sEN & SON LTD.
ARCTIC SLEDGE-JOURNKY.
ae
“~
6) /
EE Ba
AND
ao HbIVING: WONDERS
A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF
THE MARVELS OF THE DEEP
AND OF THE
PROGRESS OF MARITIME DISCOVERY FROM THE
EARLIEST AGES TO THE PRESENT TIME
BY
Diy G, HART W bG
AUTHOR OF ‘‘THE TROPICAL WORLD” “‘THE HARMONIES OF NATURE”
“THE POLAR WORLD” AND “THE SUBTERRANEAN WORLD”
SEVENTH EDITION
WiTH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS AND PLATES
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16% STREET
1892
VOTH = ie
—
7 ne i
The right of translation into French is reserved by the Author. All necessa ry
: steps for securing the Copyright have been taken. }
PREFACH
TO
THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.
Nortuine can be more agreeable to an author anxious to
merit the suffrages of the public, than the opportunity
afforded him, by a new edition, of correcting past errors
or adding improvements to his work. Should any one of
my readers think it worth his while to compare ‘ The
Sea,’ such as it now is, with what it formerly was, I have
no doubt he will do me the justice to say that I have
conscientiously striven to deserve his approbation.
Two new chapters—one on Marine Constructions, the
other on Marine Caves
have been added; those on tke
Molluscs and Ccelenterata (Jelly-fishes, Polyps) almost
entirely re-written; and those on Fishes, Crustaceans,
Microscopic Animals, the Geographical Distribution of
Marine Life, and the Phosphorescence of the Sea, con-
siderably enlarged; not to mention a number of minor
improvements dispersed throughout the volume.
Great attention has also been paid to the Illustrations,
many of questionable value having been omitted in the
present edition, to make room for a number of others,
vl PREFACE.
which will be found of great use for the better under-
standing of the text.
In one word, I have done my best to raise my work
to the standard of the actual state of science, and to
render it, as far as my humble abilities go, a complete
epitome of all that the general reader cares to know
about the marvels of the deep.
G. Hartwia.
Saton VILLAs, LUDWIGSBURG :
June 30, 1873.
PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST TWO EDITIONS.
For years my daily walks have been upon the beach, and
I have learnt to love the ocean as the Swiss mountaineer
loves his native Alps, or the Highlander the heath-covered
hills of Caledonia. May these feelings have imparted
some warmth to the following pages, and serve to render
the reader more indulgent to their faults!
G. Harrwie.
GOTTINGEN: July 17, 1860.
HON
cee
WOODS
HOLE,
MASS.
CONTENDS.
PART J.
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SEA,
Extent of the Ocean.—Leneth of its Coast-Line.— Mural, Rocky, and Flat Coasts.
—How deep is the Sea ?—Average Depth of the Atlantic Ocean.—The Tele-
graphic Plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.—Measurement of Depth
by the Rapidity of the Tide-Wave.—Progressive Changes in the Limits of the
Ocean.—Alluvial Deposits.—Upheaving.—Subsidence. —Does the Level of the
Sea remain unchanged, and is it everywhere the same ?—Composition and
Temperature of Sea-Water.—Its intrinsic Colonr.—The Azure Grotto at Capri.
—Modification of Colour owing to Animals and Plants.—Submarine Landscapes
viewed through the Clear Waters . . ‘ A Page 3
CHAPTER IL
THE WAVES OF THE OCEAN
Waves and the Mode of their Formation.—Height and Velocity of Storm-Waves.
on the High Seas, according to the Calculations of Scoresby, Arago, Sir James
Ross, and Wilkes.—Their Height and Power on Coasts.—Their Destructive
Effects along the British Shore.—Dunwich.—Reculver.—Shakspeare’s Chiff. 24
CHAPTER III.
THE TIDES,
Description of the Phenomenon.—Devastation of Storm-Floods on Flat Coasts.—
What did the Ancients know of the Tides ?—Their Fundamental Causes revealed
by Kepler and Newton.—Development of their Theory by La Place, Euler, and
Whewell.—Vortices caused by the Tides.—The Maelstrom.—Charybdis.—The
Barre at the mouth of the Seine.—The Euripus , ° °
C4835
- o2
vl CONTENTS,
CHAPTER IV.
MARINE CAVES.
Effects of the Sea on Rocky Shores.—Fingal’s Cave.—-Beautiful Lines of Sir
Walter Seott——The Antro di Nettuno—The Cave of Hunga.—Legend of its
Discovery.—Marine Fountains.—The Skerries.—The Souffleur in Mauritius.—
The Buffadero on the Mexican Coast . ° . . . Page 45
CHAPTER V.
OCEAN CURRENTS.
Causes of the Oceanie Currents.—The Equatorial Stream.—The Gulf Stream.—
Its Influence on the Climate of the West urepean Coasts.—The Cold Peruvian
Stream.—The Japanese Stream 5 - : 4 . 54
CHAPTER VI.
THE AERIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS.
Movements of the Waters through Evaporation.—Origin of Winds.—Trade-Winds.
—Calms.—Monsoons.—Typhoons.—Tornadoes.—Water-Spouts—The Forma-
tion of Atmospherical Precipitations —Dew.—Its Origin.—Fog.—Clouds.— Rain,
—Snow.—Hail.—Sources.—The Quantities of Water which the Rivers pour into
the Ocean.—Glaciers and their Progress.—Icebergs.—Erratic Blocks.—Influence
of Forests on the Formation and Retention of Atmospherical Precipitations.—
Consequences of their excessive Destruction.—The Power of Man over Climate,
—How has it been used as yot? - 2 5 - 60
CHAPTER VII.
MARINE CONSTRUCTIONS.
Lighthouses.—The Eddystone.—Winstanley’s Lighthouse, 1696.—The Storm ot
1703.—Rudyerd’s Lighthouse destroyed by Fire in 1755.—Singular Death of
one of the Lighthouse Men.—Anecdote of Louis XIV.—Smeaton.—Bell Rock
Lighthouse.—History of the Erection of Skerryvore Lighthouse.—I]lumination
of Lighthouses—The Breakwater at Cherbourg.—Liverpool Docks.—The
Tubular Bridge over the Menai Straits. —The Sub-oceanic Mine of Botallack. 80
PART 2
THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER VIIL
THE CETACEANS.
General Remarks on the Organisation of the Cetaceans.—The Large Greenland
Whale.— His Food and Enemies.—The Fin-Back or Rorqual.—The Antarctic
Whale.—The Sperm Whale.—The Unicorn Fish.—The Dolphin.—Truth and
Fable.—The Porpoise —The Grampus.—History of the Whale Fishery . 95
CONTENTS. 1X
CHAPTER IX.
SEALS AND WALRUSES.
The Manatees and the Dugongs.—The Seals and the Esquimaux.—King Menelaus
in a Seal’s Skin.—Barbarous Persecutions of the Seals in Behring’s Sea and the
Pacifie.—Advyentures of a Sealer from Geneva.—The Sea Calf.—The Sea Bear.
—His Parental Affection.—The Sea Lions.—The Sea Elephant.—The Arctic
Walrus.—The Boats of the “Trent” fighting with a Herd of Walruses.—The
White Bear.—Touching Example of its Love for its Young.—Chase of the Sea
Otter . : A z : : . s . Page 117
CHAPTER X.
SEA-BIRDS.
Their Vast Numbers.—Strand-Birds.—Artifices of the Sea-Lark to protect its
Young.—Migrations of the Strand-Birds.—The Sea-Birds in General.—The
Anatide.—The Eider Duck.—The Sheldrake.—The Loggerheaded Duck.—
Auks and Penguins.—The Cormorant.—Its Use by the Chinese for Fish-
eateching.—The Frigate Bird.—The Soland Goose.—The Gulls.—The Petrels.—
The Albatross.—Bird-catching on St. Kilda——The Guano of the Chincha
Islands. 5 : . 5 : . : . 142
CHAPTER XI.
THE REPTILES OF THE OCEAN.
‘The Saurians of the Past Seas.—The Anatomical Structure of the Turtles.—Their
Size.—Their Visits to the Shores——The Dangers that await their Young.—
Turtles on the Brazilian Coast.—Prince Maximilian of Neuwied and the
Turtle-—Conflicts of the Turtles with Wild Dogs and Tigers on the Coast
of Java.—Turtle-catching on Ascensicn Island.—Tortoise-shel].—The Ambly-
rhynchus cristatus.— Marine Snakes.— The Great Sea-Snake . 5
CHAPTER XII.
THE MARINE FISHES.
General Observations on Fishes.—Their Locomotive Organs—Tail—Fins.-—
Classification of Fishes by Cuvier.—Air-Bladder.—Scales.—Beauty of the
Tropical Fishes.—The Gills.--Terrestrial Voyages of the Anabas and the
Hassar.— Examples of Parental Affection.— Organs of Sense.—Offensive
Weapons of Fishes.—The Sea- Wolf.—The Shark.—The Saw-Fish.—The Sword-
Fish.—The Torpedo.—The Star-Gazer.—The Angler.—The Chstodon Ros-
tratus.—The Remora, used for catching Turtles.—Defensive Weapons of
Fishes—The Weever.—The Stickleback.—The Sun-Fish.—The Flying-Fish.—
The numerous Enemies of the Fishes.—Importance and History of the Herring
Vishery.—The Pilehard.—The Sprat.—The Anchovy.—The Cod.—The Sturc-
x CONTENTS.
geons.—The Salmon.—The Tunny.—The Mackerel Family—The Eel.—The
Murey.—The Conger.—The Sand-Launce.—The Plectognaths.—The Sea-
Horse.—The Pipe-Fish—The Flat-Fishes—The Rays.—The Fecundity of
Fishes ° . ; . : ° : . Page 186
CHAPTER XIII.
CRUSTACEA.
CRALBS— LOBSTERS.
How are they distinguished from the Insects ?—Barnacles and Acorn-shells.—
Siphonostomata. —Entomostraca.— King-Crab.—Edriophthalmia.—Sandhoppers.
—Thoracostraca.—-Compound Eye of the higher Crustaceans.—Respiratory
Apparatus of the Decapods.—Digestive Organs—Chele or Pincers.—Distribu-
tion of Crabs.—Land Crabs.—The Calling Crab.—Modifications of the Legs in
different species—The Pinna and Pinnotheres.—Hermit Crabs.—The Lobster.
— The Cocoa-nut Crab.—The Shrimp.—Moulting Process.—Metamorphoses of
Crabs.—Victims and Enemies of the Crustaceans.—Their Fecundity.—Marine
Spiders and Insects ° . . . . . . 243
CHAPTER XIV.
MARINE ANNELIDES,
The Annelides in general.—The Eunice sanguinea.—Beauty of the Marine Anne-
lides.—The Giant Nemertes.—The Food and Enemies of the Annelides.—The
Tubicole Annelides——The Rotifera—Their Wonderful Organisation.—The
Syncheta Baltica . - : : . . * - 262
CHAPTER XV.
MOLLUSCS.
The Molluses in general. —The Cephalopods.—Dibranchiates and Tetrabranchiates
—Arms and Tentacles.—Suckers.—Hooked Acetabula of the Onychoteuthis.—
Mandibles.—Ink Bag.—Numbers of the Cephalopods— Their Habits—Their
Enemies—Their Use to Man—Their Eges.—Enormous size of several species.
—The fabulous Kraken.—The Argonaut.—The Nautili—The Cephalopods of
the Primitive Ocean.—The Gasteropods.—Their Subdivisions.—Gills of the
Nudibranchiates.—The Pleurobranchus plumula.—The Sea-Hare.—The Chitons.
—The Patelle—The Haliotis or Sea-Ear.—The Carinariae.—The Pectini-
branchiates.— Variety and Beauty of their Shells.—Their Mode of Locomotion.
—Foot of the Tornatella and Cyclostoma.—The Janthine.—Sedentary Gastero-
pods.—The Magilus.—Proboscis of the Whelk.—Tongue of the Limpet.—
Stomach of the Bulla, the Scyllea, and the Sea-Hare.—Organs of Sense in the
Gasteropods—Their Caution—Their Enemies—Their Defences—Their Use to
Man.—Shell-Cameos.—The Pteropods—Their Organisation and Mode of Life.
—The Butterflies of the Ocean—The Lamellibranchiate Acephala—Their
Organisation.-—Siphons.—The Pholades.—Foot of the Lamellibranchiates.—
The Razor-Shells.—The Byssus of the Pinns.—Defences of the Bivalves—
Their Enemies. — The common Mussel. — Mussel Gardens.—The Oyster.—
Oyster Parks.—Oyster Rearing in the Lago di Fusaro.—Formation of new
>
CONTENTS. Xl
Oyster Banks.—Pearl-fishing in Ceylon.—How are Pearls formed ?—The
Tridaena gigas.—The Teredo navalis.—The Brachiopods——The Terebratule.—
The Polyzoa.—The Sea-Mats.—The Escharee.—The Lepralie.—Bird’s Head
Processes.—The Tunicata.—The Sea-Squirts.—The Chelyosoma.—The Botrylli.
—The Pyrosomes.—The Salpz.—Interesting Points in the Organisation of the
Tunieata : . 4 9 : : : - Page 270
CHAPTER XVI.
ECHINODERMATA,
STAR-FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, AND SEA-CUCUMBERS.
The Star-Fishes—Their Feet or Suckers.—Voracity of the Asterias.—The Rosy
Feather-Star.—Brittle and Sand-Stars.—The real Sea-Stars of the British
Waters.—The Sea-Urchins.—The Pedicellarize.—The Shell and the Dental Ap-
paratus of the Sea-Urchins.—The Sea-Cucumhers.—Their strange Dismember-
ments.—Trepang-fishing on the Coast of North Australia—In the Feejee
Islands. 5 ‘ : c : : : . 328
CHAPTER XVII
CCQELENTERATA,
POLYPS AND JELLY-FISHES.
Thread-cells or Urticating Organs.—Sertularie.—Campanulariade.—Hydrozoie
Acalephe.—Medusidze.—Lucernariad. — Calyeophoride.—The Velella.—The
Portuguese Man-of-war.—Anecdote of a Prussian Sailor.—Alternating Fixed
and Free-swimming Generations of Hydrozoa.— Actinozoa.— Ctenophora—Their
Beautiful Construction.—Sea-anemones.—Dead Man’s Toes.—Sea-pens.—Sea-
rods.— Red Coral.—Coral Fishery.—Isis hippuris.—Tropical Lithophytes.—
History of the Coral Islands—Darwin’s Theory of their Formation—The
progress of theis Growth above the level of the Sea . ° - 34d
CHAPTER XVIII.
PROTOZOA.
The Foraminifera.—The Amcebe.—Their Wonderful Simplicity of Structure —The
Polycystina.—Marine Infusoria.—Sponges.—Their Pores—Fibres and Spiculea—
The Common Sponge of Commerce : ° 5 : . 378
CHAPTER XIX.
MARINE PLANTS.
The Algz.—Zostera marina.—The Ulve and Enteromorphe.—The Fuci.—The
Laminariz.—Macrocystis pyrifera.—Description of the Submarine Thickets at
Tierra del Fuego.—Nereocystis lutkeana.—The Sargasso Sea.— The Gathering
of edible Birds’-nests in the marine Caves of Java.—Agar-Agar.—The Floridesx.
—The Diatomacese.—Their importance in the economy of the Seas . 390
xl CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MARINE LIFE.
The Dependence of all created Beings upon Space and Time.—The Influences
which regulate the Distribution of Marine Life——The four Bathymetrical Zones
of Marine Life on the British Coasts, according to the late Professor Edward
Forbes of Edinburgh.—Abyssal Animals.—Bathybius Haeckelii—Deep-Sea
Sponges and Shell-Fish.— Vivid Phosphorescence of Deep-Sea Animals.—Deep-
Sea Shark Fishery —The “ Challenger.” : : : . Page 406
CHAPTER XXI.
THE PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.
Its Causes.—Noctiluca miliaris. — Phosphorescent Annelides and Beroés, —
Intense Phosphorescence of the Pyrosoma atlantica.—Luminous Pholades.—
The luminous Shark.—Phosphorescent Algze.—Citations from Byron, Coleridge,
Crabbe, and Scott . é ; : c ; é s 423
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PRIMITIVE OCEAN.
The Giant-Book of the Earth-rind.—The Sea of Fire-—Formation of a solid
Earth-crust by cooling.—The Primitive Waters.—First awakening of Life
in the Bosom of the Ocean. —The Reign of the Saurians.—The future
Ocean ° ° . . ° : 5 . - 433
PAR Er
THE PROGRESS OF MARITIME DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Maritime Discoveries of the Pheenicians.—Expedition of Hanno.—Cireumnaviga-
tion of Africa under the Pharaoh Necho.—Colzus of Samos.—Pytheas of
Massilia.—Expedition of Nearchus.—Circumnavigation of Hindostan under
the Ptolemies.—Voyages of Discovery of the Romans.—Consequences of the
Fall of the Roman Empire. — Amalfi. — Pisa. — Venice.—Genoa.—Resump-
tion of Maritime Intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.—
Discovery of the Mariner’s Compass.—Marco Polo. ; > - 443
CHAPTER XXIV.
Prince Henry of Portugal.—Discovery of Porto Santo and Madeira.—Doubling of
Cape Bojador.—Discovery of the Cape Verde Islands.—Bartholomew Diaz.—
Vaseo de Gama.—Columbus.—His Predecessors.—Discovery of Greenland by
CONTENTS. Xill
Giinnbjorn. — Bjorne Herjulfson. —- Leif.— John Vaz Cortereal.— John and
Sebastian Cabot.—Retrospective View of the Beginnings of English Navigation.
—Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci.—Vincent Yaiiez Pinson.—Cortez.—Verazzani.
—Cartier.—The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. ° - Page 454
CHAPTER XXYV.
Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa.—His Discovery of the Pacific, and subsequent Fate.—-
Ferdinand Magellan.—Sebastian el Cano, the first Circumnavigator of the
Globe.—Discoveries of Pizarro and Cortez.—Urdaneta.x—Juan T’ernandez.—
Mendoza.—Drake.—Discoveries of the Portuguese and Dutch in the Wesiern
Pacifie.—Attempts of the Dutch and English to discover North-East and North-
West Passages to India.—Sir Hugh Willoughby and Chancellor.—Frobisher.—
Davis. — Barentz.— His Wintering in Nova Zembla. — Quiros.—Torres.—
Schouten.—Le Maire.—Abel Tasman.—Hudson.—Baffin.—Dampier.—Anson.
—Byron.— Wallis and Carteret.—Bougainyille . A : - 464
CHAPTER XXVI.
What had Cook’s Predecessors left him to discover ?—His first Voyage-—Discovery
of the Society Islands, and of the East Coast of New Holland.—His second
Voyage.—Discovery of the Hervey Group.—Researches in the South Sea—The
New Hebrides.—Discovery of New Caledonia and of South Georgia.—His
third Voyage.—The Sandwich Islands. — New Albion.—West Georgia. —
Cook’s Murder.— Vancouver.—La Peyrouse 4 2 : - 485
CHAPTER XXVII.
Scoresby.—The Arctic Navigators.—Ross.—Parry.—Sufferings of Franklin and
his Companions on his Overland Expedition in 1821.—Parry’s Sledge-journey
to the North Pole.—Sir John Franklin.—M‘Clure.—Kane.—M ‘Clintock.—
South Polar Expeditions.—Bellinghausen. — Weddell. — Biscoe. — Balleny. ~
Dumont d’Urville.—Wilkes.—Sir James Ross.—Recent Scientific Voyages of
Circumnavigation . ° ° . . - . - 496
XV
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPLECK
ARCTIC SLEDGE-JOURNEY.
—-y —
Tue sledge plays a very conspicuous part in the history of arctie discovery, as it
enables the bold investigators of the icy wildernesses of the North to penetrate to
many places, impervious to navigation, to establish dépéts of provisions for future
emergencies, or even becomes the means of saving their lives when their ship has
been lost or hopelessly blocked up. Whenever dogs can be had, these useful
animals are made use of for the transport. Our plate represents one of these
gledging parties threading its way through blocks of ice, and gives a good idea of
the difficulties they have to encounter.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATES.
Arctic Sledge-Journey . . Frontispiece.
FACING PAGE FACING PAGE
The Souffleur Rock, Mauritius . 52] Penguins . : 52 kt
Lighthouse and Waterspout . 65 | Subaqueous Life —_ Stickleb: icks
Australian Sea-Bears . : 7 and Nest : : loo
The Boats of H.M.8. “Trent” Russian Official daltecting Alge. 392
attacked by Walruses. . . 131
MAP.
Map of the Globe, showing the direction of the Ocean Currents, Cotidal Lines, &e.
facing page 3.
WOODCUTS.
PAGE PAGE
Annelidans :— Birds — continued :
Aphrodita, or Sea-Mouse . 264 Great Crested Grebe - 150
Nereis - 263 Guillemot, Black . - 165
Serpula, Miached toa Shell. 266 (winter plumage) . . 167
Beachy Head. . : é by) Herring Gulls. : - 168
Bell Rock Lighthouse. : 5) oe Hooded Merganser, . 404
Birds :— Pelican . 2 IG lar
Albatross, Wandering . . 163 Penguins . : » 152
Auk . : : : . 168 Petrel, Broad- billed : ~ 160
Great . . : a loll Fork-tailed . : ~ 160
Avoset : : : a lt6 Stormy - : «= 162
Barnacle Goose . - . 146 Plover 9 2 : . 44
Cormorant, eommon . a GD Puffins : 2 | 1655 167
Curlew : - c . 148 Red-breasted Mengatiaos 5 ey
Eider Duck . , : . 146 Scissor-bill (Rhynchops nigra) 144
Flamingo . : : Git Sheldrake . : c 148
Gannet, commut . : . 15€ Skimmer, Black . 5 >» 169
XVII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE PAGE
Birds— continued : Crustaceans — continued :
Snow Goose 3 : . 146 Spotted Mantis-Crab . . 206
Speckled Diver . . . 145 Stenopus hispidus : - 261
Tailor-bird . : 5 s, 143 Whale-Louse . : = LOM
Birds of Passage . : . 171 | Crustaceans and Oysters . . 256
Bones of the Anterior Fin of a Dental Apparatus of the Sea-
Whale . : : 5 ary Se Urchin, viewed from above . 339
Ceelenterata :-— Ear, Human F ? « W196
Alcyonidium elegans . . 863 | Ear of the Perch . ot ae
Astrea 2 5 “ . 873 | Echinodermata :—
Caryophyllia shlues . 370 Cross-Fish,common . . 334
Chrysaora hysoscella . . 387 Eatable Trepang . : - 340
Coryniade . : c . 3058 Goniaster . c 5 . 336
Ctenophora . 3 - 93860 Lily-Encrinite . : . 330
Diphyes appends colata. . 353 Sand-Star . : ° . 332
Grey Sea-Pen .. : - 365 Sea-Urehin . : . . 337
Isis hippuris - - 5 HS!) Edible . 5 - - 338
Jelly Fishes . 9849, 350, 351 Mammillated a - ood
Tucernalia auricula’, . 802 Warted Euryale . : - 333
Medusze 5 . 3849, 350, 351 FEddystone Lighthouse ; ge 4:
Physalia caravella : . 3855 | Esquimaux in his Kayak . - 120
Physophora Philippii . . 386 | Fingal’s Cave . - a LY
Red Coral . : 5 - 3867 | Fishes :—
Sertularia tricuspidata . 347 Ammodyte, or Launce . . 230
Stone Corals 5 3 Bifah Be Anabas of the dry tanks . 192
Tubipora Musica . 5 . 370 Anchovy . : : . 214
Velella : : 5 . 304 Angler : - ° - 208
Virgularia mirabilis. - 365 Bonito : i ‘ . 223
Vogtia pentacantha . . 3853 Cod . c : : . 215
Compound Foraminiferous Proto- Conger Eel . 1195 123) 135
Salmo Rossii : : . 220 Greenland . : . 123
Salmon : : . . 415 Walrus : 4 3 1295 So
Sand-Eel . ; id - 415 Whale, common . . he oo)
Saw-Fish . : Z ey 201 Whale, Spermaceti ae LOD a
Sea-Horse . : . 234, 344 | Mollusks:—
Shark, Blue ‘ : - 200 Argonaut . 5 : - 280
Hammer-headed . = 99 Ascidia mammillata . - 322
White . : ; 5 lS Banded Dipper . : el
Short Sun-Fish . 5 PB Ey Bivalve deprived of its shell,
Sole . > ; : - 237 to show its various open-
portion of skin of, high- ings : - : . 3800
ly magnified . =e Botryllus . : : - 324
Sturgeon, common : 5 Bly Bulla . : : 5 . 294
Surgeon-Fish : - 205 Calamary . 5 > - 272
Swimming Pegasus . - 207 Carinaria . 3 : . 287
Sword-Fish . ‘ = 99) 201 Cellularia . ; : SBNY)
Thornback . = 5 - 240 Chelyosoma Macleayanum 323, 327
Torpedo . : . - 201 Chinese Wentle-trap (Sca-
Toxotes Jaculator ° - 203 laria pretiosa) . . - 289
Trunk-Fish P : 5 CBW Chiton squamosus - 28D
Tunny : . 2 - 221 Clavellina producta. - 322
Turbot 5 > . . 237 Clio borealis : : >) OE
Wolf-Fish . 3 : 5 ely Cockle, common . . 303, 306
Foraminifera, various forms of . 381 Cuttle-Fish (Sepia) . 104, 275
Fossils :— Diazona violacea . : . 324
Ammonite . = A . 437 Donax ‘ : = . 301
elemnite ~ “». «=. 437 Edible Mussel, . 23° 2° 307
Ichthyosaurus communis 172, 438 Edible Oyster . . . 308
Pentacrinus Briareus, por- Eolis . - 5 - . 284
tion of . . - . 330 Eschara cervicornis . . 318
Plesiosaurus 5 . 438 Gorgeous Doris . : . 236
Trilobite . ; 436 Haliotis . c = . 287
Hill at the Rapid on Bear ae Harp-shell . : : . 288
River (North-West mre Hippopus maculatus. . 315
North America) . 5 23 Tanthinacommunis . . 290
H. M.S. “ Resolute” lying to in Leaf-like Sea-mat . 816, 317
the North Atlantic . % 24 Limpet and Shell 286, 292, 411
Ice-Bear pages the “ Te: Magilus antiquus 5 . 291
rothea” and ‘‘Trent” . 5 aye Mitre-shells 3 ‘ - 288
Japan Junks : ; > oF Murex haustellum . 291, 296
Licmophora flabellata . , . 403 Oliva hispidula . 5 - 290
Mammals :— Onychoteuthis . : . 274
Dolphin, - 2 5 AKO Orange Cone-shell . . 288
Dugong. . 5 Aluly/ Pearl-Oyster > 5 * ole
female, of G@iylon: 5 ig) Pearly Nautilus . < - 280
Manatee . 5 5 ae alaly/ Periwinkle . a e oo 410
XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE PAGE
Mollusks — continued : Reptiles — continued:
Petunculus . - 3 . 3802 Tortoise . . : = 74
Pholas striata = - 302 Turtle, Green . ; < 170
Pinna . : c - 3805 Hawk’s Bill . . « 180
Poulp Gains» + - 272, 278 Loggerhead. a iG
Pteroceras scorpio 290 Water-Snake 183
Retepora cellularis . . 818 | Rocky Mountains at the aa of
Salpa . . 326 the Bear Lake River = ae ae
Seyllea . ° 283 | Rotifera :—
Sea-Hare, compound tothe Conochilus volyox 268
Of. - ; : 295 Philodina roseola 269
Sepia . ‘ 104, 275 Ptygura melicerta 2 ef 1267
Solen, or Razor-Shell . 304 | Saw of the Saw-Fish . 100
Strombus pes pelicani . 290 | Sea-Fowl Shooting . 168
Syllea, gizzard of 2 294 | Skeleton of the Dugong . = Js
Tiara . : 2 . 288 of the Perch 6 : . 188
Tridacna gigas. - . 314 of the Seal . : 119
Whelk. : s : 413 of the Tortoise . - = lin
Worm-shell 291 | Skerryvore Lighthouse : . 89
Muscles and Electric Batteries bf Skull and Head of Walrus . 129
the Torpedo 202 | Skull of Whale, with the Baleen. 98
Nervous Axis of an Aeweldan 262 | Surirella constricta 402
Noctiluca miliaris - 419 | Theoretic representation of the
Ova of the Cuttle-Fish < 278 Circulation in Fishes 192
Protozoa :— Theoretic representation of the
Ameha : : : 379 Circulation in Mammals and
Foraiainifera 381 Birds. : 175
Halina papillaris 386 | Theoretic eee of the
Infusoria, marine 384 Cireulation in Reptiles 175
Nummulina discoidalis 378 Torso Rock, near Point Deas
Polycistina . 383 Thomson, in the Arctic Ocean . 8
Sponges : - . 885 | Sockets with teeth, of Echinus
Tethea ‘ * - 885, 386 esculentus ‘ : - 3839
Reptiles :-— Urticating organs of Cilendamte 346
Alligator Lucius . ’ 173 | Water-Spovts . : 69, 70
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
ee
- er at Nee a ee mind atte ny 2
#1900)
£2000]
Comparanve View
¢ of the 4
_________ Principal. Blevonons
in the
Western Hemisphere.
MAP OF THE GLOBE
HEMISPHERES ——_-
Showing the
— NATURAL FEATURES of me LAND
AND THE DIRECTION OF THE
OCHAN CURRENTS, 7
Yo f
- COTIDAL LINES = J,
‘ \ &e. / Soh
SE EEE
ae Se Ay,
z | Joep Marquess
Eps Bratt! aot! sale! Sa a ae ee
nace Baia. hey. MAN c zt
ia x |
ae 4
Kemp 1
Su in leh,
the distribution of
Active Volcanoes.
sand the regions visited
ce D dice]
SH Het Lime Spare
Reference to Currents &o
The Atroms indicate the direction of the Currents. those
this We—=5. show that the
ong We Nintee So Sumner!
Current alternates with the S
The fipuree attached indicate the Toeate of the Current
Fringint
Barrier Reefs D
Requms drained. by the Ai “are Gre re The light curved liner crossing
Db D Di an 3 eg and the reman numerals
D: D. D In n R amtuchnd indieare whe ome of Nigh Warer ar Yew Full Moon.
y D D Arai, Dt Bop
DS of Ravers which discharge te )
into Lakes ve lost iv Sands & PDP. Bly
CHAPTER I. -
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SEA.
Extent of the Ocean.—Length of its Coast-Line.—Mural, Rocky, and Flat Coasts.
—How deep is the Sea?—Average Depth of the Atlantic Ocean.—The Tele-
graphic Plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.—Measurement of Depth
by the Rapidity of the Tide-Wave.—Progressive Changes in the Limits of the
Ocean.—Alluyial Deposits.—Upheaving.—Subsidence.—Does the Level of the
Sea remain unchanged, and is it everywhere the same?—Composition and
Temperature of Sea-Water.—Its intrinsic Colour.—The Azure Grotto at Capri.
—Modification of Colour owing to Animals and Plants.— Submarine Landscapes
viewed through the Clear Waters.
Or all the gods that divide the empire of the earth, Neptune
rules over the widest realms. If agiant-hand were to uproot the
Andes and cast them into the sea, they would be engulphed in
the abyss, and scarcely raise the general level of the waters.
The South American Pampas, bounded on the north by
tropical palm-trees, and on the south hy wintry firs, are no
doubt of magnificent dimensions, yet these vast deserts seem
insignificant when compared with the boundless plains of earth-
encircling ocean. Nay! a whole continent, even America or
Asia, appears small against the immensity of the sea, which
covers with its rolling waves nearly three-fourths of the entire
surface of the globe.
A single glance over the map shows us at once how very un-
equally water and land are distributed. In one part we see
continents and islands closely grouped together, while in another
the sea widely spreads in one unbroken. plain; here vast penin-
sulas stretch far away into the domains of ocean, while there
immense gulfs plunge deeply into the bosom of the land. At
first sight it might appear as if blind chance had presided over
this distribution, but a nearer view convinces us that providen-
B 2
4 PILYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
tial laws have established the existing relations between the
solid and fluid surfaces of the earth. If the sea had been much
smaller, or if the greatest mass of land had been concentrated
in the tropical zone, all the meteorological phenomena on which
the existence of actual organic life depends would have been so
different, that it is doubtful whether man could then have
existed, and certain that, under those altered circumstances,
he never would have attained his present state of civilisation.
The dependence of our intellectual development upon the ex-
isting configuration of the earth, convinces us that Divine wisdom
and not chaotic anarchy has from all eternity presided over the
destinies of our planet.
The length of all the coasts which form the boundary between
sea and land can only be roughly estimated, for who has
accurately measured the numberless windings of so many
shores? The entire coast line of deeply indented Europe and
her larger isles measures about 21,600 miles, equal to the cir-
cumference of the earth; while the shores of compact Africa
extend to a length of only 14,000 miles. I need hardly point out
how greatly Europe’s irregular outlines have contributed to the
early development of her superior civilisation and political pre-
dominance. The coasts of America measure about 45,000 miles,
those of Asia 40,000, while those of Australia and Polynesia
may safely be estimated at 16,000. Thus the entire coast-line
of the globe amounts to about 136,000 miles, which it would
take the best pedestrian full twenty-five years to traverse from
end to end.
How different is the aspect of these shores along which
the ever-restless sea continually rises or falls! Here steep
rock-walls tower up from the deep, while there a low sandy
beach extends its flat profile as far as the eye can reach. While
some coasts are scorched by the vertical sunbeam, others are
perpetually blocked up with ice. Here the safe harbour bids
welcome to the weather-beaten sailor, the light-house greets him
from afar with friendly ray ; the experienced pilot hastens to guide
him to the port, and all along the smiling margin of the land
rise the peaceful dwellings of civilised man. There, on the con-
trary, the roaring breakers burst upon the shore of some dreary
wilderness, the domain of the savage or the brute. What a
wonderful variety of scenes unrolls itself before our fancy as it
DIFFERENT FORMATION OF SEA-COASTS. Bi)
roams along the coasts of ocean from zone to zone! what
changes, as it wanders from the palm-girt coral island of the
Beecny Head.
tropical seas to the melancholy strands where, verging towards
the poles, all vegetable life expires! and how magnificently grand
does the idea of ocean swell out in our imagination, when we
consider that its various shores witness at one and the same
time the rising and the setting of the sun, the darkness of night
and the full blaze of day, the rigour of winter and the smiling
cheerfulness of spring !
The different formation of sea-coasts has necessarily a great
influence on commercial intercourse. Bold mural coasts, rising
precipitously from the deep sea, generally possess the best
harbours. Rocky shores also afford many good ports, but
most frequently only for smaller vessels, and of difficult access,
on account of the many isolated cliffs and reefs which charac-
terise this species of coast formation.
