. Putting it into the neighbouring water, it sank to the bottom, giving no sign of life. I pursued my walk along the shore, but at the end of ten minutes I returned to my Medusa. It was undulating under the wind ; really it had moved itself, and was swimming about with singular grace, its hair flying round it as it swam ; gently it retired from the rock, not quickly, but still it went, and I soon saw it a long way off." Of all the zoophytes which live in the ocean there is none more numerous in species or more singular in their matter, more odd in their form, or more remarkable in their mode of reproduction, than those to which Linnaeus gave the name of Medusa, from the mythical chief of the Gorgons. The seas of every latitude of the globe furnish various tribes of these singular beings. They live in the icy waters which bathe Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Iceland ; they multiply under the fires of the Equator, and the frozen regions of the south nourish nume- rous species. They are, of all animals, those which present the least ACALEPILE. 215 solid substance. Their bodies are little else tban water, which is scarcely retained by an imperceptible organic network ; it is a trans- parent jelly, almost without consistence. " It is a true sea-water jelly,' says Beaumur, writing in 1701, "having little colour or consistence. If we take a morsel in our hands, the natural heat is sufficient to dissolve it into water." Spallanzani could only withdraw five or six grains of the pellicle of a medusa weighing fifty ounces. From certain specimens weighing from ten to twelve pounds, only six to seven pennyweights could be obtained of solid matter, according to Fredol. " Mr. Telfair saw an enormous medusa which had been abandoned on the beach at Bombay ; three days after, the animal began to putrefy. To satisfy his curiosity, he got the neighbouring boatmen to keep an eye upon it, in order to gather the bones and cartilages belonging to the great creature, if by chance it had any ; but its decomposition was so rapid and complete that it left no remains, although it required nine months to dissipate it entirely." " Floating on the bosom of the waters," says Fredol, " the Medusa resembles a bell, a pair of breeches, an umbrella, or, better still, a floating mushroom, the stool of which has here been separated into lobes more or less divergent, sinuous, twisted, shrivelled, fringed, the edges of the cap being delicately cut, and provided with long thread- like appendages, which descend vertically into the water like the drooping branches of the weeping willow." The gelatinous substance of which the body of the Medusa is formed is sometimes colourless and limpid as crystal ; sometimes it is opaline, and occasionally of a bright blue or pale rose colour. In certain species the central parts are of a lively red, blue, or violet colour, while the rest of the body is of a diaphanous hue. This diaphanous tissue, often decked in the finest tints, is so fragile, that when abandoned by the wave on the beach, it melts and disappears without leaving a trace of its having existed, so to speak. Nevertheless, these fragile creatures, these living soap-bubbles, make long voyages on the surface of the sea. "Whilst the sun's rays suffice to dissipate and even annihilate its vaporous substance on some inhospitable beach, they abandon themselves witnout fear during their entire life to the agitated waves. The whales which haunt round the Hebrides are chiefly nourished by Medusae which have been trans- 216 THE OCEAN WOULD. ported by the waves in innumerable swarms from the coast of the Atlantic to the region of whales. " The locomotion of the Medusae, which is very slow," says De Blainville, "and denotes a very feeble muscular energy, appears, on the other hand, to be unceasing. Since their specific gravity considerably exceeds the water in which they are immerged, these creatures, which are so soft that they probably could not repose on solid ground, require to agitate constantly in order to sustain themselves in the fluid which they inhabit. They require also to maintain a continual state of expansion and contraction, of systole and diastole. Spallanzani, who observed their movements with great care, says that those of translation are executed by the edges of the disk approaching so near to each other that the diameter is diminished in a very sensible degree ; by this movement a certain quantity of water contained in the body is ejected with more or less force, by which the body is projected in the inverse direction. Kenovated by the cessation of force in its first state of development, it contracts itself again, and makes another step in advance. If the body is perpendicular to the horizon, these successive movements of