In places where high lands reach down to the coast, the im-
mediate depth of the sea is proportionably great; but wherever
the surface rises gently landwards, the sea-bed continues with a
corresponding slope downwards. On these flat coasts the tides
roll over a sandy or shingly beach; and here the aid of human
industry is frequently required to create artificial ports, or to
prevent those already existing from being choked with sand.
On many flat coasts the drift-sand has raised dunes, wearying
6 PITYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
the eye by their monotonous uniformity; on others, where these
natural bulwarks are wanting, artificial embankments, or dykes
protect the lowlands against the encroachments of the sea, or else
the latter forms vast salt-marshes and lagunes. On some coasts
these submerged or half-drowned lands have been transformed
by the industry of man into fertile meadows and fields, of which
the Dutch Netherlands afford the most celebrated example ; while
in other countries, such as Egypt, large tracts of land once cul-
tivated have been lost to the sea, in consequence of long misrule
and tyranny.
How deep is the sea? How is its bottom formed? Does
life still exist in its abyssal depths? These mysteries of ocean,
which no doubt floated indistinctly before the mind of many an
inquisitive mariner and philosopher of ancient times, have only
recently been subjected to a more accurate investigation. Their
solution is of the highest importance, both to the physical
geographer, whose knowledge must necessarily remain incom-
plete until he can fully trace the deep-sea path of oceanic
currents, and to the zoologist, to whom it affords a wider in-
sight into the laws which govern the development of the
innumerable forms of life with which our globe is peopled.
The ordinary system of sounding by means of a weight at-
tached to a graduated line, and “armed” at its lower end with
a thick coating of soft tallow, so as to bring up evidence of its
having reached the bottom in a sample of mud, shells, sand,
gravel, or ooze, answers perfectly well for comparatively shallow
water, and for the ordinary purposes of navigation, but it
breaks down for depths much over 1000 fathoms. The weight
is not sufficient to carry the line rapidly and vertically to the
bottom; and if a heavier weight be used, ordinary sounding
line is unable to draw up its own weight along with that of the
lead from great depths, and gives way, so that by this means no
information can be gained as to the nature of the sea-bottom.
To obviate this difficulty, several ingenious instruments have
been invented, such as the “ Bull-dog” sounding machine, which
is so contrived that on touching the bottom the weight becom s
detached, while at the same time a pair of scoops, closing upon
one another scissorwise on a hinge, and permanently attached
DEEP SOUNDINGS. t
to the sounding-line, retain and are able to bring up a sample
of the bottom.
With the aid of steam, dredging has also been successfully
carried down to 2,435 fathoms, so that the ocean bed may be-
come in time as well known to us as the bed of the Mersey or
the Thames.
Both sounding and dredging at great depths are, however,
difficult and laborious tasks, which can only be performed under
very favourable circumstances, and require a vessel specially
fitted at considerable expense.
Many of the early deep soundings in the Atlantic, which
reported the astonishing depths of 46,000 or even 50,000 feet,
are now known to have been greatly exaggerated. In some
cases bights of the line seem to be carried along by submarine
currents, and in others it is found that the line has been
running out by its own weight only, and coiling itself in a
tangled mass directly over the lead. These sources of error
vitiate very deep soundings; and consequently, in the last chart
of the North Atlantic, published on the authority of Rear-
Admiral Richards in November 1870, none are entered beyond
4000 fathoms, and very few beyond 30600.
“ The general result,” says Professor Wyville Thomson,* “ to
which we are led by the careful and systematic deep-sea sound-
ings which have been undertaken of late years is that the depth
of the sea is not so great as was at one time supposed, and does
not appear to average more than 2000 fathoms (12,000 feet),
about equal to the mean height of the elevated table-lands of
Asia.
“The thin shell of water which covers so much of the face of
the earth occupies all the broad general depressions in its crust,
and it is only limited by the more abrupt prominences which
project above its surface, as masses of land with their crowning
plateaux and mountain ranges. The Atlantic Ocean covers
30,000,000 of square miles, and the Arctic Sea 3,000,000, and
taken together they almost exactly equal the united areas of
Europe, Asia, and Africa—the whole of the Old World—and yet
there seem to be few depressions on its bed to a greater depth
than 15,000 or 20,000 feet—a little more than the height of
Mont Blane; and, except in the neighbourhood of the shores,
* «The Depths of the Sea,” p. 228.
8 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
there is only one very marked mass of mountains, the voleanic
group of the Agores.”
Accurate soundings are as yet much too distant to justify
a detailed description of the bed of the Atlantic. I will merely
state that after sloping gradually to a depth of 500 fathoms to
the westward of the coast of Ireland, in lat. 52° N., the bottom
suddenly dips to 1700 fathoms, at the rate of from about 15 to
19 feet in the 100. From this point to within about 200
miles of the coast of Newfoundland, where it begins to shoal
again, there is a vast undulating plain averaging about 2000
fathoms in depth below the surface—the “telegraph plateau”
on which now rest the cables through which the electric power
transmits its marvellous messages from one world to another.
Our information about the beds of the Indian, the Antarctic,
and the Pacific Oceans is still more incomplete, but the few
trustworthy observations which have hitherto been made seem
to indicate that neither the depth nor the nature of the bottom
of these seas differs greatly from what we find nearer home.
The inclosed and landlocked European seas are very shallow
when compared with the high ocean: the Mediterranean, how-
ever, has in some parts a depth of more than 6000 feet; and
even in the Black Sea, the plummet sometimes descends to
more than 3000 feet; while the waters of the Adriatic every-
where roll over a shallow bed.
The researches of Mr. Russell on the swiftness of the tide-wave,
showing that the rapidity of its progress increases with the
depth of the waters over which it passes, afford us another means,
besides the sounding line, of determining approximately the
distance of the sea-bottom from its surface. According to this
method, the depth of the Channel between Plymouth and
Boulogne has been calculated at 180 feet; and the enormous
rapidity of the flood wave over the great open seas (300 miles
an hour and more) gives us for the mean depth of the Atlantic
14,400 feet, and for that of the Pacifie 19,500.
Natural philosophers have endeavoured to calculate the
quantity of the waters contained within the vast bosom of the
ocean ; but as we are still very far from accurately knowing the
mean depth of the sea, such estimates are evidently based upon
a very unsubstantial foundation.
So much at least is certain, that the volume of the waters of
THE GOODWIN SANDS. 9
the ocean as much surpasses all conception, as the number of
their inhabitants, or of the sands that line their shores.
The boundaries of the ocean are not invariable; while mn
some parts it encroaches upon the land, in others it retreats
from the expanding coast. In many places we find the sea
perpetually gnawing and undermining cliffs and rocks; and
Torso Rock, near Point Deas Thomson, in the Arctic Ocean.
sometimes swelling with sudden rage, it devours a broad expanse
of plain, and changes fertile meads into a dreary waste of
waters. The Goodwin Sands, notorious for the loss of many a
noble vessel, were once a large tract of low ground belonging to
Earl Goodwin, father of Harold, the last of our Saxon kings; and
being afterwards enjoyed by the monastery of St. Augustine at
Canterbury, the whole surface was drowned by the abbot’s
neglect to repair the wall which defended it from the sea. In
spite of the endeavours of the Dutch to protect their flat land
by dykes against the inundatory waters, the storm-flood has
more than once burst through these artificial boundaries, and
converted large districts into inland seas.
But the spaces which in this manner the dry land has gra-
dually or suddenly lost, or still loses, to the chafing ocean are
largely compensated for in other places, by the vast accumulations
10 PHYSICAL GHOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
of mud and sand, which so many rivers continually carry along
with them into the sea. Thus at the mouths of the Nile, of the
Ganges, and of the Mississippi, large alluvial plains have been
deposited, which now form some of the most fruitful portions of
the globe. The whole Delta of Egypt, Bengal, and Louisiana,
have thus gradually emerged from the waters.
The volcanic powers, which once caused the highest mountain
chains to rise from the glowing bosom of the earth, are still
uninterruptedly active in changing its surface, and are gradually
displacing the present boundaries of sea and land, upheaving
some parts and causing others to subside.
On the coast of Sweden, it has been ascertained that iron
rings fixed to rocks which formerly served for the fastening ot
boats are at present much too high. Flat cliffs on which, ac-
cording to ancient documents, seals used to be clubbed while
enjeying the warm sunbeam, are now quite out of the reach of
these amphibious animals. In the years 1731, 1752, and 1755,
marks were hewn in some conspicuous rocks, which after the
lapse of half a century were found to have risen about two feet
higher above the level of the sea. This phenomenon is confined
to part of the coast, so that it is clearly the result of a local and
slowly progressive upheaving.
Whilst a great part of Scandinavia is thus slowly but steadily
rising, the shores of Chili have been found to rise convulsively
under the influence of mighty volcanic shocks. Thus after the
great earthquake of 1822, the whole coast, for the length of a
hundred miles, was found to be three or four feet higher than
before, and a further elevation was observed after the earthquake
of Feb. 21st, 1835.
While to the north of Wolstenholme Sound, Kane remarked
signs of elevation, a converse depression was observed as he
proceeded southwards along the coast of Greenland, Esquimaux
huts being seen washed by the sea. The axis of oscillation
must be somewhere about 77° N. lat.
At Keeling Island, in the Indian Ocean, Mr. Darwin found
evidence of subsidence. On every side of the lagoon, in which
the water is as tranquil as in the most sheltered lake, old cocoa-
nut-trees were undermined and falling. The foundation-posts
of a store-house on the beach, which the inhabitants had said
stood seven years before just above high-water mark, were now
THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS. 11
daily washed by the tide. Earthquakes had been repeatedly
remarked by the inhabitants, so that Darwin no longer doubted
concerning the cause which made the trees to fali, and the
store-house to be washed by the daily tide.
On the columns of the temple of Serapis, near Puzzuoli, the
astonished naturalist sees holes scooped out by Pholades and
Lithodomas, twenty-four feet above the present level of the sea.
These animals are marine testacea, that have the power of
burying themselves in stone, and cannot live beyond the reach
of low-water. How then have they been able to scoop out those
hieroglyphic marks so far above the level of their usual abodes ?
for surely marble originally defective was never used for the
construction of so proud an edifice. Alternate depressions and
elevations of the soil afford us the only key to the enigma.
Earthquakes and oscillations, so frequent in that volcanic region,
must first have lowered the temple into the sea, where it was
acted upon by the sacrilegious molluscs, and then again their
upheaving powers must have raised it to its present elevation.
Thus, even the solid earth changes its features, and reminds
us of the mutability of all created things.
There can be no doubt that, in consequence of the perpetual
increase of alluvial deposits, and of the volcanic processes I have
mentioned, the present boundaries of ocean must undergo great
alterations in the course of centuries, and the general level of
the sea must either rise or fall; but the evidence of history proves
to us that, for the last 2000 years at least, there has been no
notable change in this respect.
The baths hewn out in the rocks of Alexandria, and the stones
of its harbour, have remained unaltered ever since the founda-
tion of the city by the Macedonian conqueror; and the ancient
port of Marseilles shows no more signs of a change of level than the
old sea-walls of Cadiz. Thus, all the elevations and depressions
that have occurred in the bed of ocean, or along its margin,
and all the mud and sand that thousands of rivers continually
carry along with them into the sea, have left its general level
unaltered, at least within the historic ages. However great their
effects may appear to the eye that confines itself to local changes,
their influence, as far as the evidence of history reaches, has
been but slight upon the immensity of the sea.
Geodesical operations have proved that the level of the ocean,
12 PILYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
with the exception of certain enclosed seas of limited extent,
is everywhere the same. The accurate measurements of Cora-
boeuf and Delcros show no perceptible difference between the
level of the Channel and that of the Mediterranean. In the
course of the operations for measuring the meridian in France,
M. Delambre calculated the height of Rodez above the level
of the Mediterranean at Barcelona, and its height above the ocean
which washes the foot of the tower of Dunkirk, and found the
difference to be equal to a fraction of a yard.
The measurements which, at Humboldt’s suggestion, General
Bolivar caused to be executed by Messrs. Lloyd and Filmore,
prove that the Pacific is, at the utmost, only a few feet higher
than the Caribbean Sea, and even that the relative height of the
two seas changes with the tides.
The long and narrow inlet of the Red Sea, which, according
co former measurements, was said to be twenty-four or thirty
feet higher than the Mediterranean seems, from more recent and
accurate investigations, to be of the same level, and thus to
form no exception to the general rule.
Thesalts contained insea water, and to which it owes its peculiar
bitter and unpleasant taste, form about three and a half per cent.
of its weight, and consist principally of common table salt (chloride
of sodium), and the sulphates and carbonates of magnesia and
lime. But, besides these chief ingredients, there is scarcely a
single elementary body of which traces are not to be found in
that universal solvent. Wilson has pointed out fluoric combina-
tions in sea water, and Malaguti and Durocher (Annales de
Chimie, 1851) detected lead, copper, and silver in its composi-
tion. Tons of this precious metal are dissolved in the vast
volume of the ocean, and it contains arsenic sufficient to poison
every living thing.
Animal mucus, the product of numberless creatures, is mixed
up with the sea water, and it constantly absorbs carbonic acid
and atmospheric air, which are as indispensable to the marine
animals and plants as to the denizens of the atmospheric
ocean.
In inclosed seas, communicating with the ocean only by
narrow straits, the quantity of saline particles varies from that
TEMPERATURE OF THE SEA. 13
uf the high seas. Thus the Mediterranean, when evaporation is
favoured by heat, contains about one half per cent. more salt
than the ocean; while the Baltic, which, on account of its
northern position, is not liable to so great a loss, and receives
vast volumes of fresh water from a number of considerable
rivers, is scarcely half so salt as the neighbouring North Sea.
In the open ocean, the perpetual circulation of the waters
produces an admirable equality of composition: yet Dr. Lenz,
who accompanied Kotzebue in his second voyage round the
world, and devoted great attention to the subject, found that
the Atlantic, particularly in its western part, contains a some-
what larger proportion of salts than the Pacific; and that the
Indian Ocean, which connects those vast volumes of water, is
more salt towards the former than towards the latter.
As water is a bad conductor of caloric, the temperature of the
seas is in general more constant than that of the air.
The equinoctial ocean seldom attains the maximum warmth of
83°, and has never been known to rise above 87°; while the sur-
face of the land between the tropics is frequently heated to
129°. In the neighbourhood of the line, the temperature of the
surface-water oscillates all the year round only between 82° and
85°, and scarce any difference is perceptible at different times of
the day.
The wonderful sameness and equability of the temperature of
the tropical ocean over spaces covering thousands of square
miles, particularly between 10° N. and 10° S. lat., far from the
coasts, and where it is not intersected by pelagic streams,
affords, according to Arago, the best means of solving a very
important, and as yet unanswered question, concerning the
physics of the globe. ‘ Without troubling itself,” says that
great natural philosopher, ‘‘ about mere local influences, each
century might leave to succeeding generations, by a few easy
thermometrical measurements, the means of ascertaining whether
the sun, at present almost the only source of warmth upon the
surface of the earth, changes his physical constitution, and varies
in his splendour like most stars, or whether he has attained a
permanent condition. Great and lasting revolutions in his
shining orb would reflect themselves more accurately in the
14 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TILE SEA.
altered mean temperature of those ocean plains than in the
changed medium warmth of the dry land.”
The warmest part of the ocean does not coincide with the
Equator, but seems to form two not quite parallel bands to the
north and south.
In the northern Atlantic, the line of greatest temperature (87°
F.) which on the African coast is found but a little to the north of
the Equator, rises on the north coast of South America as high
as 12° N. lat.,and in the Gulf of Mexico ranges even beyond the
tropic. The influence of the warmth-radiating land on inclosed
waters is still more remarkable in the Mediterranean (between
30° and 44° N. lat.) where during the summer months a temper-
ature of 84° and 85° is found, three degrees higher than the
medium warmth of the open tropical seas.
While in the torrid zone the temperature of the ocean is
generally inferior to that of the atmosphere, the contrary takes
place in the Polar seas. Near Spitzbergen, even under 80° N.
lat., Gaimard never found the temperature of the water below
4+-33°. Between Norway and Spitzbergen the mean warmth of
the water in summer was +39°, while that of the air only
attained + 37°.
In the enclosed seas of the Arctic Ocean, the enormous accu-
mulation of ice, which the warmth of a short summer is unable
totally to dissolve, naturally produces a very low temperature of
the waters. Thus, in Baffin’s Bay, Sir John Ross found during
the summer months only thirty-one days on which the tempe-
rature of the water rose above freezing point.
In the depths of the sea, even in the tropical zone, the water
is found of a frigid temperature, and this circumstance first led
to the knowledge of the submarine polar ocean currents; “ for
without these, the deep sea temperature in the tropics could
never have been lower than the maximum of cold, which the
heat-radiating particles attain at the surface.” *
It was formerly believed that while the surface temperature —-
which depended upon direct solar radiation, the direction of
currents, the temperature of winds, and other temporary causes —
might vary to any amount, at a certain depth the temperature
was permanent at 4° C., the temperature of the greatest density
of fresh water. Late investigations, however, have led to the
* Tumboldt’s “ Kosmos,”
LOCALISED CURRENTS. 15
conclusion that instead of there being a permanent deep layer
ot water at 4° C., the average temperature of the deep sea in
temperate and tropical regions is about 0° C., the freezing point
of fresh water.
In the atmospheric ocean, aeronauts not seldom meet with
warm air currents flowing above others of a colder temperature ;
while, according to a general law, the warmth of the air con-
stantly diminishes as its elevation above the surface of the sea
increases.
Similar exceptions to the general rule are met with in the
ocean. In moderate depths sometimes the whole mass of water
from the surface to the bottom is abnormally warm, owing to
the movement in a certain direction of a great body of warm
water, as in the “warm area” to the north-west of the Hebrides,
where, at a depth of 500 fathoms, the minimum temperature was
found to be 6° C. On the other hand, the whole body of
water is sometimes abnormally cold, as in the “cold area,” be-
tween Scotland and Faeroe, where, at a depth of 500 fathoms,
the bottom temperature is found to average —1° C.* The only
feasible explanation of these enormous differences of tempera-
ture, amounting to nearly 13° F. in two areas freely communi-
cating with one another, and in close proximity, is that in the area
to the north-west of the Hebrides a body of water warmed even
above the normal temperature of the latitude flows northwards
from some southern source, and occupies the whole depth of that
comparatively shallow portion of the Atlantic, while an arctic
stream of frigid water creeps from the north-eastward into the
trough between Faeroe and the Shetland Islands, and fills its
deeper part in consequence of its higher specific gravity. There
ean be no doubt that similar phenomena occur in various parts
of the ocean, and that the deep seas are frequently intersected
by streams differing in temperature from the surrounding
waters.
In some places, owing to the conformation of the neighbour-
ing land or of the sea-bottom, superficial warm and cold cur-
rents are circumscribed and localised, thereby occasioning the
singular phenomenon of a patch or stripe of warm and a patch
of cold sea meeting in an invisible but well-defined line.
* «The Depths of the Sea,” by Professor Wyville Thomson, p. 307.
16 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
The temperature of the sea apparently never sinks at any
depth below —3°5° C. This is about the temperature of the
maximum density of sea water, which contracts steadily till just
above its freezing point (—3-°67° C.), when kept perfectly still.
If we include in the tropical seas all that part of the ocean
where the surface temperature never falls below 68° F., and
where consequently living coral reefs may occur, we find that it
nearly equals in size the temperate and cold ocean-regions
added together. This distribution of the waters over the surface
of the globe is of the highest importance to mankind ; for the
immense extent of the tropical ocean, where, of course, the
strongest evaporation takes place, furnishes our temperate zone
with the necessary quantity of rain, and tends by its cooling
influence to diminish the otherwise unbearable heat of the
equatorial lands.
The circumstance of ice being lighter than water also con-
tributes to the habitability of our earth. Ice is a bad con-
ductor of heat; consequently it shields the subjacent waters
from the influence of frost, and prevents its penetrating to
considerable depths. If ice had been heavier than water,
the sea-bottom, in higher latitudes, would have been covered
with solid crystal at the very beginning of the cold season;
and during the whole length of the polar winter, the per-
petually consolidating surface-waters would have been con-
stantly precipitated, till finally the whole sea, far within the
present temperate zone, would have formed one solid mass of
ice. The sun would have been as powerless to melt this pro-
digious body, as it is to dissolve the glaciers of the Alps, and
the cold radiating from its surface would have rendered all the
neighbouring lands uninhabitable.
The mixture of the water of rivers with that of the sea pre-
sents some hydrostatic phenomena which it is surious enough
to observe. Fresh water being lighter, ought to keep at the
surface, while the salt water, from its weight, should form the
deepest strata. This, in fact, is what Mr. Stephenson observed
in 1818 in the harbour of Aberdeen at the mouth of the Dee,
and also in the Thames near London and Woolwich. By taking
up water from different depths with an instrument invented for
the purpose, Mr. Stephenson found that at a certain distance
FRESH-WATER SPRINGS. ae
from the mouth the water is fresh in the whole depth, even
during the flow of the tide, but that a little nearer the sea fresh
water is found on the surface, while the lower strata consist of
sea water. According to his observations it is between London
and Woolwich that the saltness of the bottom begins to be per-
ceptible. Thus, below Woolwich the Thames, instead of flowing
over a solid bed, in reality flows upon a liquid bottom formed
by the water of the sea, with which no doubt it is more or less
mixed.
Mr. Stephenson is of opinion that, at the flow of the tide, the
fresh water is raised as it were in a single mass by the salt water
which flows in, and which ascends the bed of the river, while
the fresh water continues to flow towards the sea.
Where the Amazon, the La Plata, the Orinoco, and other
giant streams pour out their vast volumes of water into
the ocean, the surface of the sea is fresh for many miles from
the shore; but this is only superficial, for below, even in the bed
of the rivers, the bitterness of salt water is found.
It is a curious fact, that in many parts of the ocean, fresh-
water springs burst from the bottom of the sea. Thus, in the
Gulf of Spezzia, and in the port of Syracuse, large jets of fresh
water mingle with the brine; and Humboldt mentions a still
more remarkable submarine fountain on the southern coast. of
Cuba, in the Gulf of Xagua, a couple of sea miles from the shore,
which gushes through the salt water with such vehemence, that
boats approaching the spot are obliged to use great caution.
Trading vessels are said sometimes to visit this spring, in order
to provide themselves in the midst of the ocean with a supply
of fresh water.
The sea is not colourless; its crystal mirror not only reflects
the bright sky or the passing cloud, but naturally possesses a pure
bluish tint, which is only rendered visible to the eye when the
light penetrates through a stratum of water of considerable
depth. This may be easily ascertained by experiment. Takea
glass tube, two inches wide and two yards long, blacken it inter-
nally with lamp-black and wax to within half an inch of the end,
the latter being closed by a cork. Throw a few pieces of white
porcelain into this tube, which, after being filled with pure
Cc
18 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
sea-water, must be set vertically on a white plate, and then,
looking through the open end, you will see the white of the
porcelain changed into a light blue tint.
In the Gulf of Naples, we find the inherent colour of the
water exhibited to us by Nature on a most magnificent scale.
The splendid “ Azure cave,” at Capri, might almost be said to
have been created for the purpose. For many centuries its
beauties had been veiled from man, as the narrow entrance is
only a few feet above the level of the sea, and it was only
discovered in the year 1826, by two Prussian artists accidentally
swimming in the neighbourhood. Having passed the portal,
the cave widens to grand proportions, 125 feet long, and 145
feet broad, and except a small landing place on a projecting rock
at the farther end, its precipitous walls are on all sides bathed
by the influx of the waters, which in that sea are most remarkably
clear, so that the smallest objects may be distinctly seen on the
light bottom at a depth of several hundred feet. All the light
that enters the grotto must penetrate the whole depth of the
waters, probably several hundred feet, before it can be re-
flected into the cave from the clear bottom, and it thus
acquires so deep a tinge from the vast body of water through
which it has passed, that the dark walls of the cavern are
illumined by a radiance of the purest azure, and the. most
differently coloured objects below the surface of the water are
made to appear bright blue. Had Byron known of the exist-
ence of this magic cave, Childe Harold would surely have sung
its beauties in some of his most brilliant stanzas.
All profound and clear seas are more or less of a deep blue
colour, while, according to seamen, a green colour indicates
soundings. The bright blue of the Mediterranean, so often
vaunted by poets, is found all over the deep pure ocean, not
only in the tropical and temperate zones, but also in the regions
of eternal frost. Scoresby speaks with enthusiasm of the splendid
blue of the Greenland seas, and all along the great ice-barrier
which under 77° S, lat. obstructed the progress of Sir James
Ross towards the pole, that illustrious navigator found the waters
of as deep a blue as in the classical Mediterranean. The North
Sea is green, partly from its water not being so clear, and partly
from the reflection of its sandy bottom mixing with the essen-
tially blue tint of the water. In the Bay of Loanga the sea has
DISCOLORATION OF THE SEA FROM ALG. 19
the colour of blood, and Captain Tuckey discovered that this
results from the reflection of the red ground-soil.
-But the essential colour of the sea undergoes much more
frequent changes over large spaces, from enormous masses of
minute alge, and countless hosts of small sea-worms, floating
or swimming on its surface.
“ A few days after leaving Bahia,” says Mr. Darwin, “ not far
from the Abrolhos islets, the whole surface of the water, as it
appeared under a weak lens, seemed as if covered by chipped
bits of hay with their ends jagged. Each bundle consisted of
from twenty to sixty filaments, divided at regular intervals by
transverse septa, containing a brownish-green flocculent matter.
The ship passed several bands of them, one of which was about
ten yards wide, and, judging from the mud-like colour of the
water, at least two and a half miles long. Similar massesof floating
vegetable matter are a very common appearance near Australia.
During two days preceding our arrival at the Keeling Islands,
I saw in many parts masses of flocculent matter of a brownish
green colour, floating in the ocean. They were from half to
three inches square, and consisted of two kinds of microscopical
conferve. Minute cylindrical bodies, conical at each extremity,
were involved in large numbers in a mass of fine threads.”
“ On the coast of Chili,” says the same author, “ a few leagues
north of Conception, the ‘ Beagle’ one day passed through great
bands of muddy water; and again, a degree south of Valparaiso,
the same appearance was still more extensive. Mr. Sulivan,
having drawn up some water in a glass, distinguished by the
aid of a lens moving points. The water was slightly stained, as
if by red dust, and after leaving it for sometime quiet, a cloud
collected at the bottom. With a slightly magnifying lens, small
hyaline points could be seen darting about with great rapidity,
and frequently exploding. Examined with a much higher
power, their shape was found to be oval, and contracted by a
ring round the middle, from which line curved little sete pro-
ceeded on all sides, and these were the organs of motion. Their
minuteness was such that they were individually quite invisible
to the naked eye, each covering a space equal only to the one-
thousandth of an inch, and their number was infinite, for the
smallest drop of water contained very many. In one day we
passed through two spaces of water thus stained, one of which
(yi
20 ; PILYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
alone must have extended over several square miles. ‘The
colour of the water was like that of a river which has flowed
through a red clay district, and a strictly defined lme separated
the red stream from the blue water.”
In the neighbourhood of Callao, the Pacifie has an olive-green
colour, owing to a greenish matter which is also found at the
bottom of the sea, in a depth of 800 feet. In its natural state
it has no smell, but when cast on the fire, it emits the odour of
burnt animal substances.
Near Cape Palmas, on the coast of Guinea, Captain Tuckey’s
ship seemed to sail through milk, a phenomenon which was
owing to an immense number of little white animals swimming on
the surface, and concealing the natural tint of the water.
The peculiar colouring of the Red Sea, from which it has
derived its name, is owing to the presence of a microseopic alga,
sui generis, floating at the surface of the sea and even less
remarkable for its beautiful red colour than for its prodigious
fecundity.
I could add many more examples, where, either from minute
algz or from small animals, the deep blue sea suddenly appeared
in stripes of white, yellow, green, brown, orange or red. For
fear, however, of tiring the reader’s patience, I shall merely
mention the olive green water, which covers a considerable part
of the Greenland seas. It is found between 74° and 80° N. lat.,
but its position varies with the currents, often forming isolated
stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of
latitude. Small yellowish Meduse, of from one-thirtieth to one-
twentieth of an inch in diameter are the principal agents that
change the pure ultramarine of the Arctic Ocean into a muddy
green. According to Scoresby, they are about one-fourth of
an inch asunder, and in this proportion a cubic inch of
water must contain 64, a cubic foot 110,592, a cubic fathom
23,887,872, and a cubic mile nearly twenty-four thousand
billions! From soundings made in the situation where these
animals were found, the sea is probably more than a mile deep;
but whether these substances occupy the whole depth is un-
certain. Provided, however, the depth to which they extend
be about 250 fathoms, the immense number of one species
mentioned above may occur in a space of two miles square;
and what a stupendous idea must we form of the infinitude of
SUBMARINE LANDSCAPES. 21
marine life, when we consider that those vast numbers, beyond
all human conception, occupy after all only a small part of the
green-coloured ocean which extends over twenty or thirty
thousand square miles! It is here that the giant whale of the
north finds his richest pasture-grounds, which at the same time
invite man to foliow on his track. A small red crustacean
(Cetochilus australis) which forms very extensive banks in the
Pacific, and in the middle of the Atlantic about 40°S. lat., affords
a similar supply of food to the whales frequenting those seas,
and exposes them to the same dangers.
When the sea is perfectly clear and transparent, it allows the
eye to distinguish objects at a very great depth. Near Mindora,
in the Indian Ocean, the spotted corals are plainly visible under
twenty-five fathoms of water. The crystalline clearness of the
Caribbean sea excited the admiration of Columbus, who in the
pursuit of his great discoveries ever retained an open eye for
the beauties of nature. “In passing over these splendidly adorned
grounds,” says Schopf, “where marine life shows itself in an
endless variety of forms, the boat, suspended over the purest
erystal, seems to float in the air, so that a person unaccustomed
to the scene easily becomes giddy. On the clear sandy bottom
appear thousands of sea-stars, sea-urchins, molluscs, and fishes
of a brilliancy of colour unknown in our temperate seas. Fiery
red, intense blue, lively green, and golden yellow perpetually
vary ; the spectator floats over groves of sea-plants, gorgonias,
corals, aleyoniums, flabellums, and sponges, that afford no less
delight to the eye, and are no less gently agitated by the heaving
waters, than the most beautiful garden on earth when a gentle
breeze passes through the waving boughs.”
With equal enthusiasm De Quatrefages expatiates on the
beauties of the submarine landscapes on the coast of Sicily.
“The surface of the waters, smooth and even like a mirror,
enabled the eye to penetrate to an incredible depth, and to
recognise the smallest objects. Deceived by this wonderful
transparency, it often occurred during my first excursions, that I
wished to seize some annelide or medusa, which seemed to swim
but a few inches from the surface. Then the boatman smiled,
took a net fastened to a long pole, and, to my great astonishment,
plunged it deep into the water before it could attain the object
which I had supposed to be within my reach. The admirable
22 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
clearness of the waters produced another deception of a most
agreeable kind. Leaning over the boat, we glided over plains,
dales, and hillocks, which, in some places naked and in others
carpeted with green or with brownish shrubbery, reminded us of
the prospects of the land. Our eye distinguished the smallest
inequalities of the piled-up rocks, plunged more than a hundred
feet deep into their cavernous hollows, and everywhere the
undulations of the sand, the abrupt edges of the stone-blocks,
and the tufts of alga were so sharply defined, that the wonder-
ful illusion made us forget the reality of thescene. Between us
and those lovely pictures we saw no more the intervening
waters that enveloped them as in an atmosphere and carried our
boat upon their bosom. It was as if we were hanging in a
vacant space, or looking down like birds hovering in the air
upon a charming prospect. Strangely formed animals peopled
these submarine regions, and lent them a peculiar character.
Fishes, sometimes isolated like the sparrows of our groves, or
uniting in flocks like our pigeons or swallows, roamed among
the crags, wandered through the thickets of the sea-plants,
and shot away like arrows as our boat passed over them.
Caryophyilias, Gorgonias, and a thousand other zoophytes
unfolded their sensitive petals, and could hardly be distinguished
from the real plants with whose fronds their branches intertwined.
Enormous dark blue Holothurias crept along upon the sandy
bottom, or slowly climbed the rocks, on which crimson sea-stars
spread out immoveably their long radiating arms. Molluscs
dragged themselves lazily along, while crabs, resembling huge
spiders, ran against them in their oblique and rapid progress, or
attacked them with their formidable claws. Other crustaceans,
analogous to our lobsters or shrimps, gambolled among the fuci,
songht for a moment the surface waters to enjoy the light of
heaven, and then by one mighty stroke of their muscular tail,
instantly disappeared again in the obscure recesses of the deep.
Among these animals whose shapes reminded us of familiar
forms appeared other species, belonging to types unknown in
our colder latitudes: Salpe, strange molluses of glassy trans-
parency, that, linked together, form swimming chains; great
Beroés, similar to living enamel; Diphye hardly to be dis-
tinguished from the pure element in which they move, and
finally, Stephanomic, animated garlands woven of crystal and
————
SUBMARINE LANDSCAPES. 23
flowers, and which, still more delicate than the latter, disap-
pear as they wither, and do not even leave a cloud behind them
in the vase, which a few moments before their glassy bodies had
nearly entirely filled.”
Fill at the Rapid on Bear Lake River. (North-West Territory,
North America.)
24 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA
CHAP. 4.
THE WAVES OF THE OCEAN.
Waves and the Mode of their Formation.—Height and Velocity of Storm-Waves,
on the High Seas, according to the Calculations of Scoresby, Arago, Sir James
Ross, and Wilkes—Their Height and Power on Coasts—Their Destructive
Effects along the British Shore-—Dunwich.—Reculver.—Shakspeare’s Cliff.
AFTER having admired the sea in the grandeur of its expanse,
and the profundity of its depths, I shall, in this and the two
following chapters, examine in what manner the perpetual cir-
culation of its waters is maintained.
“ The movements of the sea,” says Humboldt, “ are of a three-
fold description: partly irregular and transitory, depending
H.M.S. ‘* Resolute’? lying- to in the North Atlantic.
upon the winds, and occasioning waves; partly regular and
periodical, resulting from the attraction of the sun and the moon
WAVES, THEIR MODE OF FORMATION. 25
(ebb and flood); and partly permanent, though of unequal
strength and rapidity at different periods (oceanic currents).”
Who has ever sojourned on the coast, or crossed the seas, and
has not been delighted by the aspect of the waves, so graceful
when a light breeze curls the surface of the waters, so sublime
when a raging storm disturbs the depths of the ocean?
But it is easier to admire the beauty of a wave than clearly
to explain its nature, so as to convey an accurate or sufficiently
general conception of its formation to the reader’s mind. Those
who are placed for the first time on a stormy sea, discover with
wonder that the large waves which they see rushing along with
a velocity of many miles an hour do not carry the floating body
along with them, but seem to pass under the bottom of the ship
with scarcely a perceptible effect in carrying the vessel out of
its course.
In like manner, the observer near the shore perceives that
floating pieces of wood are not carried towards the shore with
the rapidity of the waves, but are left nearly in the same place
after the wave has passed them as before. Nay, if the tide be
ebbing, the waves may even be observed rushing with great
velocity towards the shore, while the body of water is actually
receding, and any object floating in it is carried in the opposite
direction to the waves out to sea.
What, then, is wave-motion as distinct from water-motion ?
The force of the wind, pushing a given mass of water out of its
place into another, dislodges the original occupant, which is
again pushed forward on the occupant of the next place, and
so on. As the water-particles crowd upon one another, in the
act of going out of their old places into the new, the crowd
forms a temporary heap visible on the surface of the fluid, and
as each successive mass is displacing the one before it, the un-
dulation or oscillatory movement spreads farther and farther
over the waters. Wave-motion is, in fact, the transference of
motion without the transference of matter: of form without the
substance, of force without the agent.
The strongest storm cannot suddenly raise high waves, they
require time for their development. Fancy the wind blowing
over an even sea, and it will set water-particles in motion
all over the surface, and thus give the first impulse to the
26 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TIE SEA.
formation of small waves. Numberless oscillations unite their
efforts, and create visible elevations and depressions. Mean-
while, the wind is constantly setting new particles in motion;
long before the first oscillations have lost their effect, countless
others are perpetually arising, and thus the sum of the pro-
pelling powers is constantly increasing, and gradually raising
mountain-waves, until their growth is finally limited by the
counterbalancing power of the earth’s attraction.
As the strength of the waves only gradually rises, it also loses
itself only by degrees, and many hours after the tornado has
ceased to rage, mighty billows continue to remind the mariner
of its extinguished fury. The turmoil of waters awakened by
the storm propagates itself hundreds of miles beyond the space
where its howling voice was heard, and often, during the most
tranquil weather, the agitated sea proclaims the distant war of
the elements.
The velocity of waves depends not only on the power of the
impulse, but also on the depth of the subjacent waters, as I have
already mentioned in the preceding chapter.
For this reason, as increased velocity augments the power of
the impulse, the waves in the Atlantic or Pacific, the mean
depth of which may be estimated at 12,000 or 18,000 feet,
attain a much greater height than in the comparatively shallow
North Sea.
The breaking of the waves against the shore arises from their
velocity diminishing with their depth. As the small flat wave
rolls up the beach, its front part, retarded by the friction of
the ground, is soon overtaken by its back, moving in swifter
progression, and thus arises its graceful swelling, the toppling
of its snow-white crest, and finally its pleasant prattle among
the shingles of the strand. This is one of those pictures of
nature which Homer describes with such inimitable truth in
various places of his immortal poems: he paints with admirable
colours the slow rising of the advancing wave, how it bends
forward with a graceful curve, and, crowning itself with a
diadem of foam, spreads like a white veil over the beach,
leaving sea-weeds and shells behind, as it rustles back again
into the sea.
The height which waves may attain on the open sea has
NEIGHT OF WAVES. 27
peen accurately investigated by the late Rev. Dr. Scoresby,
during two passages across the Atlantic in 1847 and 1848.
“In the afternoon of March 5th, 1848,” says that eminent
philosopher, “I stood during a hard gale upon the cuddy-roof
or saloon deck of the ‘ Hibernia :’ a height, with the addition of
that of the eye, of 23 feet 3 inches above the line of flotation
(the ship’s course being similar to that of the waves). Iam not
aware that I ever saw the sea more terribly magnificent; the
great majority of the rolling masses of water was more than 24
feet high, (including depression as well as altitude, or reckoning
above the mean-level, more than 12 feet). I then went to the
larboard paddle-box, about 7 feet higher (80 feet 2 inches up
to the eye), and found that one half of the waves rose above
the level of the view obtained.
“Frequently I observed long ranges (200 yards), which rose so
high above the visible horizon, as to form an angle estimated at
two or three degrees when the distance of the wave’s summit was
about 100 yards from the observer. This would add near 13
feet to the level of the eye, and at least one in half-a-dozen
waves attained this altitude. Sometimes peaks or crests of
breaking seas would shoot upward, at least 10 or 15 feet higher.
“The average wave was, I believe, fully equal to that of my
sight on the paddle-box, or more than 15 feet, and the mewn
highest waves, not including the broken or acuminated crests,
rose about 43 feet above the level of the hollow occupied at the
moment by the ship. It was a grand storm-scene, and nothing
could exceed the pictorial effect of the partial sunbeams break-
ing through the heavy masses of clouds.” From the time
taken by a regular wave to pass from stern to stem, Dr. Scoresby
calculated its velocity at 2875 feet in each minute, or 32°67
English statute miles in an hour. The mean length of the
wave-ridges, was from a quarter to a third of a mile.
To those who might be inclined to doubt the accuracy of these
measurements, the remark may suffice that our celebrated
countryman had been for years engaged in the northern whale-
fishery, where he had ample opportunities for practising his eye
in measuring distances. Besides, the conclusions of many other
trustworthy observers coincide with the evaluations of Dr.
Scoresby.
28 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
Thus Captain Wilkes, commander of the U. 8. Exploring
Expedition, found the height of the waves near Orange Har-
bour, where they rose higher and more regular than at any
other time during the cruise, to be thirty-two feet (depression
ana altitude), and their apparent progressive motion about
twenty-six and a half miles in an hour.
Sir James Ross calculated the height of the waves on a strongly
agitated sea at twenty-two feet, and, according to the French
naturalists who sailed in the frigate “ La Venus,” on her voyage
round the world, the highest waves they met with never exceeded
that measure.
Thus, according to the joint testimony of the most eminent
nautical authorities, the waves in the open sea never attain the
mountain-height ascribed to them by the exuberant fancy of
poets or exaggerating travellers. | But when the tempest surge
beats against steep crags or rocky coasts it rises to a much
more considerable height. The lighthouse of Bell Rock, though
112 feet high, is literally buried in foam and spray to the very
top during ground-swells, even when there is no wind. On the
20th November, 1827, the spray rose to the height of 117 feet
above the foundation or low-water mark, which, deducting
eleven feet for the tide that day, leaves 106 feet for the height
of the wave. The strength of that remarkable edifice may be
estimated from the fact, that the power of such a giant billow
13 equivalent to a pressure of three tons per square foot.
In the Shetland Islands, which are continually exposed to the
full fury of the Atlantic surge (for no land intervenes between
their western shores and America), every year witnesses the
removal of huge blocks of stone from their native beds by the
terrific action of the waves. “In the winter of 1802,” says
Dr. Hibbert, in his description of that northern archipelago, “a
tabular-shaped mass, eight feet two inches by seven feet, was
dislodged from its bed and removed to a distance of from
eighty to ninety feet. I measured the recent bed from which a
block had been carried away the preceding winter (A.p. 1818),
and found it to be seventeen feet and a half by seven feet, and
the depth two feet eight inches. The removed mass had been
borne to a distance of thirty feet, when it was shivered into
thirteen or more lesser fragments, some of which were carried
DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF WAVES. 29
still farther from 30 to 120 feet. A block nine feet two inches
by six feet and a half, and four feet thick, was hurried up the
acclivity to a distance of 150 feet.”
The great storm of 1824, which carried away part of the
breakwater at Plymouth, lifted huge masses of rock, from two
to five tons in weight, from the bottom of the weatherside and
rolled them fairly to the top of the pile. One block of lime-
stone weighing seven tons was washed round the western ex-
tremity of the breakwater, and swept to a distance of 150 feet.
In 1807, during the erection of the Bell Rock lighthouse, six
large blocks of granite which had been landed on the reef were
removed by the force of the sea and thrown over a rising
ledge to the distance of twelve or fifteen paces, and an anchor
weighing about twenty-two hundredweight was cast upon the
surface of the rock.
With such examples before our eyes, we cannot wonder that
in the course of centuries all shores exposed to the full shock
of the waves, lashing against them with every returning tide,
should gradually be wasted and worn away. One kind of stone
stands the brunt of the elements longer than another, but
ultimately even the hardest rock must yield to the rage of the
billows, which when provoked by wintry gales, batter against
them with all the force of artillery.
Thus, all along our coasts we find innumerable instances of
their destructive power. Tynemouth Castle now overhangs the
sea, although formerly separated from it by a strip of land, and
in the old maps of Yorkshire we find spots, now sandbanks in
the sea, marked as the ancient sites of the towns and villages
of Auburn, Hartburn, and Hyde. The cliffs of Norfolk and
Suffolk are subject to incessant and rapid decay. At Sherring-
ham, Sir Charles Lyell ascertained, in 1829, some facts which
throw light on the rate at which the sea gains upon the land.
There was then a depth of twenty feet (sufficient to float a
frigate) at one point in the harbour of that port, where only
forty-eight years ago there stood a cliff fifty feet high with
houses upon it! “If once in half a century,” remarks the great
geologist, “ an equal amount of change were produced suddenly
by the momentary shock of an earthquake, history would be
filled with records of such wonderful revolutions of the earth’s
surface ; but if the conversion of high land into deep sea be
30 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
gradual, it excites only local attention.” On the same coast,
the ancient villages of Shipden, Wimpwell, and Eccles have
disappeared, several manors and large portions of neighbour-
ing parishes having gradually been swallowed up; nor has
there been any intermission, from time immemorial, in the
ravages of the sea along a line of coast twenty miles in
length in which these places stood. Dunwich, once the most
considerable seaport on the coast of Suffolk, is now but a
small village with about one hundred inhabitants. From the
time of Edward the Confessor, the ocean has devoured, piece
after piece, a monastery, seven churches, the high road, the
town-hall, the gaol, and many other buildings. In the sixteenth
century not one-fourth of the ancient town was left standing,
yet, the inhabitants retreating inland, the name has been pre-
served, —
“Stat magni nominis umbra,’—
as has been the case with many other ports, when their ancient
site has been blotted out.
The Isle of Sheppey is subject to such rapid decay, that the
church at Minster, now near the coast, is said to have been in
the middle of the island fifty years ago, and it has been con-
jectured that at the present rate of destruction, the whole isle
will be annihilated before the end of the century.
Another remarkable instance of the destructive action of
the tidal surge is that cf Reculver, on the Kentish coast, an
important military station in the time of the Romans, now
nothing but a ruin and a name. So late as the reign of
Henry VIII., Reculver was still a mile distant from the sea;
but, in 1780, the encroaching waves had already reached the
site of the ancient camp, the walls of which, cemented as they
were into one solid mass by the unrivalled masonry of the
Romans, continued for several years after they were under-
mined to overhang the sea. In 1804, part of the churchyard
with the adjoining houses was washed away, and then the
ancient church with its two lofty spires, a well-known land-
raark, was dismantled and abandoned as a place of worship.
Shakspeare’s Cliff at Dover has also suffered greatly from the
waves, and continually diminishes in height, the slope of the
hill being towards the land. About the year 1810, there was
SHAKSPEARE'S CLIFF. 31
an immense landslip from this cliff, by which Dover was shaken
as if by an earthquake, and a still greater one in 1772.
Thus the fame of the poet is likely to outlive for many
centuries the proud rock, the memory of which will always
be entwined with his immortal verse :—
“ How fearful,
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show searce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on th’ unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.”
The peninsulas of Purbeck and Portland, the cliffs of Devon-
shire and Cornwall, the coasts of Pembroke and Cardigan, the
stormy Hebrides, Shetland and Orcadia, all tell similar tales of
destruction, a mere summary of which would swell into a
volume.
During the most violent gales the bottom of the sea is said
by different authors to be disturbed to a depth of 300, 350, or
even 500 feet, and Sir Henry de la Béche remarks that when
the depth is fifteen fathoms, the water is very evidently dis-
coloured by the action of the waves on the mud and sand of
the bottom. But in the deep caves of ocean all is tranquil, all
is still, and the most dreadful hurricanes that rage over the
surface leave those mysterious recesses undisturbed.
82 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
CHAPS TE
THE TIDES.
Description of the Phenomenon.—Devastations of Storm-Floods on Flat Coasts.—
What did the Ancients know of the Tides ? — Their Fundamental Causes revealed
by Kepler and Newton.— Development of their Theory by La Place, Euler, and
Whewell.— Vortices caused by the Tides.— The Maelstrom.— Charybdis.— The
Barre at the mouth of the Seine.— The Euripus.
Living on the sea-coast would undoubtedly be deprived of one of
its greatest attractions, without the phenomenon of the tides,
which, although of daily recurrence, never loses the charm of
novelty, and gives constant occupation to the fancy by the life,
movement, and perpetual change it brings along with it. How
wonderful to see the sandy plain on which, but a few hours ago,
we enjoyed a delightful walk, transformed into a vast sheet of
water through which large vessels plough their way! How
agreeable to trace the margin of the rising flood, and listen to
its murmurs! Those of the rustling grove or waving cornfield
are not more melodious. And then the variety of interesting
objects which the reflux of the tide leaves behind it on the
beach — the elegantly formed shell, the feathery sertularia, the
delicate fucoid, and so many other strange or beautiful marine
productions, that may well challenge the attention of the most
listless lounger.
But the spectacle of the tides is not merely flesene to the
eye, or attractive to the imagination; it serves also to rouse the
spirit of scientific inquiry. It is indeed hardly possible to wit-
ness their regular succession without feeling curious to know by
what causes they are produced, and when we learn that they are
governed by the attraction of distant celestial bodies, and that
their mysteries have been so completely solved by man, that he
is able to calculate their movements for months and years to
come, then indeed the pleasure and admiration we fee) at their
DESCRIPTION OF TIDES. 33
aspect must increase, for we cannot walk upon the beach with-
out being constantly reminded that all the shining worlds that
stud the heavens are linked together by one Almighty power,
and that our spirit, which has been made capable of unveiling
and comprehending so many of the secrets of creation, must
surely possess something of a divine nature!
On all maritime coasts, except such as belong to mediterra-
nean seas not communicating freely with the ocean, the waters
are observed to be constantly changing their level. They regu-
larly rise during about six hours, remain stationary for a few
minutes, and then again descend during an equal period of time,
when after having fallen to the lowest ebb, they are shortly
after seen to rise again, and so on in regular and endless succes-
sion. In this manner twelve hours twenty-four minutes elapse
on an average from one flood to another, so that the sea twice
rises and falls in the course of a day, or rather twice during the
time from one passage of the moon through the meridian to the
next, a period equivalent on an average to 1,3, day, or nearly
twenty-five hours. Thus the tides retard from one day to
another; least at new and full moon, when our more active satel-
lite accomplishes her apparent diurnal motion round the earth
in twenty-four hours, thirty-seven minutes; and most at half-
moon, when, sailing more leisurely through the skies, she takes
full twenty-five hours and twenty seven minutes to perform her
daily journey.
As the retarding of the tides regularly corresponds with the
retarding of the moon, they always return at the same hour
after the lapse of fourteen days, so that at the end of each of
her monthly revolutions, the moon always finds them in the
same position. The knowledge of this fact is extremely useful
to navigators, as it is easy to calculate the time of any tide in a
port by knowing when it is high-water on the days of new and
full moon.
The height of the tides in the same place is as unequal and
changing as the period of their intervals, and is equally depen-
dent on the phases of the moon, increasing with her growth, and
diminishing with her decrease. New and full moon always
cause a higher rising of the flood (spring-tide), followed by a
deeper ebb, while at half-moon the change of level is much less
considerable (neap-tide). Thus in Plymouth, for instance, the
D
34 PITYSICAL GEOGRAPITY OF THE SEA.
neap-tides are only twelve feet high, while the ordinary spring-
tides rise to more than twenty feet.
The highest tides take place during the equinoxes; and
eclipses of the sun and moon are also invariably accompanied
by considerable floods, a circumstance which cannot fail to add
to the terror of the ignorant and superstitious when a mysterious
obscurity suddenly veils the great luminaries of the sky. It
has also been remarked that the tides are stronger or weaker,
according as the moon is at a greater or smaller distance from
the earth.
Thus as the height of the floods is always regulated by the
relative position of the sun and moon, and the movements of
these heavenly bodies can be calculated a long time beforehand,
our nautical calendars are able to tell us the days when the
highest spring-tides may be expected.
This however can only be foreto!d to a certain extent, as the
tidal height not only depends upon the attraction of the heavenly
bodies, but also upon the casual influences of the wind, which
defies all calculation, and of the pressure of the air. Thus Mr.
Walker observed on the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire that
when the barometer falls an inch, the level of the sea rises
sixteen inches higher than would otherwise have been the case.
When a strong and continuous wind blows in an opposite
direction to the tide-wave, and at the same time the barometer
is high, the curious spectators will therefore be deceived in their
expectations, however promising the position of the attracting
luminaries may be; while an ordinary spring-tide, favoured by
a low state of the barometer and chased by a violent storm
against the coast, may attain more than double the usual
height. When all favourable circumstances combine, an event
which fortunately but rarely occurs, those dreadful storm-tides
take place, as menacing to the flat coasts of the Netherlands as
an eruption of Etna to the towns and hamlets scattered along
its base, for here also a vast elementary power is let loose
which bids defiance to human weakness. It is then that the
rebel sea affords a spectacle of appalling magnificence. The
whole surface seethes and boils in endless confusion. Gigantic
waves rear their monstrous heads like mighty Titans, and hurl
their whole colossal power against the dunes and dykes, as if,
impelled by a wild lust of conquest, they were burning to devour
MAGNIFICENCE OF STORM-TIDES. 35
the rich alluvial plains which once belonged to their domain.
Far inland, the terrified peasant hears the roar of the tumul-
tuous waters, and well may he tremble when the mountain-waves
come thundering against the artificial barriers, that separate his
fields from the raging floods, for the annals of his country relate
many sad examples of their fury, and tell him that numerous
villages and extensive meads, once flourishing and fertile, now
lie buried fathom-deep under the waters of the sea.
Thus, on the first of November, 1170, the storm-flood, bursting
through the dykes, submerged all the land between the Texel,
Medenblik, and Stavoren, formed the island of Wieringen, and
enlarged the openings by which the Zuiderzee communicated
with the ocean. The inundations of 1232 and 1242 caused, each
of them, the death of more than 100,000 persons, and that of
1287 swept away more than 80,000 victims in Friesland alone.
The irruption of 1395 considerably widened the channels between
the Flie and the Texel, and allowed large vessels to sail as far
as Amsterdam and Enkhuizen, which had not been the case
before. Whilst reading these accounts, we are led to compare
the inhabitants of the Dutch lowlands with those of the fertile
fields and vineyards that clothe the sides of Vesuvius: both
exposed to sudden and irretrievab'e ruin from the rage of
two different elements, and yet both contented and careless
of the future; the first behind the dykes that have often given
way to the ocean, the latter on the very brink of a menacing
volcano,
The tides which sometimes cause such dreadful devastations
on the shores of the North Sea are, as is well known, incon-
siderable, or even hardly perceptible in the Mediterranean, and
thus many years passed ere the Greeks and Romans first wit-
nessed the grand phenomenon. The Phoenicians, the merchant
princes of antiquity, who at a very early period of history
visited the isolated Britons, —
“ Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, ” —
and sailed far away into the Indian Ocean, were of course well
acquainted with it; but it first became known to the Greeks
through the voyage of Coleus, a mariner of Samos, who, accord-
ing to Herodotus, was driven by a storm through the Straits of
Hercules into the wide Atlantic 600 years before Christ. About
D2
36 PITYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TITE SEA.
reventy years after this involuntary discovery, the Phoceans of
Massilia, or Marseilles, first ventured to follow on the track of
Coleus for the purpose of trading with Tartessus, the present
Cadiz; and from that time remained in constant commercial
intercourse with that ancient Phcenician colony.
With what eager attention may their countrymen have
listened to the wondrous tale of the alternate rising and sinking
of the ocean! Such must have been the astonishment of our
forefathers when the first Arctic voyagers told them of the
floating icebergs, and of the perpetually circling sun of the
high northern summer.
Thus the tides became known to the Massilians about five
centuries before Christ, but in those times of limited interna-
tional intercourse, knowledge travelled but slowly from place to
place; so that it was not before the conquests of Alexander,
which first opened the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to Grecian
trade, that the great marine phenomenon began to attract the
general attention of philosophers and naturalists.
The flux and reflux of the seais evidently so closely connected
with the movements and changes of the moon, that the intimate
relations between both could not possibly escape the penetrating
sagacity of the Greeks. Thus we read in Plutarch, that Pytheas
of Marseilles, the great traveller who sailed to the north as far as
the Ultima Thule, and lived in the times of Alexander the Great,
ascribed to the moon an influence over the tides. Aristotle ex-
pressed the same opinion, aud Cesar says positively (Commen-
taries, De Bel. Gal. book iv. 29,) that the full-moon causes
the tides of the ocean to swell to their utmost height. Strabo
distinguishes a three-fold periodicity of the tides according to
the daily, monthly, and annual position of the moon, and Pliny
expresses himself still more to the point, by saying that the
waters move as if obeying the thirsty orb which causes them
to follow its course.
This vague notion of obedience or servitude was first raised
by Kepler to the clear and well defined idea of an attractive
power. According to this great and self-taught genius, all
bodies strive to unite in proportion to their masses. “ The earth
and moon would mutually approach and meet together at a
point, so much nearer to the earth as her mass is superior to
that of the moon, if their motion did not prevent it. The moon
WHAT DID THE ANCIENTS KNOW OF TIDES ? 37
attracts the ocean, and thus tides arise in the larger seas. If
the earth ceased to attract the waters, they would rise and flow
up to the mocn.”
The general notion of a mutual attraction, however, did no
more than point out the way for the solution of the problem,
and it was reserved to our great Newton 1o accomplish the
prophecy of his great predecessor, *‘ that the discovery of the true
laws of gravitation would be accomplished in a future generation,
when it should please the Almighty Creator of nature to reveal
her mysteries to man.”
Newton was the first who proved that the tide-generating
power of a celestial body arises from the difference of the at-
traction it exerts on the centre and the surface of the earth.
Thus it was at once made clear how the water not only rises on
the surface facing the moon, but also on the opposite side of the
earth, as in the latter case the moon acts more strongly on the
mass of the earth than on the waters which cover the hemisphere
most distant from her. The evident consequence is that the
earth siiks (so to say), on the surface turned from the moon,
whereby a deepening of the waters, or, in other words, a rising of
the tide, is occasioned.
It now also became clear how the moon, whose attractive
power upon the earth is 160 times smaller than that of the
sun, is yet able to occasion a stronger tide, since, from her
proximity to the earth, she attracts the surface more forcibly
than the centre with the thirtieth part of her power, while the
distant sun occasions a difference of attraction on these two
points equal only to one twelve-thousandth part of her attrac-
tive force.
Now also a full explanation was first given why the highest
tides take place at new and full moon: that is, when the moon
stands between the sun and the earth; or the latter between the
sun and the moon; as then the two celestial bodies unite their
powers; while at half-moon the solar tide corresponding with
the lunar ebb, or the lunar tide with the solar ebb, counteract
each other.
But even Newton explained the true theory of the tides only
in its more prominent and general features, and the labours of
other mathematicians, such as MacLaurin, Bernoulli, Euler,
La Place, and Whewell, were required for its further development,
38 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SHA.
so as fully to explain all the particulars of the sublime phe-
nomenon.
The reproach has often been made to science, that she
banishes poetry from nature, and disenchants the forest and
the field; but this surely is not the case in the present instance,
for what poetical fiction can fill the soul with a grander image
than that of the eternal restlessly-progressing tide-wave, which,
following the triumphant march of the sun and moon, began as
soon as the primeval ocean was formed, and shall last uninter-
ruptedly as long as our solar system exists !
Were the whole earth covered with one sea of equal depth,
the tides would regularly move onwards from east to west, and
everywhere attain the same height under the same latitude.
But the direction and the force of the tide-wave are modified by
many obstacles on its way, such as coast-lines and groups of
islands, and it has to traverse seas of very unequal depth and
form. Flat coasts impede its current by friction, while it rolls
faster along deep mural coasts. From all these causes the
streneth of the tides is very unequal in different places.
They are generally low on the wide and open ocean. Thus
the highest tides at Otaheiti do not exceed eleven inches, three
feet at St. Helena, one foot and a half at Porto Rico.
But when considerable obstructions oppose the progress of the
tide-waves, such as vast promontories, long and narrow channels,
or bays of diminishing width, and mouths of rivers directly facing
its swell, it rises to a very great height. Thus, at the bottom of
Fundy Bay, which stretches its long arm between Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick, the spring-tides rise to sixty, seventy, or
even one hundred feet, while at its entrance they do not exceed
nine feet, and their swell is so rapid as frequently to sweep
away cattle feeding on the shore.
The Bristol Channel and the bay of St. Malo in Brittany, are
also renowned for their high tides. Near Chepstow, the flux
is said sometimes to reach the surprising height of seventy feet,
and at St. Malo the floods frequently rise to forty and fifty feet.
When the water is low, this small seaport town appears sur-
rounded on all sides by fantastically shaped cliffs covered with sea-
weeds and barnacles. Pools of salt water interspersed here and
there among the hollowed stones, or on the even ground between
them, and harbouring many curious varieties of marine animals,
THE TIDES AT ST. MALO. 39
are the only visible signs of the vicinity of the ocean, whose hoarse
murmurs are heard resounding from afar. But an astonishing
change takes place a few hours after, when the town, surrounded
by the sea, would be a complete island, but for a long, narrow
causeway called “the Sillon,” which connects it with the main-
land. On the side fronting the open sea, the tide breaks with
tremendous rage against the strong buttresses that have been
raised to oppose its fury, rises foamingly to a height of thirty or
forty feet, and threatens the tardy wanderer as he loiters on the
narrow causeway. The cliffs that erewhile were seen to sur-
round the town are now hidden under the waters, some few
excepted, that raise their rugged heads like minute islands above
the circumambient floods. The opposite side of the cause-
way is also washed by the sea; but here its motions are less
tumultuous, for after having broken against numberless rocks and
made a vast circuit, it scarce retains a vestige of its primitive
strength. On this side lies the vast, but deserted harbour of
St. Malo, completely dry at ebb-tide; a wide sea during the
flood.
Two eminent French authors, Chateaubriand and Lamennais,
were born at St. Malo, and there can be no doubt that the
imposing spectacle I have briefly described must have greatly
contributed to the widening of their intellectual horizon. Daily
witnesses from their early childhood of one of the grandest phe-
nomena of nature in all its wild sublimity, the boundless and
the infinite soon grew familiar to their mind, enriching it with
splendid imagery and bold conceptions.
Although the sun and the moon exert some attraction upon
the smaller and inclosed seas, yet the development of a power-
ful flood-wave necessarily requires that the moon should act
upon a sufficiently wide and deep expanse of ocean. Even the
Atlantic is not broad enough for this purpose, as its equatorial
width measures no more than one eighth of the earth’s circum-
ference: and the Pacific itself, notwithstanding its vast area, is
so studded with islands and shallows, that it presents a much
more obstructed basin for the action of the tide-wave than
might be expected, from its apparent dimensions and equatorial
position.
Thus it is in the Southern Ocean, where the greatest unin-
terrupted surface of deep water is exposed to the influence
40 PUYSICAL GEOGRAPITY OF TIE SEA.
of the moon, that we must look for the “ chief cradle of the
tides.” From this starting point they flow on all sides to the
northward, progressing like any other wave that arises on a
small scale in a pond from a gust of wind, the throwing of
a stone, or any other cause capable of producing an undulating
movement on the surface of the waters.
The tide-wave, which ultimately reaches our shores, arrives
at the Cape of Good Hope thirteen hours after it has left
Van Diemen’s Land, and thence rolls onward in fourteen or
fifteen hours to the coasts of Spain, France, and Ireland. It
penetrates into the North Sea by two different ways. One of
its ramifications turns round Scotland and thence flows onwards
to the south, taking nineteen or twenty hours for the passage
from Galway to the mouth of the Thames. A tide-wave, for
instance, which appears at five in the afternoon on the west
coast of Ireland, arrives at eight near the Shetland Islands,
reaches Aberdeen at midnight, Hull at five in the morning, and
Margate at noon.
The other ramification of the same tide-wave, taking the
shorter route through the Channel, had meanwhile preceded
it by twelve hours, having reached Brest about five o’clock of
the afternoon (at the same time that the northern branch
appeared at Galway), Cherbourg at seven, Brighton at nine,
Calais at eleven, and the mouth of the Thames at midnight.
Thus, in this southern corner of the North Sea, two tide-
waves unite that belong to two successive floods; the Scotch
branch having started twelve hours sooner from the great
Southern Ocean than the Channel branch, which thus results
from the next following tide. The meeting of the two branches
naturally gives rise to a more considerable rising of the waters,
so that this circumstance, by allowing large ships to sail up
the Thames, may be considered as one of the fundamental
causes of the grandeur of London.
In other parts of the North Sea, where the two tide-waves
appear at different times, the contrary takes place, for the
ebb of the one coinciding with the rising of the other, they
naturally weaken or even neutralise each other. This occasions
the low tides on the coast of Jutland, in Denmark, where they
are scarcely higher than in the Mediterranean, and explains
the otherwise startling fact of there being a space in the North
TIDES IN THE NORTH SEA—-THE MAELSTROM. 41
Sea where no periodical rise and fall of the waters whatsoever
takes place.
Thus we see that the relations of the tides in the North Sea,
with regard to height and time, are of a somewhat complicated
nature, which could only be explained after the numerous
observations (amounting to more than 40,000) made by order
of the British Government in all parts of the world, under
the direction of Professor Whewell, had proved that all the
floods of the seas chiefly proceed from the great tide-wave of
the Southern Ocean, which, by its numerous ramifications ia
narrow seas or through groups of islands and by the unequal
rapidity of its progress, according to the depth or shallowness
of the waters it traverses, occasions all the seeming anomalies
which were quite inexplicable by the simple Newtonian theory.
As every twelve hours a new tidal-wave originates in the
Southern Ocean which regularly follows in the same track as
its predecessor, the tides everywhere succeed each other in
regular and equal periods, and can thus everywhere be cal-
culated beforehand.
In narrow straits or in the intricate channels which wind
through clusters of islands, different tidal-waves meeting from
opposite directions give rise to more or less dangerous whirl-
pools. One of the most famous of these vortices, though incon-
siderable in itself, is the renowned Charybdis, which gave so
much trouble to Ulysses on his passing through the strait
which separates Sicily from Italy, but is at present an object
of fear scazcely even to the poor fisherman’s boat.
A much grander whirlpool, owing its celebrity, not to the
fictions of poetry, but to the magnificent scale on which it has
been constructed by nature, is the renowned Maelstrom, situated
on the Norwegian coast in 68° N. lat., and near the island of
Moskoe, from whence it also takes the name of Moskoestrom.
It is four geographical miles in diameter, and in tempestuous
weather its roar, like that of Niagara, is said to be heard several
miles off. John Ramus gives us a terrible description of its
fury, and mentions that in the year 1645 it raged with such
noise and impetuosity, that on the island of Moskoe, the very
stones of the houses fell to the ground. He tells us also that
whales frequently come too near the stream, and, notwith-
standing their giant strength, are overpowered by its violence,
42 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TIE SEA.
but, unfortunately adds, that it is impossible to describe their
howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to dis-
engage themselves—impossible, no doubt, as whales happen to
have no voice at all!
According to more modern travellers, such as the celebrated
geologist Leopold von Buch, the Maelstrom is far from being
so terrible as depicted by Ramus and other friends of the
marvellous; so that, except during storms and spring-tides,
large ships may constantly cross it without danger. The
Norwegian fishermen are even said frequently to assemble on
the field of the Maelstrom on account of the great abundance
of fishes congregating in those troubled waters, and fearlessly
to pursue their avocations, while the whirlpool moves their
boats in a circular direction.
Sir Robert Sibbald describes a very remarkable marine whirl-
pool among the Orkney islands, which would prove dangerous
to strangers, though it is of no consequence to the people who
are used to it. It is not fixed to any particular place, but arises
in various parts of the limits of the sea among these islands.
Wherever it appears, it is very furious, and boats would in-
evitably be drawn in and perish with it, but the people who
navigate them are prepared for it and always carry a bundle of
straw or some such matter in the boat with them. This they
fiing into the vortex which immediately swallows it up, and,
seemingly pleased with this propitiatory offering, subsides into
smoothness, but soon after re-appears in another place.
A remarkable and sudden rising of the spring-tide takes
place at the mouth of several rivers, for instance, the Indus
(where the surprising phenomenon nearly caused the destruction
of the fleet uf Alexander the Great), the Hooghly, the Dordogne,
&c. In the Seine it is observed on a scale of great magnitude.
While the tide gradually rises near Havre and Harfleur, a giant
wave is suddenly seen to surge near Quilleboeuf, spanning the
whole width of the river (from 30,000 to 36,000 feet). After
this migh y billow has struck against the quay of Quillebouf,
it enters a more narrow bed and flows stream-upwards with
the rapidity of a race horse, overflowing the banks on both
sides, and not seldom causing considerable loss of property by
its unexpectel appearance. The astonishment it causes is in-
creased when it takes place during serene weather, and without
THK MEDITERRANEAN—THE ADRIATIC. 43
any signs of wind or storm. A deafening noise announces and
accompanies this sudden swelling of the waters, which owes its
first origin to the silent action of gravitation, and is the result
of the diminishing velocity of the tide-wave over a shallow
bottom.
While the tide-wave advances over the deep and open seas
with an astonishing rapidity, its progress up the channel of a
river is comparatively very slow, partly on account of the reason
just mentioned, and partly from its meeting a current flowing
in an opposite direction.
Thus, the tide takes no less than twelve hours for its progress
from the mouth of the Thames to London, about the time it
requires to travel all the way from Van Diemen’s Land to
the Cape of Good Hope. Consequently, when it is high-water
at the mouth of the Thames at three o’clock in the afternoon,
for instance, we have not high-water at London Bridge before
three o'clock in the following morning, when it is again high
water at the Nore. But, in the mean time, there has been low
water at the Nore and high water about half-way to London,
and while the high water is proceeding to London, it is ebbing
at the intermediate places, and is low water there when it is
high water at London and at the Nore. If the tide extended
as far beyond London as London is from the Nore, we should
lave three high waters with two low waters interposed. The
most remarkable instance of this kind is afforded by the gi-
gantic river of the Amazons, as it appears by the observations
of Condamine and others, that, between Para, at the mouth of
the colossal stream, and the conflux of the Madera and Maranon,
there are no less than seven simultaneous high waters with six
low waters hetween them. Thus, four days after the tide-wave
was first raised in the Southern Ocean, its last undulations
expire deep in the bosom of the South American wilds.