contraction and dilatation cause it to ascend ; if it is more or less oblique, it advances more or less horizontally. In order to descend, it is only necessary for the animal to cease its movements ; its specific gravity secures its descent." It is, then, by a series of contractions and dilatations of their bodies that the Medusae make their long voyages on the surface of the waters. This double movement of their light skeleton had already been remarked by the ancients, who compared it to the action of respiration in the human chest. From this notion the ancients called them Sea Lungs. The Medusae usually inhabit the deep seas. They are rarely solitary, but seem to wander about in considerable battalions in the latitudes to which they belong. During their journey they proceed forward, with a course slightly oblique to the convex part of their body. If an obstacle arrests them, if an enemy touches them, the umbrella contracts, and is diminished in volume, the tentacles are folded up, and the timid animal descends into the depths of the ocean. We have said that the Medusae constitute in the Arctic seas one of the principal supports of the whale. Their innumerable masses some- times cover many square leagues in extent. They show themselves and disappear by turns in the same region, at determinate epochs ACALEPH2E. 217 alternations which depend, no doubt, on the ruling of the winds and currents which carry or lead them. " The barks which navigate Lake Thau meet," says Fredol, " at certain periods of the year with nume- rous colonies of a species about the size of a small melon, nearly transparent whitish, like water when it is mixed with a shade of aniseed. One would be tempted to take these animals at first for a collection of floating muslin bonnets." The Medusae are furnished with a mouth placed habitually in the middle of the neck. This mouth is rarely unoccupied. Small molluscs, young crustaceans, and worms, form their ordinary food. In spite of their shape, they are most voracious, and snap up their prey all at one mouthful, without dividing it. If their prey resists and disputes with it, the Medusa which has seized it holds fast, and remains motionless, and, without a single movement, waits till fatigue has exhausted and killed its victim, when it can swallow it in all security. In respect to size, the Medusae vary immensely. Some are very small, while others attain more than a yard in diameter. Many spe- cies are phosphorescent during the night. Most Medusadae produce an acute pain when they touch the human body. The painful sensation produced by this contact is so general in this group of animals, that it has determined their designation. Until very recently all the animals of the group have been, after Cuvier, designated under the name of Acalephae, or sea nettles, in order to remind us that the sensation produced is analogous to that occasioned by contact with the stinging leaves of the nettle. According to Dicquemare, who made experiments on himself in this matter, the sensation produced is very like that occasioned by a nettle, but it is more violent, and endures for half an hour. " In the last moments," says the abbe, " the sensation is such as would be pro- duced by reiterated but very weak prickings. A considerable pain pervaded all the parts which had been touched, accompanied by pus- tules of the same colour, with a whitish point." " The sea-bladder," says Father Feuillee, " occasions me, on touching it, a sudden and severe pain, accompanied with convulsions." " During the first voyage of the Princess Louise round the world," to quote Fredol, " Meyen remarked a magnificent physalia, which passed near the ship. A young sailor leaped naked into the sea, to seize the animal. Swimming towards it, he seized it ; the creature 218 THE OCEAN WORLD. surrounded the person of its assailant with its numerous thread-like filaments, which were nearly a yard in length ; the young man, over- whelmed by a feeling of burning pain, cried out for assistance. He had scarcely strength to reach the vessel and get aboard again, before the pain and inflammation were so violent that brain fever declared itself, and great fears were entertained for his life." Fig. 88. Chrysaora Gaudichaudi. The organization is much more complicated than early observers were disposed to think it. During many ages naturalists were inclined to imagine, with Eeaumur, that the Medusae were mere masses of organized jelly, of gelatinized water. But when Courtant Dumeril tried the experiment of injecting milk into their cavities, and saw the liquid penetrating into true vessels, he began to comprehend that ACALEPELE. 