The Mediterranean is generally supposed to be tideless, but
this opinion is erroneous; and in the Adriatic, the flux of the
sea is far from being inconsiderable, for, at Venice, the dif-
ference between high and low water is sometimes no less than
six or even nine feet. Mr. W. Trevelyan, during a summer
residence in the old port of Antium, on the Roman coast, found
from a svries of accurate observations, that the tides regularly
succeed each other and attain a height of fourteen inches.
i4 PILYSICAL GEHOGRAPILY OF THE SHA.
In the eastern Mediterranean new measurements have proved
that they are still more considerable, while in the western part
of that inclosed sea they are almost imperceptible.
The differences of level caused by the Mediterranean tides,
are indeed too inconsiderable to attract the general notice of the
inhabitants on the coast, but in the famed Euripus, the narrow
channel which separates the island of Eubcea or Negropont from
continental Greece, the tide produces the striking phenomenon
of very irregular fluctuations of the waters, from one end of the
channel to the other.
This phenomenon was of course completely inexplicable to
the ancient philosophers, and Aristotle is even said to have
drowned himself in the Euripus in a fit of despair, since, with
all his prodigious sagacity, he could not possibly solve the
mystery. For us, who know that peculiar formations of the
sea-bed and coasts are capable of considerably augmenting the
force of the floods, and that tidal waves rushing into a narrow
channel in opposite directions, and at different times, must
necessarily produce irregular fluctuations of the waters, the
phenomenon of the Euripus has ceased to be a mystery.
4A
CHAP. -LVi
MARINE CAVES.
Effects of the Sea on Rocky Shores.—Fingal’s Cave.—Beautiful Lines of Sir
Walter Seott.—The Antro di Nettuno. -The Cave of Hunga—Legend of its
Discovery.—Marine Fountains.—The Skerries.—The Souffleur in Mauritius.—
The Buffadero on the Mexican Coast.
Wuoever has only observed the swelling of the tide on the flat
coasts of the North Sea, has but a faint idea of the Titanic
power which it developes on the rocky shores of the wide ocean.
Even in fair weather, the growing flood, oscillating over the
boundless expanse of waters, rises mm tremendous breakers, so
that it is impossible to héhold their fury without feeling a con-
viction that the hardest rock must ultimately be ground to
atoms by such irresistible forces.
Day after day, year after year, thev renew their fierce attacks,
and as in the high Alpine valleys the tumultuous torrents rush-
ing from the glaciers tear deep furrows in the flanks of the
mountains, thus it is here the sea which stamps the seal of its
might on the vanquished rocks, corrodes them into fantastic
shapes, scoops ont wide portals in their projecting promontories,
and hollows out deep caverns in their bosoms.
Here, also, water appears as the beautifying element, deco-
rating inanimate nature with picturesque forms, and the sea
nowhere exhibits more romantic scenes than on the rocky shores
against which her waves have been beating for many a mil-
lennium. How manifold the shapes into which the rocky shores
are worn! how numberless the changes which each varying
season, nay, every hour of the day with its constant alternations
of ebb and flood, of cloud and sunsbine, of storm or calm,
produces in their physiognomy! Our coasts abound in beauties
such as these; but pre-eminent above all other specimens of
Ocean’s fantastic architecture is Fingal’s Cave, which may well
challenge the world to show its equal.
46 PITYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
From afar, the small island of Staffa, rising precipitously from
the sea, seems destitute of all romantic interest, but on ap-
proaching, the traveller is struck with the remarkable basaltic
columns of which it is chiefly composed. Most of them rest
upon a substratum of solid shapeless rock, and generally form
colonnades upwards of fifty feet high, following the contours of
the inlets or promontories, and overtopped with smaller hillocks.
Along the west coast of the island they are tolerably irregular,
but on the south side Staffa appears as an immense Gothic
edifice, or rather as a forest of gigantic pillars seemingly ar-
ranged with all the regularity of art. The admiration they
cause is, however, soon effaced when the vast cave to which the
remote islet owes its world-wide celebrity bursts upon the view.
Fancy a grotto measuring 250 feet in length by 53 in width at
the entrance, and spanned by an arch 117 feet high, which,
though gradually sloping towards the interior, still maintains a
height of 70 feet at the farthest end of the cavern! The walls
consist of rows of huge hexagonal basaltic pillars, which seem
regularly to diminish according to the rules of perspective.
The roof of the vault is formed of the remnants of similar
columns, whose shafts have beyond a doubt been torn away by
the sea, which, destroying them one after the other, has gra-
dually excavated this magnificent temple of Nature. All their
interstices, like those of the pillars, are cemented with a kind of
pale yellow spar, which brings out all the angles and sides of
their surfaces, and forms a pleasing contrast with the dark
purple colour of the basalt.
The whole floor of the cave is occupied by the sea, the depth
of which, even at its farthest end, is above six feet, during ebb-
tide ; but it is only in perfectly calm weather that a boat is able
to venture into the interior, for when the sea is any way turbu-
lent (and this is generally the case among the stormy Hebrides)
it is in danger of being hurled against the walls of the grot and
dashed to pieces. Under these circumstances, the only access
into the cave is by a narrow dyke or ledge running along its
eastern wall, about fifteen feet above the water. It 1s formed of
truncated basaltic pillars, over which it is necessary to clamber
with great caution and dexterity, as they are always moist and
slippery from the dashing spray. Frequently there is only
room enough for one foot, and while the left hand grasps that
FINGAL'S CAVE, 47
of the guide, it is necessary to hold fast with the right to fe
pillar of the wall. As this difficult path is most dangerous in
the darkest part of the cave, but few tourists are bold enough
to trust themselves to it, for the least false step must infallibly
precipitate the adventurous explorer into the seething caldron
below. Sometimesa cormorant, fearless of any accident of this
kind, has built his nest upon the top of one of the truncated
Fingal’s Cave.
pillars, which form the pavement of the pathway, and betrays
by a peevish hissing his ill humour at being disturbed in his
solitary retreat by the intrusion of man.
The narrow path ultimately widens into a more roomy and
slanting space formed of the remains of more than a thousand
perpendicular truncated shafts. The back wal] consists of a
range of unequally sized pillars, arranged somewhat like the
tubes of an organ. When the waves rush with tumultuous fury
48 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
into the cave and dash their flakes of snow-white foam against
its wall, it seems as if the gigantic instrument, touched by an
invisible hand, were loudly singing the triumphs of ocean.
Among the beauties of this matchless cave, the clear light
must not be forgotten, which, penetrating through the wide
portal, produces an agreeable chiaro-oscuro even at its farthest
end, so that the eye is able to seize at one glance the full
majesty of the splendid hall; nor the pure air which, constantly
renewed by the perpetual alternations of the tides, is very
different from the chilly dampness which generally reigns in
subterranean caverns.
When we consider the resemblance which from its regularity
this magnificent work of nature bears to a production of human
art, we cannot wonder at its having been ascribed to mortal
architecture. But as men of ordinary stature seemed too weak
for so colossal an enterprise, it was attributed to a race of
giants, who constructed it ‘for their chief and leader, Fingal,
so renowned in Gaelic mythology. This belief still lingers
among the primitive people of the neighbourhood, though
some, being averse to pagan Goliahs, ascribe its workmanship
to St. Columban.
The patriotic muse of Walter Scott, who visited the cave in
1810, rises to more than ordinary warmth while describing
“That wondrous dome,
Where, as to shame the temples deck’d
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less sulemn, tells
That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still between each awful pause
From the high vault an answer draws
Tn varied tones, prolonged and high,
That mocks the organ’s melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona’s holy fane,
That Nature’s voice might seem to say,
‘ Well hast thou done, frail child of clay,
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Task’d high and hard---but witness mine!’”
Lord of the Isles, canto iv. stanza 10.
THE CAVE OF HUNGA. 49
The Mediterranean has likewise its marine grottoes of world-
wide celebrity, its azure cave of Capri,* which I have previously
described, and its Antro di Nettuno, in the island of Sardinia,
about twelve miles from the small seaport of Alghero. Unfortu-
nately this superb grotto is very difficult of access, for any wind
between the north-west and the south prevents an entry, so that
the Algherese assert that 300 out of the 365 days it is impossible
to enter it. The first vaulted cavern, forming an antechamber
about thirty feet high, has no peculiar beauty, but on crossing a
second cavern, in which are about twenty feet of beautifully clear
water, and then turning to the left, one finds oneself in an
intricate navigation among stalactites with surrounding walls
and passages of stalagmites of considerable height. Havirg
passed them and proceeding westerly, one reaches another
cavern with a natural column in its centre, the shaft and capital
of which, supporting the immense and beautifully fretted roof,
reminds one of those in the chapter-house of the cathedral at
Wells, and the staircase of the hall at Christ Church, Oxford.
It stands, the growing monument of centuries, in all its massive
_and elegant simplicity with comparatively speaking few other
stalagmites to destroy the effects of its noble solitude. In
parts of the grotto are corridors and galleries, some 300 and
400 feet long, reminding one of the Moorish architecture of the
Alhambra. One of thein terminates abruptly in a deep cavern
into which it is impossible to descend; but among many other
interesting objects is a small chamber the access to which is
through a very narrow aperture. After climbing and scram-
bling through it, one finds oneself in a room the ceiling of
which is entirely covered with delicate stalactites, and the sides
with fretted open work, so fantastical that one might almost
imagine that it was a boudoir of the Oceanides, where they
amused themselves with making lime lace. Some of the
columns in different parts of the grotto are from seventy tc
eighty feet in circumference, and the masses of drapery droop-
ing in exquisite elegance are of equally grand proportions.
If a rare chance was required to discover the narrow opening
in the cliffs of Capri, behind which one of the loveliest spec-
tacles of nature lies concealed, we well may wonder how the
famous cave of Hunga in the Tonga Archipelago ever became
* Chap. i. p. 18.
E
50 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TILE SEA.
known, as its entrance even at low water is completely hidden
under the surface of the sea. Mariner, to whom we owe our
first knowledge of this wonderful play of nature, relates that
while he was one day rat-hunting * in the island of Hunga with
king Finow, who at that time reigned over Tonga, the barbarian
monarch took a fancy to drink his kawa f inthe cave. Mariner,
who had absented himself for a few moments from the company,
was very much astonished when, returning to the strand, he saw
one chieftain after another dive and disappear. He had but
just time to ask the last of them what they were about.
* Follow me,” answered the chieftain, “‘ and I will show thee a
place where thou hast never been before, and where Finow and
his chieftains are at present assembled.” Mariner immediately
guessed that this must be the celebrated cave of which he had
frequently heard, and, anxious to see it, he immediately followed
the diving chieftain, and swimming close after him under the
water, safely reached the opening in the rock through which he
emerged into the cave. On ascending to the surface, he imme-
diately heard the voices of the company, and still following his
guide, climbed upon a projecting ledge on which he sat down.
All the light of the cave was reflected from the sea beneath,
but yet it was sufficient, as soon as the eye had become accus-
tomed to the twilight, to distinguish the surrounding objects.
A clearer light being, however, desirable, Mariner once more
dived, swam to the strand, fetched his pistol, poured a good
quantity of powder on the pan, wrapped it carefully up in tapa-
cloth and leaves, and, providing himself with a torch, returned
as quickly as possible to the cave. Here he removed the cloth,
a great part of which was still quite dry, and igniting it by the
flame of the powder made use of it to light his torch. This
was probably the very first time since its creation that the cave
had ever been illumined by artificial light. Its chief compart-
ment, which on one side branched out into two smaller cavities,
seemed to be about forty feet wide and the mean height above
the water amounted to as much. The roof was ornamented in
a remarkable manner by stalactites resembling the arches and
fantastic ornaments of a Gothic hall. According to a popular
* A favourite pastime of the Polynesian chiefs.
+ An intoxicating beverage extracted from the Piper methysticum, a species of
pepper plant.
THE CAVE OF HUNGA. 61
tradition, the chieftain who first discovered this remarkable cave
while diving after a turtle, used it subsequently as a place of
refuge for his mistress to screen her from the persecutions of
the reigning despot. The sea faithfully guarded his secret:
after a few weeks of seclusion, he fled with his beloved to the
Feejee Islands, and on his returning to his native home after
the death of the tyrant, his countrymen heard with astonish-
ment of the wonderful asylum that had been revealed to him
by the beneficent sea-gods. Lord Byron adopted this graceful
tale as the subject of his poem “ The Island, or Christian and
his Comrades,” and has thus described the cave, no doubt
largely adorning it from the stores of his brilliant fancy:
“ Around she pointed to a spacious cave,
Whose only portal was the keyless wave
(A hollow archway, by the sun unseen,
Save through the billows’ glassy veil of green,
On some transparent ocean holiday,
When all the finny people are at play).
“ Wide it was and high;
And showed a self-born Gothic canopy.
The arch upreared by Nature’s architect,
The architraye some earthquake might erect ;
The buttress from some mountain’s bosom hurl'd,
When the poles crash’d and water was the world ;
Or harden’d from some earth-absorbing fire,
While yet the globe reek’d from its funeral pyre.
The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,
Were there, all scoop'd by darkness from her cave.
There, with a little tinge of fantasy,
Fantastic faces mopp’d and mow’d on high;
And then a mitre or a shrine would fix
The eye upon its seeming crucifix.
Thus Nature played with the stalactites,
And built herself a chapel of the seas.”
On many rocky shores the ocean has worn out subterraneous
channels in the cliffs against which it has been beating for ages,
and then frequently emerges in water-spouts or fountains from
the opposite end. Thus, in the Skerries, one of the Shetland
Islands, a deep chasm or inlet, which is open overhead, is con-
tinued under ground and then again opens to the sky in the
middle of the island. When the water is high, the waves rise
up through this aperture like the blowing of a whale in noise
and appearance.
E 2
52 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEa.
A similar phenomenon is exhibited on the south side of the
Mauritius, at a point called “ The Souffleur,” or “* The Blower.”
“A large mass of rock,” says Lieutenant Taylor,* “runs out
into the sea from the mainland, to which it is jomed by a neck
of rock not two feet broad. The constant beating of the tre-
mendous swell, which rolls in, has undermined it in every direc-
tion, till it has exactly the appearance of a Gothic building with
a number of arches. In the centre of the rock, which is about
thirty-five or forty feet above the sea, the water has forced two
passages vertically upwards, which are worn as smooth and
cylindrical as if cut by a chisel. When a heavy sea rolls in,
it of course fills in an instant the hollow caverns underneath,
and finding no other egress, and being borne in with tremen-
lous violence, it rushes up these chimneys and flies, roaring
furiously, to a height of full sixty feet. The moment the wave
recedes, the vacuum beneath causes the wind to rush into the
two apertures with a loud humming noise, which is heard at
a considerable distance. My companion and I arrived there
before high water, and, having climbed across the neck of rock,
we seated ourselves close to the chimneys, where I proposed
making a sketch, and had just begun when in came a thunder-
ing sea, which broke right over the rock itself and drove us
back much alarmed.
“Our negro guide now informed us that we must make haste
to recross our narrow bridge, as the sea would get up as the
tide rose. We lost no time and got back dry enough; and I
was obliged to make my sketches from the mainland. In about
three-quarters of an hour the sight was truly magnificent. I
do not exaggerate in the least when I say that the waves rolled
in, long and unbroken, full twenty-five feet high, till, meeting the
headland, they broke clear over it, sending the spray flying over
to the mainland; while from the centre of this mass of foam,
the Souffleur shot up with a noise, which we afterwards heard
distinctly between two and three miles. Standing on the main
cliff, more than a hundred feet above the sea, we were quite
wet. All we wanted to complete the picture was a large ship
going ashore.”
A similar phenomenon, on a still more grand and majestic
scale, occurs near Huatulco, a small Mexican village on the
* Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. ili. 1833.
tee ae on Se ee e
nr F
M =
’ {
a thy
“
\ *
io
1 4 »®
he is . <2
gorci
Rok.
.
A
~s
’
i
4.
=
r
.
*
t
be ‘ ‘ iy 6 A
- fa | i ;
Fern, ee ieee Pants }
A \d :
bod r A . had ii
\ * r
s bal q s -
» { Ni i .
as i i ah
! ‘ teed rg ee ¢
7 e . * a, ; be ‘ ' : |
At \ hs ; « 4 \
ote o
Be
THE SOUFFLEUR.
Yuts plate shows the sea beating against some hollow rocks on the coast of the
Mauritius, and producing the remarkable phenomenon called “ The Souffleur,’ ot
‘The Blower,” water-spouts issuing from the wave-worn cavities of the cliff to a
considerable height, and with a noise distinctly audible at a distance of three
miles,
MAURITIUS.
sr Na
THE SOUFFLEUR ROCK,
Ki
\
NNN HATA TNA lish
WAAAY MI Will! WA A ta
WU I PLURAL Hu Wlld | ERNE
THE BUFFADERO. 53
coast of the Pacific. On sailing into the bay one hears a dis-
tant noise, which might be taken for the spouting of a gigantic
whale, or the dying groans of a bull struck by the sharp steel
of the matador, or the rolling of thunder. Anxious to know
the cause, “It is the Buffadero,” answer the boatmen, pointing
to a fantastically-shaped rock towards which they are rowing.
On approaching, a truly magnificent spectacle reveals itself; for
a colossal fountain springs from an aperture in the rock to a
hight of 150 feet, and after having dissolved in myriads of gems,
returns to the foaming element which gave it birth. This
beautiful sight renews itself as often as the breakers rush
against the rock, and must be of unequalled splendour wken a
tornado sweeps across the ocean and rolls its giant billows into
the hoilowed bosom of the cliff.
54
CHAP. Ve
OCEAN CURRENTS.
Causes of the Oceanic Currents.—The Equatorial Stream.—The Gulf Stream.—
Its Influence on the Climate of the West European Coasts.—The Cold Peruvian
Stream.— The Japanese Stream.
PeRPETUAL motion and change is the grand law, to which the
whole of the created universe is subject, and immutable stability
is nowhere to be found, but in the Eternal mind that rules and
governs all things. The stars, which were supposed to be fixed
to the canopy of heaven, are restless wanderers through the
illimitable regions of space. The hardest rocks melt away
under the corroding influence of time, for the elements never
cease gnawing at their surface, and dislocating the atoms of
which they are composed. Our body appears to us unchanged
since yesterday, and yet how many cf the particles which formed
its substance, have within these few short hours, been cast off
and replaced by others. We fancy ourselves at rest, and yet a
torrent of blood, propelled by an indefatigable heart, is con-
stantly flowing through all our arteries and veins.
A similar external appearance of tranquillity might deceive
the superficial observer, when sailing over the vast expanse of
ocean, at a time when the winds are asleep, and its surface is
unruffled by a wave. But how great would be his error! For
every atom of the boundless sea is constantly moving and
changing its place; from the depth to the surface, or from the
surface to the depth; from the frozen pole to the burning
equator, or from the torrid zone to the arctic ocean; now rising
in the air in the form of invisible vapours, and then again de-
scending upon our fields in fertilising showers.
The waters are, in fact, the greatest travellers on earth; they
know all the secrets of the submarine world; climb the peaks
CAUSES OF OCEAN CURRENTS. 55
of inaccessible mountains, shame the flight of the condor as he
towers over the summit of the Andes, and penetrate deeper into
the bowels of the earth than the miner has ever sunk his shaft.
Leaving their wanderings through the regions of air to the
next chapter, I shall now describe the principal ocean currents,
the simple, but powerful agencies by which they are set in
motion, their importance in the economy of nature, and their
influence on the climate of different countries.
Even in the torrid zone, the waters of the ocean, like a false
friend, are warm merely cn the surface, and of an almost icy cold-
ness at a considerable depth. This low temperature cannot be
owing to any refrigerating influence at the bottom of the sea,
as the internal warmth of the earth increases in proportion to its
depth, and the waters of protuund lakes, in a southern climate,
never show the same degree of cold as those of the vast ocean.
The phenomenon can thus only arise from a constant sub-
marine current of cold water from the poles to the line, and
strange as it may seem, its primary cause is to be sought for in
the warming rays of the sun, which, as we all know, distributes
heat in a very unequal manner over the surface of the globe.
Heat expands all liquid bodies, and renders them lighter ;
cold increases their weight by condensation. In consequence of
this physical law, the waters of the tropical seas, rendered
buoyant by the heat of a vertical sun, must necessarily rise and
spread over the surface of the ocean to the north and south,
whilst colder and heavier streams from the higher latitudes
flow towards the equator along the bottom of the ocean, to re-
place them as they ascend.
In this manner, the unequal action of the sun calls forth a
general and constant movement of the waters from the poles to
the equator, and from the equator to the poles; and this per-
petual migration is one of the chief causes by which their purity
is maintained. These opposite currents would necessarily flow
direct to the north or south, were they not deflected from their
course by the rotation of the earth, which gradually gives them
a westerly or easterly direction,
The unequal influence of the sun in different parts of the
globe, and the rotation of the earth, are, however, not the only
causes by which the course of ocean-currents is determined.
Violent storms move the waters to a considerable depth, and
&6 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
retard the flow of rivers, and thus it is to be expected that con-
tinuous winds, even of moderate strength, must have a tendency
to impel the waters in the same direction.
The steady trade-winds of the tropical zone, and the prevail-
ing westerly winds in higher latitudes, consequently unite their
influence with that of the above mentioned causes, in driving
the waters of the tropical seas to the west, and those of the
temperate zones to the east.
The tides also, which on the high seas generally move from
east to west, promote the flow of the ocean in the same
direction, and thus contribute to the westerly current of the
tropical seas.
Nor must we forget that the obstacles which the ocean-
currents meet on their way; such as intervening lines of coast,
sand banks, submarine ridges, or mountain chains, have a great
influence upon their course, and may even give them a dia-
metrically opposite direction to that which they would otherwise
have followed.
Having thus briefly mentioned the origin and causes of the
currents, which intersect the seas like huge rivers, I shall now
describe such of them as are most important and interesting in
a geographical point of view.
In the northern part of the Atlantic, between Europe, North
Africa, and the New World, the waters are constantly perform-
ing a vast circular or rotatory movement. Under the tropics
they proceed like the trade-winds from east to west, assisting
the progress of the ships that sail from the Canaries to South
America, and rendering navigation in a straight line from Car-
thagena de Indias to Cumana (stream upwards) next to im=
possible. This westerly current receives a considerable addition
from the Mozambique stream, which, flowing from north to
south between Madagascar and the coast of Caffraria, proceeds
round the southern extremity of Africa, and after rapidly ad-
vancing to the north, along the western coast of that continent,
as far as the island of St. Thomas, unites its waters with those
of the equatorial current, and continues its course right across
the Atlantic. In this manner the combined tropical streams
reach the eastern extremity of South America (Cape Roque),
where they divide into two arms. The one flowing to the south
follows the south-eastern coast, and vradually takes a south-
THE GULF-STREAM. 57
easterly direction, between the tropic of Capricorn and the
mouth of the La Plata river, beyond the limits of the trade-
winds. Its traces show themselves to the south-east of the Cape
of Good Hope, and are finally lost far in the Indian Ocean.
The northern arm of the equatorial stream flows along the
north-eastern coast of South America; constantly raising its
temperature under the influence of a tropical sun, and progress-
ing with a rapidity of a hundred miles in twenty-four hours (six
feet and a half in-a second), after having been joined by the
waters of the Amazon river. Thus it continues to flow to the
east, until the continent of Central America opposes an in-
vineible barrier to its farther progress in this direction, and
compels it to follow the windings of the coast of Costa Rica,
Mosquitos, Campeche, and Tabasco. It then performs a vast
circuit along the shores of the Mexican Gulf, and finally
emerges through the Straits of Bahama into the open ocean.
Here it assumes a new name, and forms what navigators call
the Gulf-stream, a rapid current of tepid water, which, flowing
in a diagonal direction, recedes farther and farther from the
coast of North America as it advances to the north-east. Under
tke forty-first degree of latitude it suddenly bends to the east,
gradually diminishing in swiftness, and at the same time in-
creasing in width.
Thus it flows across the Atlantic, to the south of the great
bank of Newfoundland, where Humboldt found the temperature
of its stream several degrees higher than that of the neighbour-
ing and tranquil waters, which form, as it were, the banks of the
warm oceanic current. Ere it reaches the western Azores, it
divides into two arms, one of which is driven, partly by the
natural impulse of its stream, but principally by the prevail-
ing westerly and north-westerly winds, towards the coasts of
Europe; while the other, flowing towards the Canary Islands and
the western coast of Africa, finally returns into the equatorial
current.
In this manner the waters are brought back to the point from
which they came, after having performed a vast circuit of 20,000
miles, which it took them nearly three years to accomplish.
According to Humboldt’s calculations, a boat left to the current,
and moving along without any other assistance, would require
about thirteen months to float from the Canary Islands to the
58 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
Caribbean Sea as far as Caraccas. From Caraccas to the
Straits of Florida, it would remain another ten months on the
way, for though the direct distance is but short, the current has
to perform an enormous circuit of 2500 miles, and flows but
slowly in those confined seas. But the accumulated waters
having now to force their passage through the narrow channel
between Cuba and the Bahama Islands on one side, and Florida
on the other, attain so considerable a velocity, that the whole
distance from the Havannah to the Bank of Newfoundland, is
traversed in forty days. During this passage the Gulf-stream
particularly deserves its name, and is easily distinguished from
the surrounding waters by its higher temperature and its vivid
dark blue colour. Numerous marine animals of the tropical
seas,— the flying fish, the neat velella, the purple ianthina, the
crosier nautilus, accompany it to latitudes which otherwise would
prove fatal to their existence; and, trusting its tepid stream,
float or swim along to the north or the north-east.
At the extremity of the Bank of Newfoundland, it becomes
broader, wavers more or less in its course, according to the
prevailing winds, and at the same time decreases in rapidity, so
that the boat would most likely still require from ten to eleven
months for this last station of its journey, ere it once more
reached the Canary Islands.
The direction of the Gulf-stream explains to us how the pro-
ductions of tropical America are so frequently found on the
shores of the Eastern Atlantic. Humboldt relates that the
main-mast of the “ Tilbury,” a ship of the line, wrecked during
the seven years’ war on the coast of San Domingo, was carried
by the Gulf-stream to the North of Scotland ; and cites the still
more remarkable fact, that casks of palm oil belonging to the
eargo of an English vessel, which foundered on a rock near Cape
Lopez, likewise found their way to Scotland, having thus twice
traversed the wide Atlantic; first borne from east to west by the
equatorial current, and then carried from west to east, between
45° and 55° N. latitude, by means of the Gulf-stream.
Major Renuell (“ Investigation of Currents ”) relates the pere-
grinations of a bottle, thrown overboard from the “ Newcastle,”
on the 20th of January, 1819, in lat. 38° 52’, and long. 66° 20’,
and ultimately found on the 2nd of June, 1820, on the shore
of the Island of Arran.
ESQUIMAUX DRIFTED TO SHETLAND. 59
On the 16th of April, 1853, another bottle cast into the
waters in the vicinity of the Bank of Newfoundland, on the
15th of March, 1852, was found near Bayonne, not far from the
mouth of the Adour.
On the coasts of Orcadia, a sort of fruit, commonly known by
the name of Molucca, or Orkney beans, are found in large
quantities, particularly after storms of westerly wind.
These beans are the produce of West Indian trees (Anacar-
dium occidentale), and find their way from the woods of Cuba
and Jamaica, to the Ultima Thule of the ancients, by means of
the Gulf-stream.
Large quantities of American drift-wood are transported by
the same current to the dreary shores of Iceland, —a welcome gift
to the inhabitants of a region where the highest tree is but a
dwarfish shrub, and cabbages of the size of an apple are raised,
as a great rarity, in the governor’s garden.
A short time before Humboldt visited the island of Teneriffe,
the sea had thrown out the trunk of a North American cedar-tree
(Cedrela odorata), covered with the mosses and.lichens that had
grown upon it in the virgin forest.
The Gulf-stream has even contributed to the discovery of
America, for it is well known that Columbus was strengthened
in his belief in the existence of a western continent, by the
stranding on the Azores of bamboos of an enormous size, of
artificially carved pieces of wood, of trunks of a species of
Mexican pine, and of the dead bodies of two men, whose features,
resembling neither those of the inhabitants of Europe nor of
Africa, indicated a hitherto unknown race. But not only life-
less and inanimate objects find their way across the wide At-
lantic by means of the Gulf-stream and its spreading waters ;
the living aborigines of the distant regions of America have also
sometimes been driven towards the coasts of Europe by the
combined action of the currents and the winds. Thus, James
Wallace tells us that, in the year 1682, a Greenlander in his
boat was seen by many people near the south point of the
island of Eda, but escaped pursuit. In 1684 another Green-
land fisherman appeared near the island of Wistram. An Ks-
‘quimaux canoe, which the current and the storm had cast ashore,
is still to be seen in the church of Burra. In Cardinal Bembo’s
** History of Venice,” it is related that, in the year 1508, a small
60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA,
boat with seven strange-featured men, was captured by a French
vessel in the North Sea. The description given of them cor-
responds exactly with the appearance of the Esquimaux; they
were of a middle-size, of a dark colour, and had a broad face with
spreading features, marked with a violet scar. No one under-
stood their language. They were clothed in seal-skins. They
ate raw flesh, and drank blood as we do wine. Six of these
men died on the journey; the seventh, a youth, was presented
to the King of France, who at that time was residing at Orleans.
The appearance of so-called Indians on the coast of the
German Sea, under the Othos and Frederic Barbarossa, or even,
as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Melas, and Pliny relate, at the
time when Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul in Gaul,
may be explained by similar effects of the current and continu-
ous north-easterly winds. A king of the Boians made a present
of the stranded dark-coloured men to Metellus Celer. Gomara,
in his General History of the Indies,” expresses a belief that
these Indians were natives of Labrador, which would be doubly
interesting as the first instance recorded in history of the natives
of the Old and the New World having been brought into contact
with each other. We can easily account for the appearance of
Esquimaux on the North European coasts in former times; as
during the eleventh and twelve centuries, their race was much
more numerous than at present, and extended, as we know,
from the researches of Rask and Finn Magnussen, from Labrador
to the good Winland, or the shores of the present State of
Massachusetts and Connecticut.
If we compare the climates on the opposite coasts of the
Northern Atlantic, we find a remarkable difference in favour of
the Old World. The frozen regions of Labrador, lie under the
same degree of latitude as Plymouth, where the myrtle and
laurel remain perpetually verdant in the open air. In New
York, which has a more southern situation than Rome, the
winter is colder than at Bergen in Norway, which lies 20°
farther to the north. While on the northern coasts of the old
continent, the waters remain open a great part of the year,
even beyond the latitude of 80°, the ice never completely thaws
on the opposite shores of Greenland. What a contrast between
the Feroe islands, where the harbours are never frozen, where
fertile meadows afford pasturage to numerous flocks of sheep,
INFLUENCE OF THE GULF-STREAM ON CLIMATES. 61
and even crops of barley reward the labours of the husbandman,
and the frightful wildernesses on the shores of Hudson’s Straits!
—and yet both are situated under the same latitude of 62°.
The milder winter and earlier spring which characterise tho
north-west coast of Europe, are due, in some measure, to the
prevailing westerly winds ; but there can be no doubt that they
are mainly owing to the influence of the Gulfstream, which, as
we have seen, conveys the heated waters of the Mexican Gulf
far to the north-east, and thus imparts warmth to the climate
of our native isle. In both seas, on the contrary, which bound
the peninsula or island of Greenland, icy currents descend, and
continue their course to the south, along the coasts of North
America. Near Newfoundland their temperature, in May, is
found to be 14° lower than that of the air, and even in spring
and the early summer they carry along with them immense ice-
blocks, which are frequently drifted as far south as the latitude
of New York, and finally disappear in the Gulf-stream.
It is evident that the cold of winter must be increased, and
the spring retarded along the North American coasts by these
cold streams, just as the coasts of Europe are favoured by
streams of a contrary nature; and thus the ocean-currents go a
great way to explain the remarkable differences of climate
between the opposite shores of the Northern Atlantic.
On this occasion I cannot omit directing the reader’s atten-
tion to the influence which the far-distant barrier of Central
America has upon the climate of Great Britain. Supposing yon
narrow belt of land to be suddenly whelmed under the ocean,
then instead of circuitously winding round the Gulf of Mexico,
the heated waters of the equatorial current would naturally
flow into the Pacific, and the Gulf-stream no longer exist. We
should not only lose the benefit of its warm current, but cold
polar streams, descending farther to the south would take its
place, and be ultimately driven by the westerly winds against
our coasts. Our climate would then resemble that of New-
foundland, and our ports be blocked up during many months,
by enormous masses of ice. Under these altered circumstances,
England would no longer be the grand emporium of trade and
industry, and would finally dwindle down from her imperial
station to an insignificant dependency of some other country
more favoured by Nature.
62 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
On examining other coast-lands, in different parts of the
globe, we shall everywhere find the influence of the reigning
currents producing analogous effects to those I have already
mentioned.
The Southern Atlantic is not warmed like the European seas
by tepid streams, it is exposed on all sides to the free afflux of
the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean, and during the summer
months to the influence of drift ice. Thus, the southern ex-
tremity of America, Terra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands,
South Georgia, Sandwich Land, and other isles of the southern
ocean, have a much colder climate than the European coasts
and islands situated under the same latitude.
Let us for instance compare the temperature of the Falkland
Islands and of Port Famine in the Straits of Magellan, with
that of Dublin, which is situated at an equal distance from the
line.
Mean Temperature,
Latitude Winter. Summer. Annual,
Dublin 3 A é o OBle2 ING +4:0° R. 15°39 9:69
Port Famine 5 - > 908° 38'S. + 0.6 10:0 53
Falkland Islands . cC =) O22 308S: 4°36 11:8 8-24
Feroé Islands fm c Ol eaeN: 3°9 11°6 (Ei
Thus the climate of the Falkland Islands is, as we see, not
very different from that of the Feroé Islands, although the
latter lie ten degrees farther from the equator.
In the Pacific Ocean, as well as in the Atlantic, we find a
westerly current filling the whole breadth of the tropical zone,
from the coast of America to that of Australia and the Indian
Archipelago. The best known of its affluxes is the cold Peru-
vian stream, which, emerging from the Polar Sea, flows with
ereat rapidity along the shores of Chili and Peru, and does not
take a westerly direction, before reaching the neighbourhood of
the line. It has everywhere a remarkably low temperature,
comparatively to the latitude, and this sufficiently accounts for
the equal and temperate climate on the coasts of Chili and Peru.
Thus, the mean temperature of Callao (12° S. lat.) is only 20° R.
while in Rio Janeiro (23° S. lat.), though so much farther from
the line, the annual warmth rises to 23-2° R.
In the beginning of November, Humboldt found at Callao
the temperature of the sea within the current not higher than
15°5°, while outside the stream it rose to 26° or even 28°5° R.
THE JAPANESE STREAM. 63
Fven in the vicinity of the equator, after the current has
already assumed a westerly direction, its mean temperature does
not exceed 20°5.° But as it advances towards the west, its tem-
perature gradually rises to 27° or 28°.