219 these very enigmatical beings were worthy of serious study the study of subsequent naturalists, such as Cuvier, De Blainville, Ehrenberg, Brandt, Makel-Eschscholtz, Sars, Milne Edwards, Forbes, Grosse, and other modern naturalists, who have demonstrated what richness of structure is concealed under this gelatiniform and simple structure in the Medusae ; at the same time they have revealed to us most mysterious and incredible facts as connected with their meta- morphoses. Among the Medusae proper, the most common are Aurelia, Pelagia, and Chrysaora. In the latter, G. Gaudichaudi (Fig. 88), the disk is hemispherical, festooned with numerous tentacles, attached to a sac4ike stomach, opening by a single orifice in the centre of the peduncle, with four long, furbelowed, unfringed arms. G-audi- chaudi's chrysaora is found round the Falkland Islands. The disk forms a regular half- sphere, very smooth, and perfectly concave, form- ing a sort of canopy in the shape of a vault. The circle which sur- rounds it is divided into sections by means of vertical lines, regularly divided, of a reddish-brown colour, which forms an edging to the umbrella-like disk. Twelve broad regular festoons form this edging. From the summit of these lobes issue twelve bundles of very long, simple, capillary tentacles, of a bright red. The peduncle is broad and flat, perforated in the middle, to which are attached four broad foliaceous arms. EHIZOSTOMA. The Medusae which bear the name of Rhizostoma have the disk hemispherically festooned, depressed, without marginal tentacles, pe- duncle divided into four pairs of arms, forked, and dentated almost to infinity, each having at their base two toothed auricles. Such is liliizostoma Cuvieri of Peron (Fig. 89), the disk of which is of a bluish- white, like the arms, and of a rich violet over its circumference. This beautiful zoophyte is found plentifully in the Atlantic, living in flocks, which attain a great size. It is common in the month of June on the shores of the Saint Onge ; in August on the English coast ; and along the strand of every port in the Channel they are seen in the month of October in thousands, where they lie high and dry upon the shore, on which they have been thrown by the force of the winds. 220 THE OCEAN WORLD. Such also is R. Aldrovandi (Fig. 90), which appears all the year round in calm weather. It is an animal much dreaded by bathers. It possesses an urticaceous apparatus, which produces an effect similar to the stinging-nettle when applied to the skin. If the animal touches the fisherman at the moment of being drawn from the water, it is apt to inflame the part and raise it into pustules. Fig. 89. Rhizostoma Cuvieri. Cassiopea and Cephea are two other types belonging to the same group. In Cassiopea Andromeda (Fig. 91), belonging to the first, the disk is hemispherical, but much depressed, without marginal tentacles or peduncle, but with a central disk, with four to eight half-moon- shaped orifices at the side, and throwing off eight to ten branching arms, fringed with retractile sucking disks. Cephea Cyclophora, ACALEPH^E. Peron (Fig. 92), is another very remarkable form of constituted organisms. 221 strangely- Having presented to the reader certain characteristic types of Medusadse, we proceed to offer some general remark upon the organiza- tion and functions of these strange creatures. We have, in short, Fig 90. Rhizostoma Aldrovandi. selected these types because they have been special objects of ana- tomical and physiological study to some of our best naturalists. The Medusae have no other means of breathing but through the skin. We remark all over the body of these zoophytes certain cutaneous elongations, disposed so as to favour the exercise of the breathing function. Certain marginal fringes of extended surface, as well as the tentacle, are the special seats of the apparatus. The 222 THE OCEAN WORLD. organs of digestion also present arrangements peculiar to themselves ; the mouth is placed on the lower part of the body, and is pierced at the extremity of a trumpet-like tube, hanging sometimes like the tongue of a bell. The walls of the stomach, again, are furnished with a multitude of appendages, which have their origin in the cavity of the organ, and which are very elastic. The stomach, furnished with these vibratile cells, appears to secrete a juice whose function is to decompose the food and render it digestible. Fig. 91. Cassiopea Andromeda (Tileaius). In some of the Medusadse the central mouth is absent altogether. With the Bhizostoma, for instance, the stomachal reservoir has no inferior orifice ; it communicates laterally with the canals which descend through the thickness of the arms, and open at their extremi- ties through a multitude of small mouths. These are the root-like openings from which the animals derive their name of Ehizostoma, from the Greek words pla, root, and O-TO//,