On the western banks of the Pacific the equatorial stream
divides into several branches. Part of its waters flow to the
south, a greater quantity penetrates through the channels of
the south Asiatic Archipelago into the Indian Ocean, the re-
mainder turns to the north-east, on the confines of the Chinese
Sea, leaves the eastern coast of the Japanese Islands, and then
Japan Junks,
spreads its warm waters under the influence of north- westerly
winds over the northern part of the Pacific. Thus the Japanese
stream plays here the same part as the Gulf-stream in the
Atlantic, and exerts a similar, though less mighty influence
over the climate of the west coast of America, as it is neither so
large nor so warm, and, having to traverse a wider ocean, in
higher latitudes, naturally loses more of its heat during the
passage.
It is owing to this stream that Sitcha enjoys a mean annual
temperature of + 7° R., while Nain in Labrador, situated under
the same latitude, is indebted to the Greenland current for a
summer of + 7°8°, a winter of —18°5°, and a miserable annual
temperature of —3°6°. On the west coast of North America
F
» *
54 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, OF THE SEA.
the analogous trees grow 3° or 4° nearer to the pole, and the
aboriginal tribes go naked as far to the north as 52°, a simplicity
of toilet that would but ill suit the Esquimaux of Labrador.
Besides their beneficial influence on different climates the
ocean-currents tend to equalise, or to maintain the equilibrium
of the saline composition of sea-water, and thus secure the
existence of numberless marine animals. Their movements
also contribute to the formation of sand-banks, where at certain
seasons legions of fishes deposit their spawn and invite the per-
secutions of man.
The rapidity of currents is very different, but always impor-
tant enough to be taken into account by navigators. The well-
informed seaman makes use of them to traverse wide spaces
with greater rapidity, and, after an apparently circuitous course,
arrives sooner and more safely at his journey’s end than the
ignorant steersman, who vainly endeavours to strive agaiust
their power.
Pavonia Lactuca, with Polypes
in Natural Position.
D WATERSPOUTS.
AN
SE
HTHOU
LIG
LIGHTHOUSE AND WATER-SPOUTS.
A Licutuovusr on a rocky shore is represented as just lighted, the twilight
having become darkened by a sudden storm, during which the phenomena of
“ water-spouts” occur, which are represented to the left of the Lighthouse.
THE WINDS. 65
CHAP? V&
fE ABRIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS.
Movements of the Waters through Evaporation.— Origin ef Winds.—Trade-Winds.—
Calms.— Monsoons.— Typhoons.—Tornadoes.—Water-Spouts.—The Formation
of Atmospherical Precipitations.— Dew —Its Origin.— Fog.— Clouds.—Rain.—
Snow.—Hail Sources.—The Quantities of Water which the Rivers pour into the
Ocean.—Glaciers and their Progress.—Icebergs.— Erratie Blocks.—Influence of
Forests on the Formation and Retention of Atmospherical Precipitations.—
Consequences of their excessive Destruction.—The Power of Man over Climate.
—How has it been used as yet?
NEITHER storms nor ocean-currents, nor ebb and flood, however
great their influence, cause such considerable movements of the
waters, or force them to wander so restlessly from place to place
as the silent and imperceptible action of the warming sunbeam.
In every zone evaporation is constantly active in impregnating
the atmosphere with moisture, but the chief seat of its power is
evidently in the equatorial regions, where the vertical rays of
the great parent of ligl.t and heat plunge, day after day, into
the bosom of ocean, and perpetually saturate the burning air
with aqueous vapours.
In this chapter I intend following these invisible agents of
fertility and life, as they lightly ascend from the tropical seas,
and accompanying them in their various transformations, until
they once more return to the bosom of their great parent. A
cursory view of the benefits they confer on the vegetable
and animal world, as they wander over the surface of the land,
will, I hope, agreeably occupy the reader, and serve to increase
his admiration for that deep and dark blue ocean without
which all organic life would soon be extinct upon earth.
I begin with a few words on the winged carriers of marine ex-
halations, the winds, which, although now and then detrimental or
fatal to individuals by their violence, largely compensate for these
66 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
local injuries, by the constant and inestimable benefits they
confer on the whole body of mankind.
On taking a comprehensive view of their origin, we find
that, like the oceanic currents, they are chiefly caused by the
unequal influence of solar warmth upon the atmosphere under
the line and at the poles. In the torrid zone, the air, rarefied
by intense heat, ascends in perpendicular columns high above
the surface of the earth, and there flows off towards the poles, in
the same manner as in a vase filled with cold water and placed
over the flame of a lamp, the warmed liquid rises from the
Sottom and spreads over the surface.
But cold air-currents must naturally come flowing in an
opposite direction from the poles to the equator to fill up the
void, as in the example I have cited, colder and consequently
heavier water comes streaming down the sides of the vase to
replace the liquid which is rising in the centre under the
influence of heat.
Thus the unequal distribution of solar warmth over the
surface of the earth evidently generates a constant circulation
of air from the equator to the poles, and from the icy regions to
the tropics, and by this means the purity of the atmosphere is
chiefly maintained. The sun is not only the great fountain of
warmth, he is also the universal ventilator; he not only calls
forth animal life, but at the same time, by a simple and admirable
mechanism, provides for its health by constantly renewing the air,
which is essential to its existence.
If caloric were the sole agent which influences the direction
of the winds, or if the earth were one uniform plain, the opposite
air-currents I have mentioned would naturally flow straight to the
north and south; but their course is modified or diverted in the
same manner as that of the ocean-currents by the rotation of
the globe. Thus, the cold air-current (polar-stveam) which
comes rushing upon us from the Arctic regions, is felt in our
latitude as the biting east or north-east wind, so trying to our
nerves and organs of respiration, while we enjoy the warm
air-current from the tropics as the mild western or south-western
breeze.
But besides the rotation of the enrth, there are many other
local influences by which the winds are deflected from their
course, or by whose agency partial air-currents are called forth.
THE CALMS. 67
Among these we particularly notice high chains of mountains,
the unequal capacity of sea and land in absorbing and re-
taining heat, which gives rise to sea and land breezes; the
increasing or diminishing power of the sun in different seasong
by which the equilibrium of the air is modified in many cour-
tries, the difference of radiation from a sandy desert or a forest,
electrical discharges from clouds, &c. &e.
Although subject to many of these local disturbances, the
winds generally blow with an astonishing regularity in the
tropical zone; while in our variable climate the polar and
equatorial stream are engaged in a perpetual strife, now bring-
ing us warmth and moisture from the south and west, now cold
and dryness from the north and east.
Thus, in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean we find the trade-
winds perpetually blowing from the east, the north-east trade-
wind between 9° and 27° N. lat., and the south-east trade-wind
between 3° N. lat and 25°S. lat. It was by their assistance that
Columbus was enabled to discover America, and that the wretched
barks of Magellan traversed the wide deserts of the Pacific from
end to end.
Between these two regions of the trade-winds lies the dreadea
zone or girdle of the equatorial calms (doldrums), where long
calms alternate with dreadful storms, and the sultry air weighs
heavily upon the spirits.
“Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be; ,
And we did speak, only to break
The silence of the sea.
“ Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath, nor motion,
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
On their polar limits, the trade-wind zones are again girdled
with calm belts, the horse latitudes, whose mean breadth is
from ten to twelve degrees. The boundaries of these alternating
regions of winds and calms are not invariably the same, on the
contrary, they are perpetually moving to the north or south,
aceording to the position of the sun.
From 40° N. lat. to the pole, westerly winds begin to be
63 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
prevalent, and in the Atlantic Ocean their proportion to the
easterly winds is as two to one.
In the Northern Indian Ocean and in the Chinese Sea we alsu
find the trade-wind, which is there called the north-east monsoon;
here, however, it only blows from October to April, as during
the summer terrestrial influences prevail which completely divert
it from its course.
From the wide plains of central Asia, glowing with the
rays of a perpetually unclouded sun, the rarefied air rises
into the higher regions. Other columns of air rush from the
equator to fill up the void, and cause the trade-wind to vary
its course, and change into the south-western monsoons of the
Indian Ocean, which blow from May to September. The
regularly alternating monsoons materially contributed to the
early development of navigation in the Indian seas, and con-
ducted the Greeks and Romans as far as Ceylon, Malacca, and
the Gulf of Siam. Similar monsoons, or deflections from the
ordinary course of the trade-winds, occur also in the Mexican
Gulf, in the Gulf of Guinea, and in that part of the Pacific
which borders on Central America, through the influence of
the heated plains of Africa, Utah, Texas, and New Mexico.
The passage from one monsoon to the other is of course only
gradual, since the land also is only gradually heated and cooled.
Thus at the change of the monsoon, an atmospheric war of
several weeks’ continuance occurs, during which the trade-wind
and the monsoon measure their strength, and calms alternate
with dreadful storms (typhoons, cyclones, tornadoes).
According to the researches and observations of Franklin,
Cooper, Redfield, Reid, &c. &e., these storms are great rotatory
winds, that move along a curved line in increasing circles. In
the northern hemisphere, the rotatory movement follows a direc-
tion contrary to that of the hands of a clock; while the opposite
takes place in the southern hemisphere. ‘The knowledge of the
laws which regulate the movements of storms is of great impor-
tance to the mariner, since it points out to him the direction he
has to give his ship to gain the external limits of the tornado,
and thus to remove it from danger.
Water-spouts are formed by two winds blowing in opposite
directions, and raising or sucking up the water in their vortex
They generally form a double cone; the superior part with its
>
WATER-SVPOUTS. 69
apex downwards, consisting of a dense cloud, while the inferior
cone, the apex of which is turned upwards, consists of water,
which is thus sometimes raised to a height of several hundred
feet.
Water-spouts seldom last longer than half-an-hour. Their
course and movements are irregular; straight forwards; in z1g-
zag lines; alternately rising and falling; stationary; slow; or
progressing with the rapidity of thirty miles an hour. The ro-
79 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF. THE SEA
tatory movement is also variable; its power is often very great,
but sometimes water-spouts pass over smail vessels without in-
juring them. They are more frequent near the coast than on
the high seas; and are more commonly seen in warm climates,
They seem to occur particularly in regions where calms frequently
alternate with storms, which is not to be wondered at, since they
owe their origin to miniature storms or whirlwinds.
How do the aqueous vapours with which evaporation impreg-
nates the atmosphere, again descend upon the surface of the
earth?
Everybody knows that when in summer a bottle filled with
cold water is brought into the room, it soon gets covered with
thick dew-drops, which presently trickle down its sides, although
it was perfectly dry on entering. Whence does this moisture
come from? Not from the inside of the bottle as ignorant
people might imagine, but from the surrounding atmosphere ; in
consequence of the capacity of the air to absorb and retain mois-
ture, increasing or diminishing, as its temperature grows warmer
or colder.
Thus when the cold bottle is introduced into the room, the
warm sheet of air, which is in immediate contact with its surface,
immediately cools, and being no longer able to retain all the
moisture with which it was impregnated, is obliged to deposit it
on the sides of the vessel. This familiar example suffices to
explain the formation of dew, rain, hail, snow, hoar-frost, and
CAUSES OF DEW. @1
ull other atmospherical precipitations. They all result from the
influence of some refrigerating cause upon the air; such as the
passage of a warm current into a cooler region; the influx of a
cold wind; a cold-radiating chain of high mountains; a forest,
and so forth.
The very name of dew is refreshing, and calls forth a host of
pleasing ideas, associated as it is with the memory of serene skies
and sunny mornings. How beautiful are its diamonds glittering
in all the colours of the rainbow, on verdant meads, or on the
blushing petals of the rose. How suggestive of all that is lovely,
pure, and innocent !
Poetry is of older date than prose, and bards have sung long
before philosophers inquired. Thus, although the children of
song from Homer and Theocritus to Byron and Wordsworth so
frequently mention dew in their immortal strains, it is only in
our time that its formation has been fully explained by
Dr. Wells, who in a very ingenious’and masterly essay on this
subject, first proved that it results from the ground radiating or
projecting heat into free space, and consequently becoming
colder than the neighbouring air. During calm and clear
nights, the upper surfaces of grass-blades, for instance, radiate
their caloric into the serene sky, from which they receive
none in return. The lower parts of the plant, being slow
conductors of heat, can only transmit to them a small portion
of terrestrial warmth, and their temperature consequently
falling below that of the cireumambient atmosphere, they con-
dense its aqueous vapours. Clouds on the contrary compensate
for the loss of heat the grass sustains from radiation, by reflect-
ing or throwing back again upon the terrestrial surface, the
caloric which would else have been dissipated in a clear sky, and
this is the reason why dew does not fall, or but slightly falls
during clouded nights. It is easy to conceive why none is formed
in windy weather, as then the air in contact with the ground is
constantly removed ere it has time to cool so far as to compel it
to part with its moisture. We can also understand why dew is
more abundant in autumn and spring than at any other season ;
as then very cold nights frequently follow upon warm days; and
why it is most copious in the torrid zone, as in those sultry regions
the air is more saturated with moisture than anywhere else, and
the comparatively cold nights are almost constantly serene and
72 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA,
calm. Hoar-frost is nothing but congeaied dew, and owes its
formation to the same causes.
When warmer air-currents are cooled by being transported
into colder regions, or from any other refrigerating cause, a great
part of their moisture generally condenses into small vesicles,
but very little heavier than the surrounding atmosphere,
which then becomes visible under the form of clouds, thosa
great beautifiers of our changing skies, that frequently trace
such picturesque, gorgeous, or singular groups and landscapes
in the aérial regions. The inhabitants of countries where the
heavens are monotonously serene, may well envy us the charms
of a phenomenon which in some measure affords us compensa-
tion for so many disagreeable vicissitudes of the weather. Who
that has admired at sunset the light clouds so beautifully fringed
with silver and gold, or glowing with the richest purple, and
loves to foliow them in all their wonderful and fantastic trans-
formations, will deny that they are the poesy and life of the skies,
the awakeners of pleasing fancies and delightful reveries ?
Thin wreaths of clouds have been observed, by travellers that
have ascended the most elevated mountains, floating high above
the peak of Chimborazo or Dhawalagiri, and thus shows us to
what an amazing altitude the emanations of ocean are carried
by the ascending air-current.
Sometimes when light clouds pass into a warmer atmosphere,
they gradually dissolve and vanish; more frequently the accu-
mulating moisture, tov heavy to continue floating in the air, or
condensed by electrical explosions, descends upon the earth in
rain, which, with few exceptions, visits every part of the globe,
either in its liquid form or congealed to snow or hail. But the
quantity of rain which annually falls in different regions is very
unequal, and strange to say, it is not most considerable in those
countries whose climate enjoys an unenviable notoriety for its
clouded atmosphere and the great number of its rainy days.
In the tropical regions it is generally only about the time of the
summer solstice that abundant showers of rain fall regularly every
afternoon, while the rest of the year, the sky is uninterruptedly
serene; but during the short period of the rainy season, a far
greater quantity of water is precipitated upon the earth, than
in the temperate zones.
While on the island of Guadaloupe, the annual quantity of
MIGRATIONS OF TIE WATERS. 7A
rain amounts to 274:2 French inches, and to 283°3 at Maha-
buleshwar, on the western declivity of the Ghauts, which, as far
as has hitherto been ascertained, is the place where most rain
descends; only from 35 to 40 inches fall on the western coast
of England, where the skies are chronically weeping.
It is a remarkable circumstance that the annual quantity of
rain which falls in the same place remains about the same from
year to year; so that by an admirable balancing of conflicting
influences, nature seems to have provided for stability in a pro-
vince which of all others might be stpposed most open to the
caprices of chance.
Having thus followed the exhalations of ocean to the end of
what may be called the first stage of their journey, and seen
them descend ina condensed form upon the surface of the dry
land, I will now accompany them in their ulterior progress to
the bosom of the seas. A great part of them have many trans-
formations and changes to undergo ere they can accomplish
their return ; repeatedly rising in vapours from the solid earth,
and falling in showers upon its surface; or circulating through
the tissues of organic life: but after all these intermediate stages
and delays, they ultimately find their way into rivulets or
streams, which after many a meander restore them to the vast
reservoir from which they arose.
The waters that descend upon solid rocks, or fall in large
quantities upon abrupt declivities, immediately flow into the
brooks or rivers; but when they gently and gradually alight
upon a porous soil, they are absorbed by the earth, and, dis-
placing in virtue of capillary attraction, and of their superior
weight, the air which fills the interstices between its solid
particles, sink deeper and deeper until they meet with a solid
and impenetrable stratum. If this forms a hollow basin, they
naturally settle in the cavity; whence they are slowly displaced
by fresh accessions and evaporation; but if its deepest declivity
lies somewhere near the surface, they gradually gush forth
under the form of sources or springs, having unequal distances
to perform before they can reach the orifice. If no fresh supply
of water falls, ere the most distant particles have reached their
journey’s end, the source dries up: but if new atmospheric
precipitations continually take place, the source is perennial,
although naturaily of unequal strength at different times.
74 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPITY OF THE SEA.
The temperature of springs varies from icy coldness to boiling
heat. Cold. springs arise when the waters, by which they are
fed, descend from high mountains or do not penetrate a great
way into the bowels of the earth; but if the filtering waters
reach a depth which is constantly of a higher temperature, they
then gush forth in the form of warm or even boiling springs.
A crowd of agreeable associations attaches itself to the idea
of sources and springs, for they are generally both pleasing and
useful to man. How we long in summer for the refreshing
waters of the cool fountain issuing from the mountain side, and
murmuring through the woods. The lover of nature spends
hours near some solitary spring, and forgets the flow of time, as
he observes the bubbling and listens to the sweet music of its
crystal waters. A luxuriant vegetation marks their progress,
though all around be burnt up by the scorching sun. Along
their margin many a wild flower blooms, and herbs and shrubs
and trees rejoice in a more vivid green, and statelier growth.
There also congregate such members of the finny race, as
delight in cooler streams of untainted purity, and birds love to
build their nests among the sheltering foliage. Thus a little
world forms around the gushing spring, and shows on a dimi-
nutive scale, how all that lives and breathes depends upon the
liquid element for its existence.
While the waters filter through the earth they naturally
dissolve a variety of substances, and all springs are more or
less mixed with extraneous particles. But many of them, par-
ticularly such as are of a higher temperature and consequently
arise from deeper strata, contain either a larger quantity or
so peculiar a combination of mineral substances as to acquire
medicinal virtues of the highest order, and to become objects
of importance to a large portion of mankind. Numberless
invalids annually flock to the hygeian fountains which nature
unceasingly pours forth from her mysterious laboratory, and
are by them restored to the enjoyments of a pleasurable ex-
istence.
How truly wonderful is the chain of processes which first
raises vapours from the deep, and eventually causes them to
gush forth from the entrails of the earth, laden with blessings
and enriched with treasures more inestimable than those the
miner toils for!
_—
MOTION OF GLACIERS. 75
Although a river generally has its source in mountainous
regions, it must be remembered that all the waters that descend
upon the territory of which it forms the lowest level, gradually
find their way into its current. Thus, the monarch of all
streams, the Amazon River, is the natural drain of a territory
thirty times larger than England. Thousands of rivulets and
brooks, fed by the waters which descend from the slopes of
thousands of glens and valleys, or filter through the vast forest-
plains that rise but a few feet above their surface, all contribute
to swell the majesty of its current. Its sources are in reality
wherever, on that vast extent of land, water descends and drains
into any one of its innumerable affluents. When we hear that
on an average the river of the Amazons alone restores every
minute half a million of tons of water to the ocean, and then
consider the countless number of streams all alike active, that
are scattered over the globe, we may form a faint idea of the
vast quantity of vapours which are constantly rising from the
deep, and of the magnitude of these silent operations of nature.
Yet such is the immensity of ocean, that supposing all the waters
it constantly loses, never to return again into its bosom, it
would require thousands of years of evaporation to exhaust the
immensity of its reservoirs!
It might be supposed that the waters which congeal on the
sides of mountains covered with perennial snow, or fill
Alpine valleys in the form of glaciers, were eternally fixed on
earth—but there also we are deceived by delusive appearances
of immobility. Every year the glacier slowly but restlessly
makes a step forwards into the valley, and while its lower end
dissolves, new supplies of snow constantly feed it from above.
It has been calculated by Agassiz that the ice masses of the
Aar glacier require 133 years to perform their descent from its
summit to its inferior extremity—a distance of ten miles—so
that their sojourn in that chilled valley far surpasses that of the
oldest patriarch of the mountains. How great must be their
delight when they at last are liberated from the spell which so
long enchained them, and freely bound along on their way to
Ocean! How they must shudder at the idea of once more
returning to their desolate prison, and long for the perpetual
warmth of spicy groves and tropical gardens !
In the colder regions of the earth, in Greenland or Spitz-
76 PILTYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
bergen, immense glaciers frequently fill the valleys that open on
the sea, descend even beyond the water’s edge, and, as they
move along, their overhanging masses separate from their base
and plunge into the deep with a crash louder than thunder.
The icebergs that drift about the, Arctic seas, and are annually
conveyed by the currents into lower latitudes, are formed in
this manner. Huge blocks of granite, detached by atmo-
spherical vicissitudes from the higher mountains and precipitated
on the surface of the glaciers, frequently float on the broad back
of an iceberg far away from the spot where they seemed rooted
for eternity. As their crystal support melts away in its progress
to warmer climes, these rocky fragments, which have been
appropriately named erratic blocks, fall to the bottom of the sea
hundreds or even thousands of miles from the starting point of
their journey. Thus the great bank of Newfoundland is covered
with stones from distant Greenland, raised high in the air by
volcanic power myriads of years ago, and now condemned to an
equally long repose below the surface of ocean. When will
they rise again above the waters, and what further changes will
they have to undergo ere their compacted atoms resolve them-
selves into dust and assume new forms? But, however remote
their dissolution, it will inevitably come, for Time is all-powerful,
and has an eternity to work out his changes.
The large blocks of stone that so wonderfully migrate on the
wandering iceberg form but a small and insignificant portion of
the terrestrial spoils which are transported to ocean by the
returning waters. Every river is more or less laden with
earthy particles which its current carries onwards to the sea
and deposits at its mouth. In course of time their accumu-
lation, as I have already mentioned, forms large tracts of fertile
territory encroaching upon the maritime domains.
T shall end with a few words on the influence of forests in
attracting or retaining the atmospherical moisture, as it is a
subject of great importance in the economy of nations, and
shows us how much it is in the power of man to improve or to
defeat the provisions of nature in his favour.
Forests always cool the neighbouring atmosphere, for their
foliage offers an immense warmth-radiating surface, so that the
vapours readily condense above them and descend in frequent
showers. At the same time their roots loosen the soil, and the
INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON CLIMATES, 77
successive falling of their leaves forms a thick layer of humus,
which has an uncommon power in attracting and retaining
moisture. Their thick canopy of verdure also prevents the
rays of the sun from penetrating to the ground, and absorbing
its humidity. Thus the soil on which forests stand is constantly
saturated with water, and becomes the parent of perennial
sources and rills, that spread fertility and plenty far from the
spot where they originated.
The rain-attractive influence of forests did not escape the at-
tention of Columbus, who ascribed the frequent showers whick
refreshed and cooled the air, as he sailed along the coasts of
Jamaica, to the vast extent and density of the woods that
covered the mountains of that island. On this occasion he
mentions in his journal that formerly rain had been equally
abundant on Madeira, the Canaries, and the Azores, before their
shady forests were felled or burnt by the improvident settlers.
The wanton destruction of woods has entailed barrenness on
countries renowned in former times for their fertility. The
mountains of Greece were covered with trees during the great
epoch of her history, and the well-watered land bore abundant
fruits, and sustained a numerous population. But man reck-
lessly laid waste the sources of his prosperity. Along with the
woods, many brooks and rivulets disappeared, and ceased to
water the parched plains. The rain gradually washed the
vegetable earth from the sides of the naked hills, and condemned
them to sterility. When the snow of the mountains began to thaw
under the warm breath of spring, it was now no longer retained
by the spongy soil of the forests, and gradually dissolved under
their cover; but, rapidly melting, filled with its impetuous
torrents the bed of the rivers, and overflowing their banks,
spread ruin and devastation far around.
Unfortunately, forests when once destroyed are not so easily
restored, and it requires many centuries ere the bared mountain
side reassumes its pristine vesture of shady woods. First
lichens, mosses, and other thrifty herbs, content to feed upon
nothing, have to prepare a scanty humus for the reception of
more pretentious guests. In course of time some small stunted
shrub makes its appearance here and there in some peculiarly
favoured spot, and after all requires vast powers of endurance
to maintain itself on the niggard soil, exposed to the full enmity
G
78 PIYSICAL GEOGRAPITY OF THE SEA.
of wind and weather. This paves the way for a more vigorous
and fortunate offspring; and as every year adds something to
the vegetation on the mountain’s side, and opposes increasing
obstacles to the winds, the falling leaves and decaying herbage
accumulate more and more, until dwarfish trees first find a
sufficiency of soil to root upon, and finally, the proud monarch
of the forest spreads out his powerful arms and raises his
majestic summit to the skies.
While Greece and Asia Minor have seen their fertility de-
crease or vanish with the trees that once covered their hills,
other countries have improved as their vast woods have beer
thinned by the axe of the husbandman. In the time of the
Romans all Germany formed one vast and continuous forest,
and its climate was consequently much more rigorous than it
is at present. All the low grounds were covered with imper-
vious morasses, and the winter is described by historians in
terms like those we should employ to paint the cold of Siberia.
But the scene gradually changed as tillage usurped the sylvan
domain. The excessive humidity of the soil diminished, the swamps
disappeared, and the heat of the sea, penetrating into the bosom of
the earth, developed its productive powers. Thus the chestnut
and the vine now thrive and ripen their fruits on the banks of
the Rhine and the Danube, where 2000 years ago they could not
possibly have existed. But Germany would also see her fertility
decline, if the destruction of the forests which still crown the
brow of many of her hills should continue in a considerable
degree. Numerous rivulets would then be dried up during the
warm season, in consequence of the more rapid descent and
thaw of vernal rains and wintry snows, and most likely, refresh-
ing summer showers would be far less frequent. Even now
the inundations which almost annually desolate the banks of
the Elbe, the Oder, and the Rhine, are ascribed by competent
judges to the excessive clearing of the forests in the mountaimous
countries where those rivers originate. These few examples
suffice to prove to us the power of man in modifying the climates
of the earth, and the vast importance of the study of terrestrial
physics. By planting or destroying woods, he is able to compel
nature to a more equitable distribution of her gifts. In marshy
and low countries, he may remove the surperfluous waters by
drainage, and increase the productiveness of arid plains by
DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 79
judicious irrigation. Thus man is the lord and master of the
earth ; but hitherto he has done but little to reap all the advan-
tages he might have obtained from his dominion, or even used
it to his own detriment. Drainage, irrigation, and a judicious
management of forest-lands, are only beginning to be under-
stood even among the most enlightened nations. A great part
of our damp island still remains undrained, and we allow the
rivers of India to pour their waters into the sea, instead of
diverting them upon her thirsty plains. But there can be no
doubt that as knowledge increases, man will gradually learn to
provide every soil with the exact measure of humidity that is
requisite to make it bring forth its fruits in the greatest abun-
dance. Views such as these teach us, that, far from having at-
tained the summit of civilisation, we are still on the threshold
of her temple, and that most likely our descendants will look
down upon our present condition as we do upon that of our
barbarous ancestors.
Rocky Mouutains at the bend of Bear Lake River.
G 2
CHAR. Vil.
MARINE CONSTRUCTIONS.
Lighthouses.—The Eddystone.—Winstanley’s Lighthouse, 1696.—The Storm of
1703.—Rudyerd’s Lighthouse destroyed by Fire in 1755—Singular Death of
one of the Lighthouse Men.—Anecdote of Louis XIV.—Smeaton.—Bell Rock
Lighthouse —History of the Erection of Skerryyore Lighthouse.—Illumination
Lighthouses.—The Breakwater at Cherbourg.—Liverpool Docks.—The Tubular
Bridge over the Menai Straits.—The Sub-oceanic Mine of Botallack.
[vy one of the finest passages of * Childe Harold,” Byron contrasts
the gigantic power of the sea with the weakness of man. He
describes the resistless billows contemptuously playing with the
impotent mariner—now heaving him to the skies, now whelm-
ing him deep in the bosom of the tumultuous waters; he mocks
the vain pride of our armadas, which are but the playthings of
ocean, and points with a bitter sneer at the wrecks with which he
strews his shores. A less misanthropic mood or a more truthful
view of things might have prompted the wayward poet to celebrate
the triumphs of man over the brute strength of the winds and
waves; how, guided by the compass, he boldly steers through
the vast waste of waters, how he excavates the artificial harbour,
or piles up the breakwater to protect his bark against the destruc-
tive agencies of the billow and the storm, or how he erects the
lighthouse to point out the neighbourhood of dangerous shoals
or the entrance of the friendly port.
The various constructions planned and executed by man to
disarm the turbulent or perfidious seas of a great part of their
terrors, are indeed among the noblest monuments of his archi-
tectural genius, nor are any more deserving of universal ap-
planse and gratitude. Who has ever performed a winter voyage
homewards over the wide Atlantic and not felt a thrill of delight
when the first bright flash of light beamed over the dark waters
and welcomed him back to his native isle? or what generous
mind has ever experienced this feeling without devoting the
THE EDDYSTONE LIGIITILOUSE. 81
tribute of its thanks to the wise and beneficent men whose
energy and perseverance have succeeded in lighting every head-
land or estuary of our rugged coast? So completely has this
been done, that in the dark and stormy night, almost as well
as in the brightest day, the homeward-bound ship need not
approach danger without receiving friendly warning, for her
pathway is illuminated by gigantic fire-beacons so thickly set
that when one fades to the sight a new one rises to the view.
Among the numerous lighthouses with which the genius of
humanity has encircled our native shores, the Eddystone, the
Bell Rock, and the Skerryvore, are pre-eminent for the vast diffi-
culties that had to be surmounted in their construction, situated
as they are upon solitary rocks, exposed to the full fury of the
insurgent waves; and should by some revolution all other monu-
ments erected by man be swept away from the surface of our
land, and these alone remain, they would suffice to testify to
future ages that these islands were once inhabited by a highly
civilised and energetic race, one well worthy to lay claim to the
dominion of the seas.
At the distance of about twelve milesand a half from Plymouth
Sound, and intercepting, as it were, the entrance of the Channel,
the Eddystone rocks had been for ages a perpetual menace to
the mariner. The number of vessels wrecked on these perfidious
shoals must have been terrible indeed, it being even now a com-
mon thing in foggy weather for homeward-bound ships to make
the Eddystone Lighthouse as the first point of Jand of Great
Britain, so that in the night and nearly at high water, when the
whole range of the rocks is covered, the most careful pilot might
run his ship upon them, if nothing was placed there by way of
warning. As the trade of Engiand increased, the number of
fatal accidents naturally augmented, rendering it more and more
desirable to crest the Eddystone with a tutelary beacon ; yet years
elapsed before an architect appeared bold enough to undertake
the task. At length, in 1696, Mr. Winstanley, a country gentle-
man and amateur engineer, made the first attempt of raising a
lighthouse on those sea-beaten rocks, but as he was possessed
of more enterprise than solid knowledge, the structure he erected
was deficient in every element of stability. Yet such was the
presumption of the man that he was known to express a wish
that the fiercest storm that ever blew might arise to test the
Bie PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
solidity of the fabric. The elements took him at his word, for
while on a visit of inspection to his lighthouse the dreadful
storm of November 26, 1703, arose, the only storm whicb in
our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane.
“No other tempest,” says Macaulay in his Essay on Addison,
“was ever in this country the occasion of a Parliamentary
address or of a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away.
Large mansions had been blown down. One Prelate had been
buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had
presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of
families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks of large
trees and the ruins of houses still attested in all the southern
counties the fury of the blast.” No wonder that a tempest
like this swept away the ill-constructed lighthouse like the
‘‘unsubstantial fabric of a vision,” and that neither poor Mr.
Winstanley nor any of his companions survived to recount the
terrors of that dreadful night.
Strange to say, the task of rebuilding the Eddystone light-
house, which was now felt as a national necessity, once more
devolved, not upon a professed architect, but upon a Mr.
Rudyerd, a linendraper of Ludgate Hill, the son of a Cornish
vagrant, who had raised himself by his talents and industry frem
rags and mendicancy to a station of honourable competence.
The cheice, however, was not ill made, for, with the assistance of
two competent shipwrights, the London tradesman constructed
an edifice which, though mainly of timber, was so firmly bolted
to the rock with iron branches that for nearly half a century it
resisted the fury of the billows, and might have withstood them
for many a year to come had it not been rapidly and completely
destroyed by fire. This catastrophe, which happened on
December 2, 1755, was marked by a strange accident, for while
one of the light-keepers was engaged in throwing up water
four yards higher than himself, a quantity of lead, dissolved
by the heat of the flames, suddenly rushed like a torrent from
the roof, and falling upon his head, face, and shoulders,
burnt him in a dreadful manner. Having been conveyed
to the hospital at Plymouth, he invariably told the surgeon
who attended him, that he had swallowed part of the lead
while looking upward; the reality of the assertion seemed
quite incredible, for who could suppose it possible that any
JOHN SMEATON. 83
human being could exist after receiving melted lead into the
stomach, much less that he should afterwards be able to bear the
hardships and inconvenience from the length of time he was
in getting on shore before any remedies could be applied. On
the twelfth day, however, the man died, and having been opened
a solid piece of lead, which weighed above seven ounces, was
found in his stomach.*
Another interesting anecdote is attached to the history of
Rudyerd’s lighthouse. Louis XIV. being at war with England
while it was being built, a French privateer took the men at
work upon it and carried them to France, expecting, no doubt, a
good reward for the achievement. His hopes, however, were
doomed to a grievous disappointment, for while the captives
lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of the monarch,
who immediately ordered them to be released and the captors
to be put in their place; declaring that though he was at war
with England, he was not at war with mankind. He therefore
directed the men to be sent back to their work with presents;
observing that the Eddystone lighthouse was so situated as to
be of equal service to all nations navigating the Channel. It
is gratifying to meet with this trait of natural generosity in
a mind long since obscured by the bigotry which prompted
the revocation of the Edit de Nantes.
After these repeated disasters, the rebuilding of Eddystone
lighthouse, in a more substantial manner than had hitherto been
effected, was now no longer confided to amateur ingenuity, but
to John Smeaton, an eminent civil engineer, one of those men
who by originality of genius and strength of character are so well
entitled to rank among the worthies of England. From his
early infancy Smeaton (born May 28, 1724) gave tokens of the
extraordinary abilities which were one day to render his name
illustrious. Before he attained his sixth year his playthings
were not the playthings of children but the tools which men em-
ploy: before be was fifteen he made for himself an engine for
turning, forged his iron and steel, and had self-made tools of
every sort for working in wood, ivory, and metals. At eighteen
he by the strength of his genius acquired the art of working
in most of the mechanical trades, and such was his untiring zeal
* A full account of this extraordinary circumstance was sent to the Royal
Society, and printed in vol. xlix. of their Transactions, p. 477.
84 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
that a part of every day was generally occupied in forming some
ingenious piece of mechanism. In 1753, his various inventions
and improvements had already attracted such notice that he was
elected member of the Royal Society ; and when, a few years
later, the accident happened which burnt down the Eddystone
lighthouse to the ground, he was at once fixed upon as the person
most proper to rebuild it A better choice could not possibly
Kddystone Lighthouse.
have been made, for Smeaton’s lighthouse, firm as the rock on
which it stands, has now already braved the storms of more than
a century, and will no doubt continue to brave them for many
ages tocome. Of him it may well be said * exegit monumentum
ere perennius,” for to him is due the honour of having fixed the
best form to be given to a marine lighthouse, and even now the
Eddystone beacon-tower remains a model which has hardly been
surpassed by the taller and more graceful edifices of Bell Rock
THE BELL ROCK LIGIITITOUSE. 85
and Skerryvore. Nothing could exceed the patient ingenuity,
the sagacity, and forethought with which that great engineer
mortised his tall tower to the wave-worn rock, and then dove-
tailed the whole together, so as to make rock and tower prac-
tically one stone, and that of the very best form for deadening
the action of the wave. Nor must we forget that our great marine
lighthouses, of which Smeaton gave the model, are as remark-
able from an artistic as from a utilitarian point of view, as
pleasing to the man of taste as to the friend of humanity. It is
to be regretted,” says, with perfect justice, the author of an excel-
lent article in the Quarterly Review,* “that these structures are
placed so far at sea that they are very little seen, for they are,
taken altogether, perhaps the most perfect specimens of modern
architecture which exist. Tall and graceful as the minar of an
Eastern mosque, they possess far more solidity and beauty of con-
struction; and, in addition to this, their form is as appropriate
to the purposes for which it was designed as anything ever done
by the Greeks, and consequently meets the requirements of
good architecture quite as much as a column of the Parthenon.”
Covered to the height of fifteen feet at spring tide, and
little more than a hundred yards in its extent, the famous
Bell Rock, or Inchcape, facing the Frith of Tay at a distance of
twelve miles at sea, was as dangerous to the navigation of the
eastern coast of Scotland as the Eddystone had been to the
entrance of the Channel. To erect a tower on a spot like this
was an undertaking of no common boldness, but, fired by
Smeaton’s example, Mr. Robert Stevenson no less gloriously
succeeded in converting what for ages had been a source of
danger into a beacon of safety.
On the opposite coast of Scotland, and placed in the same
parallel of latitude as Bell Rock, the Skerryvore Reef had a name
equally dreaded by the mariner. Situated considerably farther
from the mainland than the Bell Rock, it isless entirely submerged,
some of its summits rising above the level of high water, though
the surf dashes over them; but the extent of foul ground is much
greater, and hidden dangers, even in fine weather, beset the in-
tervening passage between its eastern extremity and Tyree, from
which island it is distant some eleven miles. In rough weather
the sea which rises there is described as one in which no ship
* No. 228.
86 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA.
could live. This terrible reef, so fatal to many a gallant bark,
rendered the erection of a lighthouse most desirable, yet such
was the difficulty of the case that although so long ago as 1814
an Act was obtained for a light on Skerryvore, it was not before
1837 than Mr. Alan Stevenson, son of the famous architect of
the Bell Rock sea-tower, was authorised to commence the work.
That difficulty was not confined to the position and character
Bell Rock Lighthouse.
of the raef itself, as the neighbouring island of Tyree afforded
no resource, and all the materials for the building, even the stone
itself, liad to be transported from distant quarters. At length,
all preliminary arrangements being settled, the engineer reached
the rock and commenced his work, in June 1838, by erecting a
barrack-house upon stilts—a sort of dovecot perched on poles—
high out of the water on the reef, close to the proposed site of
the lighthouse. The erection of this barrack fully occupied the
THE SKERRYVORE LIGITIOUSE. 87
first summer; and, lest 1t might be supposed that this was but
little work for so long a time, it may be as well to remark that,
such was the turbulence of the sea that between August 7 and
September 11, it had only been possible to be 165 hours on the
rock. Much inconvenience was occasioned by the hard and
slippery nature of the volcanic formation of the Skerryvore, to
which the action of the sea had given the appearance and the
smoothness of a mass of dark-coloured glass, so that the foreman
of the masons compared the operation of landing on it to that of
climbing up the neck of a bottle. When we consider how often,
by how many persons, and under what circumstances of swell
and motion, this operation was repeated, we must look upon
this feature of the spot as an obstacle of no slight amount.
At length, after much danger and difficulty, the barrack was
completed, but the first November storm swept it away and
utterly annihilated the work of the season. Iron stancheons
had been drawn, broken, and twisted like the wires of a
champagne bottle ; the smith’s iron anvil had been transported
eight yards from where it was left; and a stone three-fourths
of a ton was lifted out from the bottom of a hole and sent
towards the top of the rock.
Mortified, but nothing daunted by this disaster, which gave
him a warning of the tremendous power he had to contend with,
Mr. Stevenson prepared during the winter for the labours of
1839, which, besides the re-erection of the barrack on an im-
proved plan, chiefly consisted in the levelling or blasting of a flat
surface of forty-two feet diameter on the top of the rock from
which the lighthouse was to arise. This foundation pit was in
itself a work of no small magnitude, as it required for its ex-
cavation the labours of 20 men for 217 days, the firing of 296
shots, and the removal into deep water of 2,000 tons of material.
The blasting, from the absence of all cover and the impossibility
of retiring to a distance farther in any case than thirty feet, and
often reduced to twelve, demanded all possible carefulness.
The only precautions available were a skilful appointment of
the charge and the covering the mines with mats and coarse net-
ting made of old rope. Every charge was fired by or with the
assistance of the architect in person, and no mischief occurred.
The year 1840 had now arrived, and the construction of the
lighthouse was about to begin. Quarriers and labourers had been
88 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY CF TIE 868A.
busily employed in cutting blocks of stone in the quarries.
Carpenters were diligently engaged in making wooden moulds
for each lighthouse block wherewith to guage its exact mathe-
matical figure. In April, a reinforcement of thirty-seven masons
from Aberdeen arrived at Tyree—men expert in the difficult
work of dressing granite—and, on April 30, the first visit was
nade to the rock. To the great joy of all, the barrack con-
structed in the previous season was found uninjured, though a
mass of rock weighing about five tons had been detached from
its bed and carried right across the foundation pit by the
violence of the waves. In this barrack the architect and his
party now took up their quarters, which from the frequent flood-
ing of the apartments with water and from the heavy spray that
washed the walls were anything but agreeable. ‘ Once,” says the
gallant engineer,* “‘ we were fourteen days without communica-
tion with the shore or the steamer, and during the greater part
of that time we saw nothing but white fields of foam as far as
the eye could reach; and heard nothing but the whistling of the
wind and the thunder of the waves, which was at times so loud as
to make italmost impossible to hear anyone speak. Such a scene,
with the ruins of the former barrack not twenty yards from us,
was calculated to inspire the most desponding anticipations ; and
I well remember the undefined sense of dread that flashed on my
mind, on being awakened one night bv a heavy sea which struck
the barrack and made my cot swing inwards from the wall, and
was immediately followed by a cry of terror from the men in the
apartment above me, most of whom, startled by the sound and
the tremor, sprang from their berths to the floor, impressed with
the idea that the whole fabric had been washed into the sea.”
This spell of bad weather, though in summer, well-nigh out-
Jasted their provisions; and when at length they were able to
make the signal that a landing would be practicable, scarcely
twenty-four hours’ stock remained on the rock. The landing of
the heavy stones from the lighters was a work of no small dif-
ficulty, considering the slippery nature of the rock, and as the
loss of one dressed stone would frequently have delayed the
whole progress of the building, the anxiety was incessant. On
July 4, the building of the tower really commenced. Six courses
* Account of Skerryvore Lighthouse, by Alan Stevenson, Enyineer to the
Northern Lighthouse Board. Edinburgh, 1848.
THE PHARUS OF ALEXANDRIA. 89
of masonry carried the building to the height of 8 feet 2 inches
before the autumnal gales terminated the work of 1840, and an
excellent year’s work it was. The saying that “what is well
begua is half done” was illustrated here. Next year’s work was
comparatively easy—so that in 1842 the tower rose to its full
height of 138 feet; and the year after the light was shedding its
LELAA
= as
The Skerryvore Lighthouse.
beneficent rays over the thirty miles of watery waste that sur-
round the hidden rocks of Skerryvore.
Well may we be proud of men like Smeaton and _ the
Stevensons ; but, while justly admiring their architectural skill,
their perseverance, and their courage, we must not forget to
offer the just tribute of our gratitude to the eminent natural
philosophers without whose ingenious optical inventions the
most splendid sea-towers would be comparatively useless. The
Pharus or lighthouse of Alexandria was, probably with justice,
90 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SIA.
reckoned among the seven wonders of the world, and its several
stories, rising on marble columns to the height of 400 feet,
must have presented an imposing spectacle, but I strongly
suspect that the rude brazier on the summit of the majestic
pile bore the same proportion to the lighthouse Janterns of our
time as the wretched coasting-craft of the ancient Greeks to the
ocean steamers of the present day. Among the names of those
who have contributed most effectually to the progress of marine
illumination Argand, Borda, and Fresnel are conspicuous. The
hollow cylindrical wick of the first was a sudden and immense ad-
vance in the art of economical and effective illumination. The
second, by his invention of tle parabolic mirror, multiplied the
effect of the unassisted flame by 450, and the refracting lens of
Fresnel so admirably concentrates the light as to project its warn-
ing beams to the wonderful distance of thirty or thirty-five miles
In former ages the efforts of man to provide a refuge to the
mariner from the fury of the raging gale were feeble and in-
significant. Content with the harbours that nature had provided,
it was then thought quite sufficient to line a river-bank with
quays or to enclose a natural pond by walls. The idea of raising
colossal breakwaters by casting whole quarries into the deep, or
of extending artificial promontories far into the bosom of the
ocean, is of modern date, and would have appeared chimerical
not only to the ancients but to our fathers not a century ago.
The first great work of this description is the famous break-
water planned by De Cessart in 1783, and terminated in
1853, which has converted the open roadstead of Cherbourg
into a land-locked harbour. Rising from a depth of 40 feet
at low spring tides, on a coast where the floods attain a height
of 19 feet, it opposes a front of 12,700 feet to the fury of the
storm, and carries 250 pieces of the heaviest cannon on its for-
midable brow.
It far surpasses in extent and boldness of construction the
breakwater at Plymouth, nor will it be eclipsed by the moles now
forming at Portland, Holyhead, and Alderney; but although
it is a more impressive spectacle to see man struggling with the
ocean and producing calmness and shelter in the midst of the
raging storm, than to contemplate his operations where he has
no such adversaries to subdue, still such buildings as those just
described are neither the largest nor the most expensive works
SUBMARINE MINES. $]
required for the accommodation of shipping. Witness the
Cyclopean grandeur of the Liverpool docks or of the Great Fioat
at Birkenhead, which alone covers an area of water of 121 acres,
and whose portals, with a clear opening of 100 feet, will admit
the largest screw-steamer or sailing ship the wildest imagination
has yet conceived. Six millions of money is the cost of this
one work alone—more than would be required to raise a pyramid
like that of Cheops—and even this sum isa trifle when com-
pared with what has been spent on the harbours of Liverpool,
London, and other great commercial cities.
Not satisfied with erecting his lighthouses on wave-worn rocks
or defying the waves with his colossal breakwaters, man spans
bridges over arms of the sea and excavates mines under the
abysses of the deep. The locomotive now rolls full speed 100
feet above high water over the strait which separates Anglesea
from the mainland; and in Botallack and several other Cornish
mines the workman, while resting from his subterranean labours,
hears the awful voice of the ocean rolling over his head.
* In all these submarine mines,” says Mr. Henwood, “ I have
heard the dashing of the billows and the grating of the shingle
when in calm weather. I was once, however, underground in
Wheal Cock during a storm. At the extremity of the level
seaward some eighty or one hundred fathoms from the shore,
little could be heard of its effects, except at intervals, when the
reflux of some unusually large wave projected a pebble outward,
bounding and rolling over the rocky bottom. But when standing
beneath the base of the cliff, and in that part of the mine where
but nine feet of rock stood between us and the ocean, the heavy
roll of the large boulders, the ceaseless grinding of the pebbles,
the fierce thundering of the billows, with the crackling and
boiling as they rebounded, placed a tempest in its most appalling
form too vividly before me ever to be forgotten. More than
once doubting the protection of our rocky shield, we retreated
in affright, and it was only after repeated trials that we had
confidence to pursue our investigations.” Yet the miners,
accustomed from their early youth to the fierce and threatening
roaring of the stormy sea, pursue their work from year to year,
never doubting that the thin roof which separates them from a
watery grave will continue to protect them, as it has shielded
their fathers before them.
_
® = *
ae. we . ay Tere e Pa
me ad suits wi wel Hoy Oy Ts ims
| 4% Pah ‘a 26 ° ee
ea
-
= =
-~
= - >
=
‘ ~~
AS
“
.
>
;
Ay
J -
; .
*
* ‘ :
. ’
A Ee) el:
—_—_ +___
THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
al
-
or
CHAP, VIET:
THE CETACEANS.
General Remarks on the Organisation of the Cetaceans.—The Large Greenland
Whale. — His Food and Enemies.—The Fin-Back or Rorqual.— The Antarctic
Whale.— The Sperm Whale.—The Unicorn Fish.—The Dolphin.—Truth and
Fable-—The Porpoise-—The Grampus.—History of the Whale Fishery.
Or all the living creatures that people the immensity of ocean,
the cetaceans, or the whale family, are the most perfect. Their
anatomical construction renders them in many respeéts similar
to man, and their heart is susceptible of a warmth of feeling
unknown to the cold-blooded fishes ; for the mother shows signs
of attachment to her young, and forgets her own safety when
some danger menaces her offspring. Like man, the cetaceans
breathe through lungs, and possess a double heart, receiving and
propelling streams of warm red blood. The anatomical structure
of their pectoral fins bears great resemblance to that of the
human arm, as the bony structure of those organs equally consists
of a shoulder-blade, an upper arm, a radius and ulna, and five
fingers.
But the arm, which in man moves freely, is here chained to the
body as far as the hand, and the latter, which, in obedience to
human volition and intellect, executes such miracles of industry
and art, is here covered with a thick skin, and appears as a broad
undivided fin or flapper. Yet still it is destined for higher
service than that of a mere propelling oar, as it serves the
mother to guide and shield her young. The lower extremities
are of course wanting, but their functions are performed by the
mighty horizontal tail, by whose powerful strokes the un-
wieldy animal glides rapidly through the waters.
The cetaceans distinguish themselves, moreover, from the fishes
by the bringing forth of living young, by a greater quantity of
blood, by the smoothness of their skin, under which is found a
Hi 2
96 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
thick layer of fat, and by their simple or double blow-hole, which
is situated at the top of the head, and corresponds to the nostrils
of the quadrupeds, though not for
the purpose of smelling, but
merely as an organ of respiration.
Our knowledge of the ceta-
ceans is still very incomplete ; and
this is not to be wondered at, when
we consider that they chiefly dwell
in the most inaccessible parts of
the ocean, and that when met with,
the swiftness of their movements
rarely allows more than a flighty
view of their external form. Thus
their habits and mode of living
are mostly enveloped in obscurity ;
and while doubtless many ceta-
ceans are to the present day un-
known, one and the same species
has not seldom been described
under different-names, to the no
small confusion of the naturalist.
The cetaceans are either with-
out a dental apparatus, or pro-
vided with teeth. The former, or
the whalebone whales, have two
blow-holes on the top of the head,
in the form of two longitudinal
fissures; while in the latter,
(sperm-whales, unicorn-fish, dol-
phins,) which comprise by far the
greater number of species, there
is but one transversal spout-hole.
In all whales the larynx is con-
tinued to the spouting canal, and deeply inserted or closely
imbricated within its tube. Thus no tones approaching to a
voice can be emitted except through the spiracles, which are
encumbered with valves, and evidently badly adapted for the
transmission of sound. Scoresby assures us that the Green-
land whale has no voice, and Bennett frequently noticed sperm
i
NON
hi i
Ni
ii!
we \\ \
WY \
XY
a ‘ _.
frigate-Bird.
tion, and its head turned inquisitively downwards ; sometimes
156 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
it wheels rapidly, and darts to the surface of the water in pursuit
of prey ; and then again it soars so as to be lost to vision, its ele-
vation alone being sufficient to distinguish it from all other sea
birds. Sometimes it is seen 400 leagues from land; and yet it is
said to return every night to its solitary roost. Its expanded
pinions measure from end to end fourteen feet, a prodigious extent
of wings, equalling or even surpassing that of the condor, the
lordly bird of the loftiest Andes. Being unable to swim or dive,
it seizes the flying-fish, that, springing out of the water to avoid
Flying Fish.
the jaws of the bonito, often falls a prey to the frigate-bird, or
else it compels boobies or tropic birds to disgorge. On volcanic
coasts it builds its nest in the crevices of the high cliffs, and on
the low coral islands in the loftiest trees, In the Paumotu Group,
Captain Wilkes saw whole groves covered with the nests of the
frigate-bird. When the old birds flew away, they puffed up
their red pouches to the size of a child’s head, so that it looked
as if a large bladder full of blood was attached to their neck.
The Gannet or Soland-goose (Sula Bassana) haunts the Bass
Island, a high steep rock in the Frith of Forth, whose black
precipices are painted with dazzling
stripes of white guano, the product
of the inconceivable number of birds
which settle upon the weather-beaten
ledges. The gannets incubate in the
turf of the slopes above, and you may
sit down by them and their great
downy young while their mates hover
over you with discordant screams and
almost touch you with their outspread pinions. There is but one
landing-place, and this sole entrance to the natural fastness is
closed by a barred gate, proclaiming that man has taken pos-
sezsion of the rock. Some years ago it was let at an annual rent
Common Gannet.
THE GANNET—GULLS. 157
of thirty-five pounds. The eggs are not collected, and no old
bird is allowed to be shot, under a penalty of five pounds; only
the young birds are persecuted. The chase begins on the Ist of
August. They are taken with the hand or knocked on the head
with sticks, and sent to the Edinburgh market, where they fetch
about half a crown a piece. The gannet breeds also on Lundy
Island, in the Severn, on Ailsa, on the coast of Ayrshire, on the
island of St. Kilda, and hardly anywhere else in Europe. As it
must let itself fall before taking wing, it requires a steep and
precipitous breeding-station. Its mode of fishing is particularly
graceful. Rapidly skimming the surface of the sea, as soon as
it spies a fish swimming below, it rises perpendicularly over the
spot, and then, suddenly folding its wings, drops head-foremost
on its prey swifter than an arrow, and with almost unerring aim.
The prevalent colour of the full-plumaged bird is white, the
tips of its wings only being black, and some black lines about
the face, resembling eyebrows or spectacles. The pale yellow
eyes are encircled with a naked skin of fine blue, the head and
neck are buff colour, the legs black, and greenish on the fore
part. The plumage of the young bird is very different, being
blackish, dotted irregularly with small white specks,
The family of the Laride, which comprises the gulls, the
sea-swallows, the petrels, and the albatrosses, is widely spread
over the whole surface of the ocean. All the birds of this
tribe have a powerful flight, and are distinguished by the
easy grace of their motions, striking the air at long intervals
with their wings, and generally gliding or soaring with out-
stretched pinions. Their form is handsome and well-propor-
tioned, some of them resembling the swallow, others the dove;
but their mode of life does not correspond with their beanty, as
they are all ill-famed for their predatory habits and insatiable
voracity. The cry of the sea-mew is peculiar, being a mixture
of screaming and laughing. When in the solitude of a wild
rocky coast it is heard mingling with the hoarse rolling of the
surge and the moaning wind, it harmonises well with the cha-
racter of the dreary scene, and produces a not unpleasing effect.
It is amusing to witness the movements of the sea-mews at tLe
mouths of the larger rivers, where they are seen in numbers,
picking up the animal substances which are cast on shore, or
come floating down with the ebbing tide. Such as are near
the breakers will mount up the surface of the water, and run
166 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
splashing towards the crest of the wave, to get hold of the object
of their pursuit, while others are seen every now and then diving,
and reappearing with a fish in their bill. Sometimes the more
powerful sea-hawk interrupts their pleasure, pounces upon the
robbers, and scatters the screaming band.
Many different species of gulls inhabit the northern shores,
and various are the places which they choose for breeding.
The Kittiwake or Tarrock (Larus tridactylus), one of the com-
monest sea-birds in Greenland, Iceland, the Feroés and the
Scotch islands, builds its sea-weed nest on the highest and most
inaccessible rocks. According to Faber (Prodromus of Ice-
landic Ornithology), its swarms are so numerous on Grimsoe,
that they darken the sun when they fly, deafen the ear when
they scream, and deck the green-capped rocks with a white
covering when they breed.
In the famous “ bird-city” at the north point of Sylt, the Silvery
or Herring-gull plays a prominent
part. Its great size, equal to that
of the raven, but with much longer
wings—its agreeable form, its pure
white plumage, of metallic brilliancy
on the back, gradually melting into
light ash-blue; the velvet-black ends
of the wings, with snowy feather tips,
the lovely yellow eye, and the deep
yellow beak, with its coral-red spot, all this together forms a beau-
tiful picture. ‘There we stood,” says
Naumann, “surrounded by thou-
sands, that partly hovered close
over our heads, uttering their shrill
screams, partly stood before us in
pairs; some on their nests, the
males keeping guard, some sleep-
ing on one leg, and others leisurely
stretching themselves. In one
Herring Gull (Young),
H Gull, or Silvery Gull
Sard One ae word, one hardly knew what most
to admire, the uncommon cleanli-
ness and beauty of their plumage, the great variety and elegance
of their attitudes, their tameness, or the immense numbers
collected in so small a space.”
GULLS. 159
In the same “ bird-city,” but apart from the former, breed
also the Common Gull (Larus canus) which is much smalier
and of a more slender shape, and also the Sandwich and Caspian
Terns. It is astonishing to see how each kind of sea-bird seeks
its particular spot for breeding; only the auks and guillemots
herd promiscuously. What may induce the birds to meet in
such large bodies and then always to choose some particular
cliff? The gulls yield the fortunate possessor of their district
an annual income of at least two hundred rix-dollars. More
than thirty thousand of the eggs, which are larger than those
of the turkey, are collected every year, packed up with moss in
baskets, and sent to the market. ‘Two or three persons are busy
from morning till evening, during the whole season, collecting
the eggs, and receive for their trouble those of the smaller birds,
which may also amount to about twenty thousand. But although
the terns appear in considerable numbers on Sylt, they have
chosen the small flat island, Norder Oog, to the west of Pel-
worm, for their chief residence. The breeding colony of the
Sandwich tern amounts here to at least a million of individuals,
so that when the birds are at rest, the island, at the distance
of a mile, resembles a white stripe in the sea; but when their
innumerable multitudes hover above it, they seem an immense
white rotatory cloud. The eggs lie in some places so. close
together, that it is almost impossible to walk between them
without treading upon them; the breeding birds often touch
one another, and would not find room, if, like all sea-swallows
that breed socially on the coast, they did not sit in the same
posture, with their head facing the water. It is incomprehensible
how each bird can find its eggs; it would even seem impossible,
did we not know the miracles of animal instinct. Their noise
is incessant, for even during the night they keep up a con-
tinual and lively prattle. He who approaches them during the
day is soon surrounded by these screamers, whose whirling
thousand-tongued multitudes stun his senses; and these birds,
at other times so shy, flutter so close over his head, as ‘often to
touch him with their wings.
On Nowaja Semlja’s ice-bound coast, on the peaks of isolated
cliffs, and suffering no other bird in his vicinity, dwells the
fierce imperious Burgomaster (Larus glaucus). None of its class
dares dispute the authority of the lordly bird, when with up-
160 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
hesitating superiority it descends on its prey, though in the
possession of another. Although not numerous, yet it is the
general attendant on the whale-fisher whenever spoils are
to be obtained. Then it hovers aver the scene of action, and
having marked out its morsel, descends upon it and carries
it off on the wing. On its descent, the most dainty pieces
must be relinquished, though in the grasp of fulmar, snow-bird,
or kittiwake.
The larger parasitical or raptorial gulls (Lestris parasiticus,
catarrhactes), are incapable of diving or plunging, their feathers
being too large in proportion to their bulk. They are therefore
obliged to live by the exertions of the lesser species, making
them disgorge what they have eaten, and dexterously catching
the rejected fish before it reaches the water. Thus we see the
old feudal relations of baron and serf established as a natural
institution among the gull-tribe.
Although the sea-swallows and sea~-mews are endowed with
great power of wing, yet the petrels
and albatrosses alone deserve the
name of oceanic birds, as they are
almost always found on the high
seas, at every distance from land,
and only during breeding-time seek
the solitary coasts and_ islands.
Brose lpia eerel: Petrels are scattered over the whole
extent of the ocean, but the petrels
which inhabit the northern seas are different from those of the
antarctic ocean, and between both are other species, that never
forsake the intertropical waters.
The Fulmar (Procellaria glaci-
alis) is at home in the high north.
As soon as the whale-fisher has
passed the Shetland Islands, on his
way to the Arctic Seas, this bird is
sure to accompany his track, eagerly
watching for anything thrown over-
SS board. Walking awkwardly on land,
Povk tailed petkal: the fulmar flies to windward in the
most terrific storms. Many thousands
frequently accumulate round a dead whale, rushing in from all
THE FULMAR — PETREL. 161
guarters. The sea immediately about the ship’s stern, when
the men are engaged in skinning their gigantic prey, is some-
times so completely covered with them that a stone can scarcely
be thrown overboard without striking one of them. When
anything is thus cast among the crowd, those nearest take
alarm, and so on, till a thousand are put in motion; but as
in rising they strike the water with their feet, a loud and most
irregular splashing is produced, It is amusing to observe with
what jealousy they view, and with what boldness they attack,
any of their species engaged in devouring the finest morsels,
and to hear the curious chuckling noise they make in their
anxiety for despatch, lest they should be disturbed. The vo-
racious birds are frequently so glutted as to be unable to fly, in
which case they rest upon the water until the advancement of
digestion restores their wonted powers. They then return to
the banquet with the same gusto as before, and although numbers
of the species may have been killed with boat-hooks, and float
among them, the others, nothing daunted, and unconscious of
danger to themselves, continue their gormandising labours.
When carrion is scarce, the fulmars follow the living whale, as
if they had a presentiment of his future fate, and sometimes,
by their peculiar motions while hovering on the surface of the
water, point out to the fisherman the position of the animal.
As their beak cannot make an impression on the dead whale
until some more powerful creature tears away the skin, it may
be imagined how delighted they are when man takes upon
himself the trouble of peeling a whale for them.
The Glacial Petrel (Procellaria gelida) does not seem ta
approach the pole so near as the fulmar. He appears but seldom
in Iceland, but breeds frequently in Newfoundland. The same
is the case with the Shearwater (P. puffinus), which breeds in
great numbers on the Feroé islands, and in Orcadia. The
tropical petrels are the least known. They do not appear
to gather troopwise, and but seldom follow ships. Towards
45° S. lat. the first Pintados (P. capensis) make their ap-
pearance, and are more rarely seen after having passed 60° S,
lat. The Giant Petrel (P. gigantea), extends its flight as far as
the ice-banks of the south, where the Antarctic and the Snowy
(P. antarctica et nivea) Petrels first appear, birds which never
leave those dreary seas, and are often seen in vast flocks floating
162 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
upon the drift ice. Thus nature has set bounds to petrels, as to
all other creatures that swim or fly in and over the ocean, and
has divided the wide deserts of the sea among their different
species. Who can tell us the mysterious laws which assign to
each of them its limits? Who can show us the invisible barriers
they are not allowed to pass ?
The Stormy Petrel (1’. pelagica) seems to belong to every
sea. It is about the size of a swallow, and in its general ap-
Stormy retrel.
pearance and flight is not unlike that bird. Although the smallest
web-footed bird known, it braves the utmost fury of the tempest,
often skimming with incredible velocity the trough of the waves,
and sometimes gliding rapidly over their snowy crests. Like all
of its kind, it lives almost constantly at sea, and seeks during
the breeding season some lonely rock, where it deposits in some
fissure or crevice its solitary egg.
The mode of life of the petrels corresponds but little with
their external beauty; they are in fact the crows of the ocean,
and live upon the dead animal substances floating on its surface.
Wherever the carcase of a whale, borne along by the current,
covers the sea with a long stripe of putrid oil, they are seen
feasting in the polluted waters. All petrels have the remarkable
faculty of spouting oil of a very offensive smell, from their
nostrils when alarmed, and this apparently as a means of
defence.
The Albatross (Diomedea exulans) is the monarch of the high
seas; the picture of a hero, who, under every storm of adverse
fortune, preserves the immoveable constancy of an undaunted
heart. Proud and majestic, he swims along in his own native
THE ALBATROSS. 163
element, and without ever touching the water with his pinions,
rises with the rising billow, and falls with the falling wave.
It is truly wonderful how he bids
defiauce to the fury of the unshac-
kled elements, and how quietly he
faces the gale. “He seems quite
at home,” say the sailors; and in-
deed this expression is perfectly
characteristic of his graceful ease as
he hovers over the agitated ocean.
The albatross exceeds the swan in
size, attains a weight of from 12lbs. Wandering Albatross.
to 28lbs., and extends his wings from
ten to thirteen feet. His plumage is white and black, harmonising
with the wave-crest and the storm-cloud. For weeks and months
together he is seen to follow the course of a ship; but, according
to Mr. Harvey (Sea Side Book), “the time he can remain on
the wing seems to have been much exaggerated, for although,
like the gull and the petrel, he is no diving-bird, he swims
with the greatest ease; and notwithstanding the enormous
length of his pinions, knows well how to rise again into the
air. He is indeed unable to take wing from a narrow deck,
but when he wishes to rise from the sea, he runs along flapping
the waters until he has acquired the necessary impetus, or meets
with a wave of a sufficient height, from whose lofty crest he
starts as from a rocky pinnacle, and resumes his extensive flight
over an immense expanse of ocean.” A short-winged species
frequents the waters of Kamtschatka and Japan; but the
wandering albatross (D. eculans) belongs more particularly to
the southern hemisphere, being rarely seen to the north of 30°
S. lat., and appearing more frequently as the higher latitudes
are approached. The regions of storms — the Cape of Good
Hope and Cape Horn—are his favourite resorts, and all travellers
know that the southern point of Africa is not far distant as soon as
the albatrosses show themselves in larger numbers, These birds
are the vultures of the ocean; their crooked sharp-edged beak
is better adapted to lacerate a lifeless prey, than to seize upon
the rapid fish as it darts swiftly along below the surface of
the waters. From a vast distance they smell the floating carcase
of a whale, and soon alight in considerable numbers upon the
164 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
giant carrion. They also feed upon the large cephalopods
that inhabit mid-ocean, and remains of these molluscs are
generally found in their stomach. The Auckland and Campbell
islands seem to be two of their favourite breeding-stations.
When Sir James Ross visited these secluded groups, the birds
were so assiduously breeding as to allow themselves to be
taken with the hand. The nest is built of sand mixed with
dried leaves and grasses, generally eighteen inches high, with
a diameter of twenty-seven inches at the surface, and of six feet
at the base. While breeding, the snow-white head and neck of
the bird project above the grasses, and betray it from afar.
On endeavouring to drive it. from its eggs it defends itself va-
liantly, snapping with its beak. Its greatest enemy is a fierce
raptorial gull (Lestris antarcticus), which is always on the look-
out, and, as soon as the albatross leaves the nest, shoots down
upon it to steal the eggs.
Swift flies the albatross, but fancy travels with still more rapid
wings through the realms of space, and leads us suddenly from
the lone islands of the Pacific to the north of another hemisphere.
Saint Kilda rises before us —a glorious sight when the last rays
of the setting sun, as he slowly sinks upon the ocean, light up
with dazzling splendour the towering cliffs of the island, which
one might almost fancy to be some huge volcano newly emerged
from the deep, or the impregnable bulwark of some enchanted
land. St. Kilda, one of the most striking examples of the grandest
rock-scenery, plunges on all sides perpendicularly into the sea,
so that although six miles in circumference, it affords but one
single landing-place, accessible only in fair weather. Four of
the promontories are perforated, and as many large caverns are
turmed, through which the sea rolls its heaving billows. From
the eastern extremity, which rises nearly perpendicularly to the
height of 1380 feet, and is supposed to be the loftiest precipice
in Britain, the view is of indescribable sublimity. Far
below, the long heavy swell of the ocean is seen climbing up
the dark rock, whose base is clothed with sheets of snow-white
foam. In many places the naked rock disappears under the
myriads of sea-birds sitting upon their nests; the air is literally
clouded with them, and the water seems profusely dotted with
the larger fowl, the smaller ones being nearly invisible on ac-
count of the distance. Every narrow ledge is thickly covered
ST. KILDA. 165
with kittiwakes, auks, and guillemots; all the grassy spots are
tenanted by the fulmar, and honey-combed by myriads of
puffins; while close to the water’s edge on the wet rocks, which
are hollowed out into deep recesses,
sit clusters of cormorants, erect and
motionless, like so many unclean
spirits, guarding the entrance of some , _.
gloomy cave. .
On rolling down a large stone from
the summit, a strange scene of con-
fusion ensues. Here, falling like a
thunderbolt on some unfortunate fulmar sitting upon its nest,
it crushes the poor creature in an instant; then rolling down
the crags, and cutting deep furrows
in the grassy slopes, it scatters in
dismay the dense groups of auks and
guillemots. Its progress all along
is marked by the clouds of birds,
which affrighted shoot out from the
precipice to avoid the fate to which
nevertheless many fall a prey, until
at length it reaches the bottom along Common Puffin.
with its many victims. The scared
tenants of the rock now return to their resting-places, and all
is again comparatively quiet.
Several species of gulls are of common occurrence on St.
Kilda: Larus marinus, fuscus, canus, and tridactylus. The
last, or kittiwake, is the most abundant; a social bird, choosing
the most inaccessible spots. On disturbing a colony of kitti-
wakes, most of the birds leave their nests and fly about the
intruder, uttering incessantly their clamorous but not unmusical
ery. The noise from a large flock is almost deafening; the
flapping of their wings and their loud screams, joined to the
deep guttural notes of the passing gannets, and the shrill tones
of the larger gulls, form a combination of sounds without a
parallel in nature. Probably on account of its vigilance, the
kiitiwake is not pursued by the fowler.
The fulmar breeds in almost incredible numbers on St. Kilda
(the only place in Britain where he is found), and is to the
natives by far the most important production of their barren
Black Guillemot.
166 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
land. On the crest of the highest precipices, and only on such
as are furnished with small grassy shelves, on every spot above
a few inches in extent, the fulmars have taken possession of the
rock. On being seized, they instantly disgorge a quantity of clear
amber-coloured oil, which imparts to the whole bird, its nest
and young, and even the very rock which it frequents, a peculiar
and very disagreeable odour.
Fulmar oil is one of the most valuable productions of St.
Kilda. The best is obtained from the old bird by surprising it
at night upon the rock, and tightly closing the bill until the
fowler has seized the bird between his knees with its head down-
wards. By opening the bill, the fulmar is allowed to eject
about a table-spoonful, or rather more, of oil into the dried
gullet or stomach of a solan-goose. The islanders use fulmar-
oil for their lamps, and consider it as an infallible remedy against
chronic rheumatism.
It is chiefly in pursuit of the fulmar that the St. Kildian often
endangers his life. Two of the fowlers generally proceed in
company, each furnished with several coils of rope, about half an
inch in diameter. One of them fastens one of the ropes under
his armpits, and holding the extremity of another rope in one
hand, is lowered down the cliff. His comrade stands a little
away from the edge, holding the supporting rope firmly with
both hands and letting it out very slowly, while he allows the
other, or guide-rope, to slip out as is required from under one
foot, which loosely secures it. On reaching a ledge occupied
by birds, the fowler commences his operations, easily securing
the eggs and young birds, and knocking down the old ones with
a short stick, or catching them by a noose attached to a long
slender rod. He then secures his sport by bundling the birds
together, and tying them to a rope let down from above, depositing
at the same time in asmall basket the eggs he has gathered. The
dexterity of these rocksmen is truly astonishing. The smallest
spot is considered by them asa sufficiently secure standing-place,
and they will creep on hands and knees, though cumbered with
a load of birds, along a narrow ledge, seemingly without concern
for their personal safety. When exhibiting before strangers, a
precipice about six hundred feet high, overhanging the sea, at
a short distance from the village, is generally chosen for a dis-
play of their agility. About midway they strike against the
ST. KILDA. 167
rock, and rebound twelve feet or more with all the agility of a
tight-rope dancer.
The Gannet, or Solan-goose, which abounds in the north of
Scotland and on the numberless islands and rocky fiords which
line the Norwegian coast, likewise congregates in vast numbers
about St. Kilda, from whence a portion of them take their de-
parture every morning to fish for herrings, their favourite food,
in the bays and channels of the other Hebrides, the nearest of
which is about fifty miles distant. This bird is very select in
the choice of its breeding-places, which it occupies to the total
exclusion of every other species. None are to be found in Hirta,
but the island of Borreray is almost entirely occupied with
them. as are also the adjacent rocks, Stack Ly and Stack Narmin.
These cliffs are remarkable for their pointed summits and tower-
ing height, and appear, even from the distance of many miles,
as if they were covered with snow, the deceptive appearance
being caused by the myriads of gannets with which the rock is
thickly covered, as well as the dense clouds of these white-
plumed birds passing and repassing in the neighbourhood of
their nests. Petrels, shearwaters, puffins, guillemots, and auks,
are also very abundant about the weather-beaten cliffs of St.
Kilda.
If we consider that similar bird-republics are to be found on
almost every rocky coast or surf-beaten cliff of the northern
seas, we must needs be astonished at the inexhaustible prodi-
N
168 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
gality of Nature, which covers desolate rocks with such a pro-
fusion of life. The vast number of sea-birds is the more
surprising, as many species, such as the
guillemot, the auk, the fulmar, and the
puffin, lay but one single egg on the naked
rock, and often in so precarious a situa-
tion, that it is almost inconceivable how
breeding can take place. When the birds
are surprised and suddenly fly off, many of
the eggs tumble down into the surf. Sea-
eagles, falcons, and raptorial gulls destroy
a great number, and pounce upon tlie
Kale. young; thousands fall a prey to the rigours
of an Arctic winter; the spring-tides
sweeping over low shores, often carry away whole generations
at once, and many a maritime population lives entirely upon
the sea-fowl that breed upon the sterile soil. And yet, in spite
of so many enemies and persecutions, their numbers remain
undiminished, nor has their importance ever ceased in the
domestic economy of the rude islanders of the north.
Sea-Fowl Shooting.
But however valuable the eggs and the oil, the feathers and the
flesh of the hyperborean bird-republics may be to man, they are
far from equalling in importance the guano- producing sea-fowl of
the tropical seas. This inestimable manure, which has become
so indispensable to the British agriculturist, is found scattered:
GUANO. 169
over numerous localities in the intertropical regions. It abounds
on many of the rocky islets of the Red Sea, where the life-teeming
waters afford sustenance to innumerable sea-gulls, cormorants,
and pelicans; but its most widely velebrated stores cover the small
Chincha Islands, not far from Pisco, about a hundred miles to the
south of Callao, where they form enormous layers 50 or 60 feet deep.
The upper strata are of a greyish-brown colour, which lower
down becomes darker ; and in the inferior strata the colour is a
rusty red, as if tinged by oxide of iron. The guano becomes
progressively more and more compact from the surface down-
wards, a circumstance naturally accounted for by the gradual
deposit of the strata and the increasing superincumbent weight.
As is universally known, guano is formed of the excrements of
different kinds of marine birds; but the species which Tschudi,
the celebrated Peruvian traveller, more particularly enumerates
are—Larus modestus (Tschudi), Rhynchops nigra (Linn.),
Plotus anhinga (Linn.), Pelecanus thayus (Mol.), Phalacro-
corax Gaimardit and albigula (Tsch.), and chiefly the Sula
variegata (Tsch.).
The immense flocks of these birds, as they fly along the coast,
appear like aérial islands; and when their vast numbers, their
extraordinary voracity, and the facility with which they procure
their food are considered, we cannot be surprised at the magni-
tude of the beds of guano which have resulted from the uninter-
rupted accumulations of countless ages. During the first year
of the deposit the strata are white, and the guano is then called
Guano blanco. In the opinion of the Peruvian cultivators, this
is the most efficacious kind. As soon as the dealers in guano
begin to work one of the beds, the island on which it is formed
is abandoned by the birds. It has also been remarked that, since
the increase of trade and navigation, they have withdrawn from
the islands in the neighbourhood of the ports. Under the em-
pire of the Incas, the guano was regarded as an important branch
of state economy. It was forbidden, on pain of death, to kill
the young birds. Each island had its own inspector, and was
assigned to a certain province. The whole distance between
Arica and Chaucay, a length of two hundred nautical miles, was
exclusively manured with guano. These wise provisions have
been entirely forgotten by the Spaniards, but the Peruvians now
begin to discover the error of their former masters, and look
N 2
170 THE INIIABITANTS OF TIIE SEA.
forward with anxiety to the period when the guano will no longer
suffice for the wants of husbandry. At the present day they use
it chiefly in the cultivation of maize and potatoes. A few weeks
after the seeds begin to shoot, a little hole is made round each
root and filled up with guano, which is afterwards covered with a
layer of earth. After the lapse of twelve or fifteen hours, the
whole field is laid under water, and left in that state for about
half a day. Of the guano blanco a less quantity suffices, and the
field must be more speedilyand abundantly watered, otherwise the
roots would be destroyed. The effect of this manure is incredibly
rapid. In afew days the growth of the plant is doubled; if the
manure is repeated a second time, but in smaller quantity, a rich
harvest is certain;—at least the produce will be three times
greater than that which would have been obtained from the un-
manured soil. The uniformity of climate, along a coast where
rain is never known to fall, contributes essentially to the superior
quality of the Chincha guano, as atmospherical precipitations
naturally dissolve and wash away many of the most fertilising
salts,
TLe consumption of guano in Western Europe, and particu-
larly in England, increases with surprising rapidity. On the
island of Iquique a layer thirty feet deep, and covering a space
of 220,000 square feet, has been entirely removed within twenty-
seven years. In the year 1854, 250,000 tons were dug in the
Chincha Islands, and the actual annual exportation amounts to
double the quantity. The digestive functions of the Sula and
her companions thus bring in larger sums to the Peruvian
Government than all the silver mines of Cerro de Pasco, and
the transport of the guano employs larger fleets than ever Spain
possessed at the brightest period of her power.
“ The Chincha Islands,” says Castelnau (Hapédition dans lea
Parties Centrales de TAmérique du Sud; Paris, 1851), “ are
completely desert and devoid of vegetation; their granite soil
is clearly distinguished by its colour from the thick stra-
tum of guano with which it is covered, and the surface of
which looks at a distance like snow. The steep banks render
landing difficult, Lut facilitate at the same time the shipping of
the produce, as the vessels lie at anchor close to the pits.
Digging takes place at three places, close to one another, and
the traveller has only to compare the enormous deposits with
CHINCHA ISLANDS. 171
the smallness of the excavations, which at some distance are
hardly perceptible, to convince himself of the inexhaustible
supply. Some huts have been constructed on the islaud, where,
in the midst of ammoniacal effluvia, some Peruvian custom-
house officers and soldiers superintend the working of the
guano-mines.”
Birds of Passage
172 TIE INHABITANTS OF Tilk SEA
CHAPS OX,
THE REPTILES OF THE OCEAN.
The Saurians of the Past Seas.—The Anatomical Structure of the Turtles— ~
Their Size—Their Visits to the Shores—The Dangers that await their Young
—Turtles on the Brazilian Coast—Prince Maximilian of Neuwied and the
Turtle—Conflicts of the Turtles with Wild Dogs and Tigers on the Coast of
Java—Turtle-catching on Ascension Island—Tortoise-shell—The Ambly-
rhynchus cristatus—Marine Snakes —The Great Sea-Snake.
THERE was a time when the reptiles were the monarchs
of the sea, when the ocean swarmed with gigantic saurians,
Ichthyosaurus.
The most powerful saurians of the present day
tyrants of the fishes, combining the swift-
ness of the dolphin with the rapacity of the
crocodile. Had those monsters of the deep
been endowed with human intelligence,
they would most likely also, with human
arrogance, have boasted of an eternal sway.
‘For where in the whole ocean was the
enemy that could cope with them? Did
not all beings flee wherever they appeared ?
and did not the inexhaustible sea promise
them an everlasting supply of food ?
But in spite of their colossal power, the
saurians, like all created beings, have been
forced to succumb to time.
Centuries and centuries passed on, the
sea and air gradually changed, the tempe-
rature of the elements no longer remained
the same, and thus by degrees a new ocean
and anew atmosphere were formed, uncon-
genial to the nature of those huge reptiles.
Thus they have been effaced from the roll
of living things, and some petrified re-
mains alone bear testimony to their former
existence.
the crocodile
SAURIANS. 173
the gavial and the alligator—have left to the dolphins, the
sharks, and other monstrous or swiftly-swimming cetaceans
and fishes the dominion of the seas, und now merely infest
+he rivers and swamps of the tropical zone. The lizards also
have long since retired from the scene where they once
abounded, and the ocean at present harbours no other reptiles
in its bosom than turtles and sea-snakes.
Most of the animals belonging to this class are either dan-
gerous or of a disgusting appearance. Few creatures are ob-
jects of such universal abhorrence as the crocodile—the very
type of brutal cold-blooded ferocity ; as the venomous snake—
the emblem of perfidy and ingratitude ; or as the loathsome,
but innocent toad, to which, on account of its ugliness, noxious
properties have been ascribed which the poor animal does not
possess. The frogs, lizards, and turtles alone seem to have
escaped this general detestation, either from their more active
habits, or their well-known harmlessness, or their various utility
to man.
The anatomy of the turtle offers many points of interest; its
vertebra, ribs, and breast-bone growing together so as to form a
bony envelope round the whole animal. This harness is covered
by the skin, which in its turn is bedecked with large scales, while
all the muscles and other soft parts are enclosed in the inner
cavity. Only the head, feet, and tail protrude through openings
between the upper and under carapace, and these can, by the
land tortoises at least, be withdrawn entirely under the former.
This is the only protection which Nature has afforded these
animals against their enemies, for they have neither swiftness of
flight, nor any offensive weapon at their command. But as soon
as anything suspicious approaches, they conceal themselves
under their massive cover, and oppose to every attack by tooth
or nail the passive resistance of an impenetrable shield. Most
of their enemies find it, besides, no easy task to turn them on
their back, as many species attain a very considerable weight, so
that their mere bulk constitutes a good defence. It might be
supposed that this protection could only avail for a short time,
as the want of air must soon force the animal to stretch its head
out of its hiding-place, and this indeed would be the case, if kind
Nature had not taken her measures against this emergency, by
giving the creature a cold blood, so that it can remain a very
174 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
long time without breathing; long enough, at least, to tire the
patience of the most obstinate foe.
Skeleton of Tortoise.
A, superior maxilla ; B, inferior maxilla; c, ossiculum auditus ; D, os hyoides: £, cervical vertebre 3
F, dorsal vertebra ; G, sacrum ; H, caudal vertebra ; 1, dorsal ribs; K, marginal scales ; N, scapula;
0, coracoid bone ; Pp, os humeri; Q, radius; R, ulna; s, bones of the carpus ; T, metacarpal bones ;
u, digital phalanges; v, pelvis; w, femur; x, tibia; y, fibula; z, tarsus; ®, metatarsus;
a.v., phalanges of the foot.
But how comes it, the reader may ask, that respiration, which
pours a warm current through our veins, fails in raising the
temperature of the turtle’s blood ?
Without entering into a lengthened description of the human
heart, I shall merely observe that it consists of two halves (each
half being again subdivided into two separate chambers), and
that the right half, which receives venous blood and pours it
into the lungs, is completely separated by a partition from the
Jeft half, which receives arterial or aérated blood from the lungs,
and propels it into every part of the body. Thus the two dif-
ferent kinds of blood are completely separated, so that an
unmixed venous blood flows into the lungs, where it is converted
by the oxygen of the air into arterial blood. But this connection,
like most chemical processes, takes place under an evolution of
“I
cn
STRUCTURE OF TURTLES. ]
heat, which is so considerable that our internal temperature
constantly maintains itself at the height of 98° F.
Smaller Circulation, Through the Lungs.
Polmonary-s-==—-——— Pulmonary
Artery. Veins.
Right Auricle:=---<-= ns on g ee ) Oy \-i-------------Left Auricle.
Rishteenenwee sees /
Veutricle 2 2 ye \7 77> > Left Ventricle.
: ao RLearte
Vena cava ____f = eee
Arteries con-
veyir.g aérated
_or scarlet. blood
from the heart,
Veins convey-
ing dull purple
blood to the
heart
Greater Sireulations Through the Body.
Theoretic Representation of the Circulation m
Mammals and Birds.
But the turtle’s heart is differently formed, consisting, as the
annexed theoretic representation shows, of but one ventricle and
two auricles, so that a mixed, or only half aérated blood circulates
: B
Right Auricle------~ Beem =| (Wfias ea Left Auricie.
f_. NCSL Nee
Single Ventricle"--~75 ee zoe Nea Hearts
Venez carve---
t rteries.
Veins. Arteries
Theoretic Representation of the Circulation in Reptiles.
throughout the body, which naturally produces a torpidity of the
whole vital process. Besides, the lungs of the reptiles are inca-
178 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
pable of aérating so great a quantity of blood as ours, as their cells
are much larger, thus offering less surface to the action of the air ;
and finally, the ribs of the turtles being immovable, they are in-
capable of extending the lungs, so that the animal is absolutely
obliged to swallow the necessary supply of air, and to pump it, as
it were, into the lungs, by contracting the muscles of the throat.
Thus we see that every precaution has been taken to reduce respi-
ration to a low standard, and prevent the evolution of heat. With
this indolence of its cold-blooded circulation, the whole nature
of the animal is in harmony; the bluntness of its senses, its want
of intelligence, its slow movements, and its long endurance of
hunger, thirst, and want of air. It leads but a drowsy dream-
like existence, and yet, we may be sure, it is far from unhappy,
for all its functions and organs agree perfectly one with the other,
and when concord reigns, enjoyment of some kind must exist.
The turtles are distinguished from the land tortoises particu-
larly by their large and long fin-shaped feet, and also by a
longer tail, which serves them as a rudder. They have no teeth,
but the horny upper jaw closes over the lower like the lid of a
box, thus serving them as excellent shears, either for crushing
shells or dividing the tough fibres of the sea-grass.
They are at home in all the warmer seas, but sometimes they
are carried by oceanic streams far away from their accustomed
haunts. Thus, in the year 1752,
a Green turtle, six feet long, and
weighing 900 pounds, stranded near
Dieppe; and in ]778 another, seven
feet long,on the coast of Languedoc.
One taken on the coast of Cornwall
in July, 1756, measured from the
tip of the nose to the end of the shell, six feet nine inches, and
the weight was supposed to be nearly 800 pounds. These few
examples show us that the turtles rank among the larger inha-
bitants of the ocean, although they are far from attaining the
fabulous proportions assigned to them by Pliny (who makes the
Indians use their shells as boats or roofs), or the enormous size
of some colossal extinct species, such as the fossil tortoise from
the Siwala hills, preserved in the East Indian Museum, which
measures twelve feet in length. They live almost constantly at
sea, partly on shell-fish, like the fierce Loggerhead turtle
Green Turtle.
TURTLES ON THE BRAZILIAN COAST. 177
(Testudo Caretta), partly on sea-grass, like the Green turtle
(7. Midas), and only go on shore during the warmest months
of the year, for the purpose of laying
their eggs.
“We followed the monotonous sea-
coast,” says Prince Maximilian of
Neuwied, in his interesting ‘ Tra-
vels through the Brazils;” “our
two soldiers, a Negro and an Indian,
frequently stopping to dig turtle-eggs Loggerhead Turtle.
out of the sand, which, boiled in sea-
water, used to form our evening repast. Once, while they were
busy gathering drift-wood for cooking, we found at a small
distance from our fire an enormous turtle busy laying her eggs.
We could not possibly have met with anything more agreeable ;
the creature seemed to have crawled there for the express
purpose of providing for our supper. Our presence did not
discompose her in the least; she allowed herself to be touched,
and even raised from the ground, for which purpose four men
were required. During our loud deliberations on her future
fate, she gave no other sign of uneasiness than a blowing sound,
and continued to work slowly with her hind fins, throwing up
the earth at regular intervals.
One of the soldiers stretched himself out at full length on the
ground near the purveyor of our kitchen, inserted his arm into the
earth-hole, and threw out the eggs as they were laid by the
turtle. In this manner above a hundred were collected in about
ten minutes. A council was now held as to the means of adding
the beast to our collection, but as it would have required an
additional mule for the transport, we gave it its life. These
colossal turtles—Midas, Coriacea, and Caretta—especially choose
these desert coasts for the laying of their eggs. They emerge
from the sea in the dusk of evening, and then crawl back again
into the water one or two hours after the setting of the sun.
Thus also the friendly turtle, which had so abundantly provided
for our wants, disappeared after a short time; we found the large
hole filled up, and a. broad trace in the sand showed that the
animal had again retreated to its favourite element. The Midas
is said to lay from ten to twelve dozen, and the Coriacea from
eighteen to twenty dozen eggs at once.”
178 THE INITABITANTS OF TIE SEA.
The wild sand ccast of Pantam (Java) is annually frequented
by a large number of turtles. They are often obliged to creep
over nearly a quarter of a mile of the beach, before finding at
the foot of the sand-dunes a dry and loose soil fit for their pur-
pose ; and on this journey, which for them is a very long one, they
have many dangers to encounter. Hundreds of their skeletons
lie scattered about the strand, many of them five feet long, and
three feet broad ; some bleached and cleaned by time, others still
half filled with putrid intestines, and others, again, quite fresh
and bleeding. High in the air a number of birds of prey wheel
about, scared by the traveller’s approach. Here is the place
where the turtles are attacked by the wild dogs. In packs of
from twenty to fifty, the growling rabble assails the poor sea-
unimal at every accessible point, gnaws and tugs at the feet and
at the head, and succeeds by united efforts in turning the huge
creature upon its back. Then the abdominal scales are torn off,
and the ravenous dogs hold a bloody meal on the flesh, intestines,
and eggs of their defenceless prey. Sometimes, however, the
turtle escapes their rage, and dragging its lacerating tormentors
along with it, succeeds in regaining the friendly sea. Nor
do the dogs always enjoy an undisturbed repast. Often
during the night, the “lord of the wilderness,” the royal tiger,
bursts out of the forest, pauses for a moment, casts a glance over
the strand, approaches slowly, and then with one bound, accom-
panied by a terrific roar, springs among the dogs, scattering
the howling band like chaff before the wind. And now it is
the tiger’s turn to feast, but even he, though rarely, is sometimes
disturbed by man. Thus, on this lonely, melancholy coast, wild
dogs and tigers wage an unequal war with the inhabitants of the
ocean.
The cold-blooded turtle is obliged to confide the hatching of
hereggs to the sun, which generally accomplishes the task in three
weeks, On creeping out of the egg, the young, even those of
tlie largest species, are not larger than half-a-crown and of a
white colour. Unprotected by a parent’s tenderness, the poor
little creatures seem only to be born for immediate death. Their
first instinctive movements are towards the element for which
they are destined; slowly they drag themselves towards the
water, but the sea meets them with a rough embrace, and the
TURTLE CATCHING. 179
unmerciful waves generally throw them back again upon the
shore. Here they are attacked by great sea-birds, storks and
herons, against which, in spite of their smallness, they make
feeble efforts of defence, or by still more powerful beasts of
prey; and thus the greater part of the unfortunate brood is
destroyed at its very first entrance into life; while those which
reach the sea, are generally devoured by sharks and other sharp-
toothed fishes. It is therefore not in vain that the turtle lays
four or five hundred eggs in the course of a single summer, for
were she less fruitful, the race would long since have been ex-
tinguished.
I need hardly mention, that the flesh of the green turtle is
everywhere esteemed as a first-rate delicacy. The king of the
Manga Reva Islands in the South Sea keeps them in a pen for
the wants of his table; and the London alderman is said to
know no greater enjoyment than swallowing a basin of turtle-
soup. Hence it is no wonder that the mariner, tired of salt-beef
and dried peas, persecutes them on all the coasts of the tropical
seas, wherever solitude, a flat beach, and a favourable season
promise to reward his trouble.
Bernardin de St. Pierre gives us the following picturesque
description of turtle-catching on Ascension Island ;— “ Fire-
wood, a kettle, and the great boat-sail were landed, and the
sailors lay down to sleep, as the turtles do not emerge from the
sea before night-fall. The moon rose above the horizon and
illumined the solitude, but her light, which adds new charms to
a friendly prospect, rendered this desolate scene more dreary
still. We were at the foot of a black hillock, on whose summit
mariners had planted a great cross. Before us lay the plain,
covered with innumerable blocks of black lava, whose crests,
whitened by the drippings of the sea-birds, glistened in the
moonbeam. These pallid heads on dark bodies, some of which
were upright, and others reclined, appeared to us like phantoms
hovering over tombs. The greatest stillness reigned over this
desolate earth, interrupted only from time to time by the break-
ing of a wave, or the shriek of a sea-bird. We went to the
great bay to await the arrival of the turtles, and there we lay
flat upon the sand in the deepest silence, as the least noise
frightens the turtles, and causes them to withdraw. At last we
180 THE INIIABITANTS OF THE SEA.
saw three of them rising out of the water, and slowly creeping
on shore, like black masses. We immediately ran up to the
first, but our impatience caused it to drop immediately again
into the sea, where it escaped our pursuit. The second, which
had already advanced too far, was unable to retreat; we turned
it on its back. In this way we caught about fifty turtles, some
of which weighed five hundred pounds. Next,morning, at ten,
the boat came to fetch the produce of our nocturnal sport.
This work occupied us the whole day, and in the evening the
superfluous turtles were restored to the sea. If suffered to
remain a long time on their back, their eyes become blood-
red, and start out of their sockets. We found several on
the strand that had been allowed to perish in this position, a
cruel negligence, of which thoughtless sailors are but too often
guilty.”
In the sea, also, the turtles are pursued by man. In the clear
West Indian waters, where they are frequently seen at great
depths, feeding on the sea-grass meadows, divers plunge after
them and raise them to the surface. Sometimes they are har-
pooned, or even caught sleeping on the waters.
The ancient Romans, who spent such extravagant sums upon
dishes repugnant to our taste, seem to have had but little relish for
turtle flesh, which otherwise the conquerors of the world might
easily have obtained from the Red Sea; for though we read that
Vitellius feasted upon the brains of pheasants, and the tongues
of nightingales, it is nowhere mentioned, that he ever, like the
Lord Mayor of London, set seven hundred tureens of turtle
soup before his guests.
On the other hand, they made a very extensive use of tortoise-
shell, the produce of the Hawk’s-bill turtle (Zes-
tudo imbricata) a native both of the American
and Asiatic seas, and sometimes, but more rarely,
met with in the Mediterranean. The flesh
of the animal is not held in any estimation as a
food, but the plates of the shell being thicker,
stronger, and cleaner than those of any other
species, render it of great importance as an article
of trade.
“Carvilius Pollio,” says Pliny, “a man of great invention in
TORTOISE-SHELL. 18]
matters pertaining to luxury, was the first who cut the plates of
the tortoise for veneering or inlaying.” The Romans imported
large quantities of this precious article from Egypt, and under
the reign of Augustus, the wealthy patricians used even to inlay
the doors and columns of their palaces with it. When Alexan-
dria was taken by Julius Czesar, the warehouses were so full ot
tortoise-shell that the conqueror proposedto make it the principal
ornament of his triumph.
The use of tortoise-shell for the decoration of houses and fur-
niture is long since out of fashion, but it is still in great request
for the making of combs and boxes. By steeping it in boiling
water it softens, and may then, by a strong pressure, be moulded
into any form. When a considerable extent of surface is re-
quired, different pieces must be joined together. This is done
by scraping thin the edges of the pieces to be united, and laying
them over each other while they are in the heated and softened
state ; strong pressure being then applied, they become com-
letely agglutinated. It is in this way that gold, silver, and
other metals for different ornaments are made to adhere to
tortoise-shell.
When, at the beginning of the chapter, I mentioned that the
lizards had entirely forsaken the ocean, I forgot that the Gala-
pegos Islands in the South Sea, right under the Equator,
exclusively possess a maritime animal of this kind, which, from
its being the sole existing representative, or dwindled descend-
ant of the giant oceanic saurians of yore, is far too interesting
to be passed unnoticed. This lizard is extremely common
on all the islands throughout the Archipelago. It lives ex-
clusively on the rocky sea-beaches, and is never found,— at
least Mr. Darwin never saw one,—even ten yards inshore. It is
a hideous-looking creature, of a dirty black colour, stupid and
sluggish in its movements. The usual length of a full-grown
one is about a yard, but there are some even four feet long.
These lizards were occasionally seen some hundred yards from
182 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
the shore, swimming about; and Captain Collnett, in his “ Voy-
age,” says they go out to sea in shoals to fish. With respect to
the object, Mr. Darwin believes he is mistaken; but the fact, stated
on such good authority, cannot be doubted. When in the water
the animal swims with perfect ease and quickness by a serpen-
tine movement of its body and flattened tail; the legs, during
this time, being motionless and closely collapsed on its sides.
A seaman of the “ Beagle” sank one with a heavy weight at-
tached to it, thinking thus to kill it directly ; but when an hour
afterwards he drew up the line the lizard was quite active.
Their limbs and strong claws are admirably adapted for crawling
over the rugged and fissured masses of lava, which every where
form the coast. In such situations a group of six or seven of
these hideous reptiles may oftentimes be seen on the black
rocks, a few feet above the surf, basking in the sun with out-
stretched legs.
Mr. Darwin opened the stomach of several, and in each case
found it largely distended with minced sea-weed, of a kind growing
at the bottom of the sea, at some little distance from the coast.
The nature of this lizard’s food, as well as the structure of its
tail, and the certain fact of its having been seen voluntarily
swimming out at sea, absolutely prove its aquatic habits; yet
there is in this respect one strange anomaly, namely, that when
frightened it will not enter the water. From this cause it is
easy to drive these lizards down to any little point overhanging
the sea, where they wil] sooner allow a person to catch hold of
their tail than jump into the water. They do not seem to have
any notion of biting; but when much frightened they squirt a
drop of fluid from each nostril. One day Mr. Darwin carried one
to a deep poo: left by the retiring tide, and threw it in several
times as far as he was able. It invariably returned in a direct
line to the spot where he stood. It swam near the bottom with
a very graceful and rapid movement, and occasionally aided
itself over the uneven ground with its feet. As soon as it ar-
rived near the margin, but still being under water, it either
tried to conceal itself in the tufts of sea-weed, or it entered some
crevice. As soon as it thought the danger was past, it crawled
out on the dry rocks and shuffled away as quickly as it could.
Mr. Darwin several times caught this same lizard by driving it
THE PELAMYS BICOLOR. 183
down to a point, and, though possessed of such perfect powers
of diving and swimming, nothing could induce it to enter the
water; and as often as he threw it in, it returned in the manner
above described.
Perhaps this singular piece of apparent stupidity may be
accounted for by the circumstance that this reptile has no
enemy whatever on shore, whereas at sea it must often fall
a prey to the numerous sharks. Hence, probably urged by a
fixed and hereditary instinct that the shore is its place of safety,
whatever the emergency may be, it there takes refuge. Ona
comparison of this singular animal with the true iguanas, the
most striking and important discrepancy is in the form of the
head. Instead of the long pointed narrow muzzle of those
species, we have here a short obtusely truncated head, not so
long as it is broad; the mouth consequently is capable of being
opened to only a very small extent. From this circumstance,
and from the crest on its head, it has received the Latin name
of Amblyrhynchus cristatus.
The serpent race, which thrives so abundantly in the tropical
forests and morasses, has also its marine representatives in the
Indian and Pacific Oceans, where more than fifty species of.
Hydrophis, Pelamys, and Chersydra have been found. They
are distinguished from their terrestrial relations by the flattened
form of their tail, the planes of which being directed vertically
give it the properties of a powerful oar, in strik-
ing the water by lateral oscillations. These sea-
snakes always appear to prefer calms, swimming
on the still surface in an undulating manner,
never raising the head much from the surface,
or vaulting out of the water. They dive with
facility on the approach of danger, but do not
appear to be particularly timid.
The Pelamys bicolor is very common from
India to Otaheite. In the seas of Mindoro and
Sooloo, Mr. Adams saw thousands swimming on the top of the
water, especially in eddies and tide-ways where the ripple
collects numerous fish and medusz, which principally constitute
their prey. Their tongue is white and forked, differing in
O
Water-Snake,
184 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
respect of its colour from the tongue of other snakes, which is
generally black. The water-snakes, which are frequently
beautifully banded, and as thick as a man’s leg, are said to be
highly venomous. Captain Cook, in one of his voyages, “ saw
abundance of water-snakes, one of which was coming up the
side of our ship, and our men beat it off. The Spaniards
affirm there is no cure for such as are bit by them; and one
of our blacks happened to fall under that misfortune, and died
notwithstanding the utmost care was taken by our surgeons to
recover him.”
Such are the real sea-snakes as they are met with by ordinary
travellers, while the great sea-serpent, which from time to time
dives up in the columns of the newspapers, must, until better
evidence be brought forward for its existence, be banished to
those dim regions peopled by unicorns, griffins, krakens, and
tailed men.
Olaus Magnus, it is true, speaks of the great sea-snake as if
it made its daily appearance on the Norwegian coast. Accord-
ing to him, it inhabits the rocky caves near Bergen, and
wanders forth at night, particularly by moonshine, to commit its
depredations by sea and land; as calves and pigs seem to suit
its appetite as well as fishes and lobsters. The body is covered
with scales, a long mane flows along the neck, and the head,
furnished with two glistening eyes, rises like a mast out of the
water. It often attacks ships, and picks up seamen from the
deck. This description may serve as an example of the bold-
ness with which authors have sometimes asserted the most
extravagant things.
The Greenland missionary Egede tells us in his Journal, that
“on the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and
frightful sea-monster, which raised itself so high out of the
water that its head reached above our main-top. It had a
long sharp snout, very broad flappers, and spouted water like a
whale. The body seemed to be covered with scales, the skin
was uneven and wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a
snake. After some time the creature plunged backwards into
the water, and then turned its tail up above the surface, a
whole ship-length from the head.”
It is hard to disbelieve so pious and excellent a man, whose
excited fancy no doubt gave extraordinary forms and dimensions
THE LARGE SEA-SNAKE. 185
to some commoner sea-animal of large size; but the testimony
of a Scoresby, who during his frequent Arctic voyages never
saw anything of the kind, would have been more convincing.
If tc this account of Egede be added the reports of some
other northern divines, such as Pontoppidan, the missionary
Nicholas Gremius, and Maclean, who either pretend to have
actually seen the monster or write about it from hearsay—and
the testimony of a few seamen, among others of Captain
M‘Quhae of the Dedalus, who, on the 6th of August, 1848,
saw a sea-snake on his homeward voyage from the East Indies ;
we have all the evidence extant in favour of the existence of
the monstrous animal.
In opposition to these testimonies, incredulous naturalists beg
to remark, that no museum possesses a single bone of the huge
snake, and that its body has nowhere been found swimming on
the ocean or cast ashore. They therefore agree with Professor
Owen in regarding the negative evidence, from the utter absence
of any recent remains, as stronger against their actual existence
than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed with
the public mind in favour of their reality; and believe that a
larger body of evidence from eye-witnesses might be got
together in proof of the reality of ghosts than in proof of the
existence of the great sea-serpent.
The plain truth seems to be that lines of rolling porpoises,
resembling a long string of buoys, first gave origin to the
marvellous stories of the fabulous monster. For, keeping in
close single file, and progressing rapidly along the calm surface
of the water by a succession of leaps or demivaults forward,
part only of their uncouth forms appears to the eye, so as to
resemble the undulatory motions of one large serpentiform
animal.
186 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
CHAP. XII.
THE MARINE FISHES.
General Observations on Fishes—Their Locomotive Organs — Tail — Fins.—
Classification of Fishes by Cuvier.— Air-Bladder.—Scales. — Beauty of the
Tropical Fishes. —The Gills. — Terrestrial Voyages of the Anabas and the
Hassar. — Examples of Parental Affection. — Organs of Sense. — Offensive
Weapons of Fishes.—The Sea-Wolf.—The Shark.—The Saw-Fish.—The Sword-
Fish.— The Torpedo.— The Star-Gazer.— The Angler.—The Chetodon Ros-
tratus.— The Remora, used for catching Turtles. — Defensive Weapons of
Fishes.—The Weever.—The Stickleback.—The Sun-Fish.—The Flying-Fish.—
The numerous Enemies of the Fishes.—Importance and History of the Herring
Fishery.—The Pilchard.—The Sprat.—The Anchovy.—The Cod.—The Stur-
geons.—The Salmon.—The Tunny.—The Mackerel Family.—The Eel.—The
Murey.—The Conger.—The Sand-Launce.—The Plectognaths.—The Sea-Horse.
—The Pipe-Fish.—The Flat-Fishes.—The Rays.—The Fecundity of Fishes.
Tue bosom of the ocean is full of mysteries; it conceals a whole
world of curiously-shaped animals, which the naturalist only
superficially knows, and may, perhaps, never be able to fathom.
To observe the habits of terrestrial animals, and accurately to
determine their various species, is a comparatively easy task ;
but the denser element in which fishes live prevents us from
following their motions with exactness, from studying their
instincts, and from noting with fidelity their specific differences.
Since Pliny, who mentions but seventy-four different kinds of
fishes, the number of known species has indeed enormously in-
creased. The ancients, who knew only the waters of the Medi-
terranean and a very small part of the ocean, had no conception
of the finny multitudes inhabiting the tropical and icy seas ;
but although modern science has succeeded in describing and
picturing above eight thousand different kinds of fishes, yet
there can be no doubt that many still unknown species dwell in
the depths of ocean, or in the distant seas which are but seldom
visited by the European mariner
SWIFTNESS OF FISHES. 187
If the whole economy of the world of fishes were opened to
our view, the magnificent picture would, no doubt, give us ad-
ditional reasons for admiring the infinite wisdom of the Creator ;
but the little we do know suffices to convince us that the
same wonderful harmony existing between the anatomical
structure and the outward relations or mode of life in birds and
mammiferous quadrupeds is also to be found in fishes, and that
these creatures, though occupying a lower grade in Creation, are
no less beautifully adapted to the peculiar element in which
they are destined to live and move,
This strikes us at once in their external form, which, though
subject to great variety, being sometimes spherical as in the
globe-fish, or cubical as in the ostracion, or expanded as in the
skate, or snake-like as in the eel, is generally that of an elon-
gated oval, slightly compressed laterally, a shape which enables
the fishes to traverse their native fluid with the greatest celerity
and ease. We wisely endeavour to imitate this peculiar form
in the construction of our ships, yet the rapidity with which the
fastest clipper cleaves the waters is nothing to the velocity of an
animal formed to reside in that element. The flight of an
arrow is not more rapid than the darting of a tunny, a salmon,
or a gilt-head through the water. It has been calculated that a
‘salmon will glide over 86,400 feet in an hour, that it will
advance more than a degree of the meridian of the earth in a
day, and that it could easily make the tour of the world in some
weeks, were it desirous of emulating the fame of a Cook or of
a Magellan. Every part of the body seems exerted in this
despatch ; the fins, the tail, and the motion of the whole back-
bone assist progression; and it is to this admirable flexibility of
body, which mocks the efforts of art, that fishes owe the
astonishing rapidity of their movements.
Whales and dolphins move onwards by striking the water
in a vertical direction, while fishes glide along by laterally
curving and extending the spine. In some species, such as the
eel, the whole body is flexible; but most of them paddle ay ay
with their tail to the right and left, and are thus driven forwards
by the resistance of the water. Consequently the power of
fishes is chiefly concentrated in the muscles bending the spine
sideways, and generally we find these parts so much developed
as to form the greatest part of the body.
188 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
The fins are the most important auxiliary organs of locomo-
tion in fishes. The dorsal, caudal, and anal fins serve by their
vertical position to increase the extent of the rowing surface,
and to maintain the animal’s balance, while the pectoral and
Skeleton of the Perch.
A A, Dorsal Fins ; B, Caudal; c, Anal; p, Ventral; 8, Pectoral.
ventral fins, which must be considered as the representatives of
the fore and hind limbs of other vertebrata, are, moreover, of
great assistance in directing its mcvements. With the help of
these organs, fishes can advance or retrograde, ascend or descend
in the water as they please, and it is curious to observe how,
alternately extending or contracting one fin or the other, they
gracefully plough the liquid element in every direction.
It is no less wonderful how perfectly the size and texture of
the fins corresponds with the habits aud necessities of the
different species of fishes. Those which traverse vast portions
of the ocean, or have frequently to struggle against swelling
waves, are furnished with large and strong fins, while these organs
are soft in the species which confine themselves to greater
depths, where the winds cease to disturb the waters.
From the great variety which is met with both in the number
and position of the fins, they are also of the greatest use in the
classification of fishes, and afford the naturalist many of the
chief characters which serve to distinguish the several orders,
families, genera, and species of these aquatic vertebrates.*
* Cuvier divides the fishes into:
I. Chondropterygii—Skeleton cartilaginous; fins supported by cartilaginous
rays; and
II. Osteopterygii— Skeleton composed of true bone.
THE AIR-BLADDER. 189
Most fishes possess a remarkable accessory organ of locomo-
tion in the air-bladder or swim-bladder which extends to a
greater or smaller distance along the ventral surface of the
spine, and enables them voluntarily to increase or diminish the
specific gravity of their body. When they contract this remark-
able gas-reservoir, or press out the included air by means of the
abdominal muscles, the bulk of the body is diminished, its
weight in proportion to the water is increased, and the fish
swims easily at a greater depth. The contrary takes place on
relaxing the tension of the abdominal muscles; and thus we
see fishes rise and full in their denser element by the applica-
tion of the same physical law which is made use of by our
aéronauts, to scale the heavens or to descend again upon the
The Chondropterygii are subdivided into three orders :
(a) Sturionide (sturgeons), with free gills.
(0) Selacii (rays, sharks), with gills fixed and a mouth formed for mastication.
(ce) Cyclostomata (lamprey, myxine), with gills fixed and a mouth formed for
suction.
The osseous fishes, which are far more numerous, are subdivided into six
orders: ®
(a) Acanthopterygii; distinguished by the stiff spines which constitute the
first fin-rays of the dorsal fin, or which support the anterior fin of the back in
case there are two dorsals. In some cases the anterior dorsal fin is only repre-
sented by detached spines. The first rays of the anal fin are likewise spinous,
as well as the first ray of the ventral fin. To this extensive order, which com-
prises about three-fourths of the osseous fishes, belong, among others, the
families of the perches, gurnards, mackerels, mullets, breams, gobies, blennies,
&e.
The three following orders of the osseous fishes have the rays that support the
fins soft and composed of numerous pieces articulated with each other, with the
exception in some cases of the first ray of the dorsal, or of the pectoral. Their
leading character is afforded by the situation or absence of the ventral fin, which
in the
(4) Malacopterygii abdominales are suspended beneath the abdomen, and
behind the pectorals ; in the
(c) Malacopterygii subbrachiales beneath the pectorals; and in the
(d) Malacopterygii apodes are totally wanting.
To the abdominal soft-rayed fishes belong the herring, salmon, pike, sly, and
carp families; to the subbrachial, the cod family, the side-swimmers, and the lump
fishes ; and, finally, to the apodal malacopterygians, the single family of the
anguilliform fishes. The small order of the
(e) Lophobranchi comprises the pipe-fishes, sea-horses, in whom the gills are
not pectinated, as in the preceding subdivisions, but consist of little round tufts ;
and, finally, the
(f) Plectognathi—comprising the file, porcupine, and sun fishes—are distin-
guished by their maxillaries and premaxillaries being joined immoyably to each
other, so as to render the upper jaw incapable of protrusion.
[90 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
earth. Those fishes which are destined to live at the bottom of
the sea or to conceal themselves in the mud, such as eels and
skates, have either no air-bladder or a very small one—for
economical Nature gives none of her creatures any organ that
would be useless to them. Even the slimy glutinous matter
which is secreted from the pores of most fishes, and lubricates
their bodies, assists them in gliding through the waters, so that
no means have been neglected to promote the rapidity of their
movements.
The skin of fishes is but seldom naked ; in most species it is
covered with scales, that sometimes appear in the form of
osseous plates, as in the ostracions, or project into formidable
prickles, as in the poreupine-fish, but generally offer the aspect
of thin laminz, overlapping each other like the tiles of a roof,
and embedded, like our nails, in furrows of the skin. In nearly
all the existing fishes, the scales are flexible and generally either
of a more or less circular form (cycloid), as in the salmon,
herring, roach, &c., or provided with comb-like teeth projecting
from the posterior margin (ctenoid), as in the sole, perch, pike,
&e.; while the majority of fossil fishes were decked with hard
bony scales, either rhomboidal in their form, of a highly
polished surface, as in our sturgeons (ganoid), and arranged in
regular rows, the posterior edges of each slightly overlapping
the anterior ones of the next, so as to form a very complete
defensive armour to the body; or irregular in their shape and
SAY Wily eres
TPAD SOCK, | VW). OSES
Wide Fb his duit NO
Portion of Skin of Sole highly magnified,
‘a
separately imbedded in the skin (p/acozd), as in the sharks and
rays of the present day.
The scales of almost any fish afford admirable subjects for
microscopic observation, but more particularly those of the
ctenoid kind, which exhibit a brilliancy of reflected light, and a
STRUCTURE OF THE GILuLS. 191
regularity of structure, such as no human mosaic could ever
equal,
Many of our European fishes are richly decorated with vivid
colours, but their scaly raiment is generally far from equalling
the gorgeous magnificence of the fishes of the tropical seas.
If in the birds of the equatorial zone a part of the plumage
sparkles with a gem-like brilliancy, all the colours of the rain-
bow combine to decorate the raiment of the tropical fishes, and
no human art can reproduce the beauty of their metallic lustre,
which at every movement in the crystalline waters exhibits to
the enchanted eye new combinations and reflections of the
most splendid tints.
The gaudiest fishes live among the coral reefs. In the tepid
waters, where the zoophytes, those sensitive flowers of the ocean,
build their submarine palaces, we find the brilliant Chetodons,
the gorgeous Balistinz, and the azure Glyphysodons gliding
from coral branch to coral branch like the playful Colibris, that
over the Brazilian fields dart from one lustrous petal to another.
Oxygen is as necessary to fishes and other marine creatures as
it is to the terrestrial animals, but as they are obliged to draw
it from a denser element, which absorbs but a small volume of
air, their gills are necessarily differently constructed from the
lungs of the creatures breathing in the atmosphere. In most
species, comprising all the bony fishes, and the sturgeons,
among those which have a cartilaginous skeleton, we find on
either side of the throat five apertures, separated from each
other by four crooked, parallel and unequal bones, and leading
to a cavity, which is closed on the outside by an operculum or
cover. In this cavity, and attached to the bones, are situated the
delicate membranes, bearded like feathers, which serve to aérate
the blood. The water constantly flows through the gills in one
direction, entering by the branchial apertures of the throat, and
emerging through the operculum. This is, in more than one
respect, a most wise provision of Nature; for if the fishes were
obliged to receive and reject the water by the same aperture,
as we do the air, each expiration would evidently drive them
backwards, and consequently retard their movements. It is
also evident that the delicate fringes or folds of the gills would
soon get into disorder if the water were carried through them in
two opposite directions.
192 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
In most of the cartilaginous fishes, such as the sharks, rays,
and lampreys, the gills are differently formed, the water not
passing into a cavity closed by a cover, but flowing directly out-
wards through five (in the shark) or seven (in the lamprey)
vents or spiracles. In these species also the gills are fixed, their
margins being attached. Though the whole breathing apparatus
of a fish is comprised in a small compass, its surface, if fully
extended, would occupy a very considerable space; that of the
common skate, for instance, being equal to the surface of the
human body. This single fact may convince us of the number-
less ramifications and convolutions of the gills, in which the
water is elaborated and attenuated in the course of giving out
its air; and how wonderfully Nature has contrived to effect her
purpose with the greatest economy of space.
Respiration is a species of combustion, and this must neces-
sarily be very slow in an element which contains so small a
portion of oxygen. No wonder that the circulation of the blood
Smaller Circulation.
Heaite**-t- S25
\ C4 ---Dorsal Artery.
Auricless--4<0-052/) _-”
Veins Arteries.
Greater Circulation.
Theoretic representation of the Circulation in Fishes.
in fishes is equally tardy. Their heart, in comparison with owys,
is but half a one, as it merely serves to force the venous blood
into the gills—whence the aérated blood does not flow back to
the heart as with us, to be rapidly and strongly propelled through
the body, but proceeds immediately to the arteries. Evidently
only acold blood could be formed under such circumstances. It
may seem strange that, when fishes are taken out of the water, they
die from want of air; such, however, is the case. Their delicate
breathing membranes collapse in the atmosphere, the blood can
THE CLIMBING FISHES. 193
no longer flow as before into the innumerable small vessels with
which they are interwoven, and, by rapidly drying in the air,
they soon entirely lose the faculty of breathing. Thus those
fishes whose gill-cover has a large aperture, die soonest in the
The Anabas of the Dry Tanks.
air, While those where the opening is narrow, and more parti-
cularly those species where the gills communicate with a
cellular labyrinth containing water, which serves to keep them
moist, are able to live a much longer time in the atmosphere.
Frog-Fish.—,Cheironectes.)
It is owing to such a moistening apparatus that the climbing
fishes (Anabas) live for days out of the water, and even creep up
the trees at some distance from the shore, to catch the insects
which serve them as food—a curious instance indeed of an
animal seeking its nourishment in another element.
194 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
The Frog-fish of the Asiatic islands and the Southern hemi-
sphere is not more remarkable for its hideous deformity than for
its capacity of leading a terrestrial life. Not only can it live
several days out of the water but it can crawl about the room in
which it is confined, a facility which it owes to the great strength
and the peculiar position of its pectoral fins, which thus perform
the office of feet. The whole aspect of these grotesque-looking
creatures, particularly in a walking position, is so much like
that of toads or frogs, that a careless observer would at first
be at some loss to determine their real nature.
A no less wonderful pedestrian is the Hassar (Doras costata),
a South American fish, that marches over land in search of
water, travelling a whole night when the pools dry up in
which it commonly resides. It projects itself forwards on its
bony pectoral fins, by the elastic spring of the tail, exerted
sidewise, and in this manner proceeds nearly as fast as a man
will leisurely walk. The strong scuta or bands which envelop
its body must greatly facilitate its march, in the manner of
the plates under the belly of serpents, which are raised and
depressed by a voluntary power, in some measure performing
the office of feet. The Indians say justly that these fishes
supply themselves with water for their journey. If they find
the pools and rivers everywhere dried up, they bury themselves
in the mud, and fall into a kind of asphyxia or lethargy, till
the rainy season recalls them again to life.
The hassar is also remarkable for a parental affection, almost
unexampled among fishes. Sir Richard Schomburgk relates that
it not only builds a complete nest for its spawn but also watches
over it with the utmost vigilance till the young brood comes
forth. In April, this marine artist begins to build his little
dwelling of vegetable fibres, among the waterplants and rushes,
until it resembles a hollow ball, flattened at the top. An
aperture corresponding to the size of the mother leads into
the interior. The parental affection of the fish is shamefully
misused by man for its destruction. A small basket is held
before the opening; then the nest is slightly beaten with a
stick ; and, furious, with extended fins, whose sharp points are
able to inflict a painful wound, the poor hassar darts into the
fatal basket.
The black Goby (Gobius nigei) also prepares a nest for its
SUBAQUEOUS LIFE—STICKLEBACKS AND NEST.
SUBAQUEOUS LIFE—STICKLEBACKS AND NEST.
i
Tuis plate represents a group of fifteen-spined sticklebacks busily employed in
making their nests. To the left is seen a curious piece of marine architecture,
mentioned by Mr. Couch, the well-known ichthyologist. A pair of sticklebacks
had made their nest “in the loose end of a rope, from which the separated strands
hung out about a yard from the surface, over a depth of four or five fathoms, and
to which the materials could only have been brought, of course, in the mouth of
the fish, from the distance of about thirty feet. They were formed of the usuai
aggregation of the finer sorts of green and red sea-weed, but they were so matted
together in the hollow formed by the untwisted strands of the rope that the mass
constituted an oblong ball of nearly the size of the fist, in which had been deposited
the scattered assemblage of spawn, and which was bound into shape with a thread
of animal substance, which was passed through and through in various directions,
while the rope itself formed an outside covering to the whole,”
THE STICKLEBACK’S NEST. 195
eggs, ‘I'bis fish inhabits the slimy bottoms of the lagoons
_ near Venice, and burrows galleries in the clayey soil, where
it spends the greater part of the year, protected against storms
and enemies. In spring it digs more superficial dwellings
among the roots of the sea-grass, to which the spawn attaches
itself. The architect watches over the entrance of the house,
opposing sharp rows of teeth to every intruder.
A similar care may be admired in the tiny Stickleback, which
the celebrated ichthyologist, M. Coste, has often watched build-
ing its nest. After the fish has collected the materials, it
covers them with sand, glues the walls with a mucous secretion,
and prepares a suitable entrance. At a later period it becomes
the bold and indefatigable defender of its eggs, repelling with
tooth and prickles all-other sticklebacks that approach the nest.
If the enemy is too powerful, it has recourse to artifice, darts
forth, seems actively engaged in the pursuit of an imaginary
prey, and often succeeds in diverting the aggressor’s attention
from its nest. The River Bullhead is likewise said to evince
the same parental affection for its ova, as a bird for its nest,
returning quickly to the spot, and being unwilling to quit it
when disturbed. It is believed, also, of the Lump-Sucker, that
the male first keeps watch over the deposited ova, and guards
them from every foe with the utmost courage. If driven from
the spot by man, he does not go far, but is continually looking
back, and in a short time returns. Thus we find among the
inferior animals glimpses of a higher nature, which prove that
all created beings form a continuous chain, linked together by
one all-pervading and almighty Power.
The senses of the fishes are also in perfect harmony with
the peculiarities of their mode of life. Their eyes are indeed
wanting in the fire and animation which gives so much expres-
sion to the physiognomy of the higher animals, but the structure
of these organs is admirably calculated for the element in which
they are plunged, as the spherical form and great size of the
crystalline lens, by concentrating the rays of light, enables them
to see with distinctness even through so densea medium as that
which surrounds them. When water is clear, smooth, and un-
disturbed the sight of fishes is very acute, a circumstance well
known to anglers, who prefer a breeze undulating over the
surface, as they can then approach much nearer the objects of
196 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
their pursuit and practise their artful dodges with a munch
better chance of success. The eyes in fishes are observed to
occupy very different positions in different species, but their
situation is always such as best to suit the exigencies of the
particular fish. Thus in the star-gazer and sea-devil, that
watch their prey from a muddy concealment, they are very
appropriately placed at the top of the head, while in the flat-
fishes, where an eye on the side habitually turned towards the
ground would have been useless, the distorted head, by placing
both eyes on the same level, affords them an extensive range of
view in those various directions in which they may either en-
deavour to find suitable food or avoid dangerous enemies. That:
fishes are not deficient in the sense of hearing may be seen
at once by the annexed illustrations, which show a marked
Internal Ear of Perch.
similarity of organisation between the human ear and that of
the perch. It is well known that they start at the report of a
Osseous labyrinth of the Human Far.
a, Oval or vestibular fenestra; b, round or cochlear fenestra; ¢c, external or horizontal semi-
circular canal; d. superior or anterior vertical semicircular canal ; e, posterior or inferior
vertical semicircular canal ; f, the turns of cochlea,
eun, though it is impossible for them to see the flash. Sir
Joseph Banks used to collect his fishes by sounding a bell, and
the Chinese call the gold-fish with a whistle to receive their
ORGANS OF TOUCH. 197
food. In spite of their scaly covering, the fishes are not uapro-
vided with organs of touch. The lips in many species are soft,
and the mouths of others, such as the
red mullet—for which such enormous
sums were paid by the Roman epi-
cures—are provided with barbules
largely supplied with nerves, which no
doubt enable them to distinguish the
objects with which they come in con-
tact. In the three elongated rays of their pectoral fins the
gurnards may be said to possess fingers to compensate for their
bony lips; and in many other fishes these modified arms or
forefeet are applied as organs of feel-
ing to ascertain the character of the
hottomof the water. “ You may witness
the tactile action of the pectoral fins,”
says Professor Owen,* “ when gold-fish
are transferred to a strange vessel ;
their eyes are so placed as to prevent
them seeing wkat is below them; so
they compress their air-bladder, and allow themselves to sink
near the bottom, which they sweep, as it were, by rapid and
delicate vibrations of the pectoral fins, apparently ascertaining
that no sharp stone or stick projects upwards, which might
injure them in their rapid movements round their prison.”
Whether fishes possess any high degree of taste is a subject
not easily proved; but, to judge by the large size of thei
olfactory nerves, their sense of smell is probably acute.
The life of fishes is a state of perpetual warfare, a constant
alternation of flight and pursuit. Prowling through the waters,
they attack and devour every weaker being they meet, or dart
uway to escape a similar lot. Many of
them are provided, besides their swift- _
ness and muscular power, with the most @
formidable weapons. Thus the Sea-
wolf has six rows of grinders in each
jaw, excellently adapted for bruising the crabs and whelks,
which this voracious animal grinds to pieces, and swallows along
Red Mullet.
Gurnard.
Wolf-Fish.—(Anarrhicas lupus.
* “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy.”
P
198 THE [INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
with the shells) When caught, it fastens with indiscriminate
rage upon anything within its reach, fighting desperately, even
when out of its own element, and inflicting severe wounds if not
cautiously avoided. Schonfeld relates that it will seize on an
anchor, and leave the marks of its teeth behind, and Steller in-
forms us that one which he saw taken on the coast of Kamschatka
frantically seized a cutlass with which it was attempted to be
killed, and broke it in pieces as if it had been made of glass.
No wonder that the fishermen, dreading its bite, endeavour as
soon as possible to render it harmless by heavy blows upon the
head. The great size of the monster, which in the British waters
attains the length of six or seven feet, and in the colder and
more extreme northern seas is said to become still larger, renders
it one of the most formidable denizens of the ocean. It com-
monly frequents the deep parts of the sea, but approaches the
coasts in spring to deposit its spawn among the marine plants.
Fortunately for its more active neighbours, it swims but slowly,
and glides along with the serpentine motion of the eel.
Far more dreadful, from its gigantic size and power, is the
White Shark (Squalus carcharias), whose jaws are likewise
White Shark.
furnished with from three to six rows of strong, flat, triangular,
sharp-pointed, and finely serrated teeth, which it can raise or
depress at pleasure. This tyrant of the seas grows to a length of
thirty feet, and its prodigious strength may be judged of from the
fact that a young shark, only six feet in length, is able to break
a man’s leg by a stroke of its tail, Thus, whena shark is caught
with a baited hook at sea, and drawn upon deck, the sailors’ first
act is to chop off its tail, to prevent the mischief otherwise to
be apprehended from its enormous strength. An anecdote
related by Hughes, the well-known and esteemed author of the
THE SHARK. 199
* Natural History of Barbadoes,” gives a good idea of the savage
nature of this monster. “In the reign of Queen Anne a mer-
chant-ship arrived at that island from England: some of the
crew, ignorant of the danger of the recreation, were bathing in
the sea, when a large shark appeared and swam directly towards
them; being warned of their danger, however, they all hurried
on board, where they arrived safe, except one poor fellow, who
was bit in two by the shark, almost within reach of the oars.
A comrade, and intimate friend of the unfortunate victim,
when he observed the severed trunk of his companion, vowed
his revenge. The voracious monster was seen traversing the
bloody surface of the waves, in search of the remainder of his
prey, when the brave youth plunged into the water. He held
in his hand a long sharp-pointed knife; and the rapacious
animal pushed furiously towards him. He had turned on his
side and opened his enormous jaws, when the youth, diving
dexterously, seized the shark with his left hand, somewhere
below the upper fins, and stabbed him repeatedly in the belly.
The animal, enraged with pain, and streaming with blood,
attempted in vain to disengage himself. The crews of the sur-
rounding vessels saw that the combat was decided; but they
were ignorant which was slain, till the shark, exhausted by loss
of blood, was seen nearer the shore, and along with him his
gallant conqueror — who, flushed with victory, redoubled his
efforts, and, with the aid of an ebbing tide, dragged him to the
beach. Finally, he ripped open the stomach of the fish, and
buried the severed half of his friend’s body with the trunk in
the same grave.”
It is no uncommon thing for the negroes, who are admirable
divers, thus to attack and vanquish the dreaded shark, but suc
Hammer-headed Shark, — (Squalus Zygena.)
cess can only be achieved by consummate dexterity, and by
those who are armed for this express purpose.
1D
250 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
Ordinary swimmers are constantly falling a prey to the
sharks of warm climates. Thus Sir Brooke Watson, when in
the West Indies, as a youth, was swimming at a little dis-
tance from a ship, when he saw a shark making towards him.
Struck with terror at its approach, he immediately cried out
for assistance. A rope was instantly thrown, but, even while
the men were in the act of drawing him up the ship’s side,
the monster darted after him, and at a single snap took off
his leg.
Fortunately for the friends of sea-bathing on our shores, the
white shark, like his relation, the monstrous Hammer-headed
Zygena, appears but seldom in the colder latitudes, though both
have occasionally been found on the British coast.
The northern ocean has got its peculiar sharks, but they
_are generally either good-natured like
~ the huge basking shark (S. maaimus),
which feeds on sea-weeds and me-
dusze, or else like the Picked dog-fish
(Galeus acanthius), of too small a size
to be dangerous to man, in spite of
the ferocity of their nature.
But the dog-fish and several other species of our seas, such as
the Blue Shark (Carcharias glaucus), though they do not attempt
the fisherman’s life, are ex-
tremely troublesome and in-
jurious to him, by hovering
about his boat and cutting
the hooks from the lines in
Picked Dog-Fish.
rapid succession. This, in-
deed, often leads to their own
3 destruction, but when thei
Blue-Shark. teeth do not deliver them
from their difficulty, the blue
sharks, which hover about the Cornish coast during the pilchard
season, have a singular method of proceeding, which is, by roil-
ing the body round so as to twine the line about them through-
out its whole length; and sometimes this is done in such a
complicated manner, that Mr. Yarrell has known a fisherman
give up any attempt to unroll it as a hopeless task. To the
pilchard drift-net this shark is a still more dangerous enemy,
and it is common for it to pass in succession along the
THE SWORD-FISII. 201
whole length of net, cutting out, as with shears, the fish and
the net that holds them, and swallowing both together.
The Saw-snouted Shark or Saw-fish (Squalus pristis), which
grows to fifteen feet in length, and the Sword-fish (Xephias
Saw-Fish.
gladius, platypterus), are furnished with peculiarly formidable
weapons. ‘The long flat snout of the former is set with teeth on
Sword-Fish.
both sides through its whole length, while the upper jaw of the
latter terminates in a long sword-shaped snout. A twenty-feet
long sword-fish once ran his sword with
such violence into the keel of an East
Indiaman, that it penetrated up to the
root, and the fish itself was killed by the
violence of the shock. The perforated
beam, with the driven-in sword, are both
preserved in the British Museum, and
give a good idea of the prodigious power
of the leviathans of ocean.
While most fishes only rely upon their
well-armed jaws, their physical strength,
or their rapidity, for attack or defence,
some of them are provided with more
mysterious weapons, and stun their vic-
tims or their enemies by electrical discharges.
oo 3
0, 10)
202 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
The Torpedo of the Mediterranean is furnished with wonderful
organs for this purpose, situated on each side of the anterior
Muscles and Electric Batteries of the Torpedo.
and called by the Arabs vraasch,
part of the body, — perfect
galvanic batteries, consist-
ing of a multitude of small
prismatic columns, subdi-
vided into cells, and inter-
woven with a multitude of
nerves, which serve to dis-
engage the electric fluid,
and discharge it according
to the will of the fish, or
when it is excited by some
external stimulus. The
shock of the torpedo is
not so strong as that of
the electric-eel (Gymnotus
electricus) of the Orinoeo,
which is able to stun a
horse, but its power suffices
to paralyse the arm of a
man. A Sly, or Silurus,
found in the Nile or Senegal,
or lightning, and one of
the many Tetrodons inhabiting the tropical seas, is endowed
with a similar faculty of producing galvanic shocks.
Some fishes, to whom nature has denied all other offensive
weapons, have recourse to stratagem
for procuring their food. Hidden
in the mud, the Stargazer (Urano-
ee : scopus scaber) exposes only the tip
Electric Eel. of the head, and waving the
beards with which its lips are
furnished in various directions, decoys the smaller fishes and
marine insects, that mistake these organs for worms.
The Angler, or Sea-devil (Lophius piscatorius), a slow
swimmer, who would very often be obliged to fast if he had only
his swiftness to rely upon, uses a similar stratagem. Crouch-
ing close to the ground, he stirs up the sand or mud, and, hidden
by the obscurity thus produced, attracts many a prize by leisurely
THE ANGLER. 203
moving to and fro the two slender and elongated appendages
on his head, the first of which, the better to deceive, is broad and
flattened at the end, inviting pursuit
by the shining silvery appearance of
the dilated part. Even the great
European Sly, a fish which has been
known to grow to the length of fifteen
feet, and to attain a weight of 300 lbs.
is not ashamed to owe its food to
similar deceits. Like a true lazzarone, the fat creature lies
hidden in the mud of rivers, its mouth half open, and angling
with its long beards.
But no fish catches its prey in a
more remarkable manner than the
Beaked, or Rostrated Cheetodon,
a native of the fresh waters of
India. When he sees a fly alight-
ing on-any of the plants which
overhang the shallow water, he
approaches with the utmost cau-
tion, coming as perpendicularly as
possible under the object of his
meditated attack. Then placing
himself in an oblique direction,
with the mouth and eyes near the surface, he remains a moment
immoveable, taking his aim like a first-rate rifleman. Having
fixed his eyes directly on the insect, he darts at ita drop of water
from his tubular snout, but without showing his mouth above the
surface, from which only the drop seems to rise, and that with such
effect, that though at the distance of four, five or six feet, it very
seldom fails to bring its prey into the water. Another small
East Indian fish, theToxotes jaculator,
catches its food by a similar dexterous
display of archery.
While all other fishes hunt only for
their own benefit, the Indian Remora,
or Sucking-fish (Zcheneis Naucrates),
owes to the remarkable striated appa- Toxotes Jaculator.
ratus on its head, by which it firmly
adheres to any object—rock, ship, or animal,—to which “it
European Sly.—(Silurus glanis )
204 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
chooses to attach itself, the rare distinction of being employed
by man as a hunting-fish. When Columbus first discovered the
West Indies, the inhabitants of the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica
made use of the remora to catch turtles, by attaching to its
tail a strong cord of palm-fibres, which served to drag it out
of the water along with its prey. By this means they were
able to raise turtles weighing several hundred pounds from the
bottom; “for the sucking-fish,” says Columbus, “ will rather
suffer itself to be cut to pieces than let go its hold.” In Africa,
on the Mozambique coast, a similar method of catching turtles
is practised to the present day. Thus a knowledge of the habits
of animals, and similar necessities, have given rise to the same
hunting artifices among nations that never had the least com-
munication with each other. Everybody knows the fables that
have been related of the small Mediterranean remora (Hcheneis
remora). It even
owes its Latin name
to the marvellous
story of its being
Sucking-fish, (Remora,) able to arrest a ship
under full sail in
the midst of the ocean; and from this imaginary physical power
a no less astonishing moral influence was inferred, for the
ancients believed that tasting the remora completely subdued
the passion of love, and that if a delinquent, wishing to gain
time, succeeded in making his judge eat some of its flesh, he
was sure of a long delay before the verdict was pronounced.
Most fishes have only a rapid flight to depend upon for
their safety; some, however, more favoured by nature, have
been provided with peculiar defensive weapons. Thus the
dorsal fins of the Dragon-weever (Zrachinus draco), a small
silvery fish, frequently occurring on our shores, are armed
with strong spines, that effectually provide against its being
easily swallowed by a more powerful
enemy. The wounds it inflicts are
very troublesome and painful, though
it does not appear that the spines
Bac ceeee: Weeves: contain any poisonous matter, as the
- fishermen generally believe. At all
events, the dragon-weever is not nearly so dangerous as the Clip
THE FLYING FISHES. 208
bagre, a kind of silurus or sly, inhabiting the Brazilian rivers, that
inflicts with its long spines such painful wounds as to deprive the
sufferer of consciousness, and to produce an inflammation that lasts
for several weeks. The Lance-tails, or
Acanthuri, have a sharp bony process,
not unlike the very large thorn of a
rose-tree, placed on each side of the
tail; by this they can inflict a deep
cut on the hand of any one who
is so imprudent as to seize them in
that part.
I could still add a long list of spine-armed fishes, but content
myself with noticing the Stickleback, which frequently owes
its preservation to the sharp needles with which it is provided.
The Tetrodons and Diodons have the power of inflating their
body at pleasure, and thus raising the small spines dispersed
over their sides and abdomen in such
a manner, as to operate as a defence
against their enemies. These beau- WW A
tiful and remarkable fishes chiefly S:
inhabit the tropical waters, but some- ee a7
times wander into higher latitudes. yy —
Man is not the only creature driven
by the currents of fate far from the
place of his birth.
The Flying-fishes (Hzocet?) are provided with pectoral fins of
so great a length, as to be able to carry them, like wings, a great
distance through the air. According to Mr. George Bennett
(‘** Wanderings in New South Wales”), they cannot raise them-
selves when in the atmosphere, the elevation they take depending
entirely on the power of the first spring or leap they make on
leaving their native element. Their flight, as it is called, carries
them fifteen or eighteen feet high over the water, and the lines
which they traverse when they enjoy full liberty of motion, are
very low curves, and always in the direction of their previous
progress in the usual element of fishes. Their silvery wings and
blue bodies glittering beneath the rays of a tropical sun, afford
a most beautiful spectacle, when, as is frequently the case, they
rise into the air by thousands at once, and in all possible direc-
tions. The advantage afforded them by their wing-like fins, in
Surgeon Fish. (Acanthurus.)
206 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
escaping from the pursuit of the bonitos and albacores, often,
however, leads to their destruction in another element, where
gulls and_ frigate-
birds frequently
seize them with
lightning-hke ra-
pidity, ere they fall
back again into the
ocean. It is amus-
ing to observe a
bonito swimming
beneath the feeble
aéronaut, keeping
him steadily in view, and preparing to seize him at the moment
of his descent. But the flying-fish often eludes the bite of his
enemy, by instantaneously renewing his leap, and not unfre-
quently escapes by extreme agility.
The specific gravity of the flying-fish can be most admirably
regulated in correspondence with the element through which it
may move. The swim-bladder, when distended, occupies nearly
the entire cavity of the abdomen, thus containing a large volume
of air; and in addition to this, there is a membrane in the
mouth which can be inflated through the gills. The pectoral
fins, though so large when expanded, can be folded into an
exceedingly slender, neat, and compact form, so as to be no
hindrance to swimming. A light displayed from the chains
of a vessel in a dark night, will bring many flying-fishes on
board, where they are esteemed as a great delicacy. Their
fate, thus to be persecuted in both elements and to find security
nowhere, has often been pitied in prose and verse; but although
they excite so much sentimental commiseration, they are them-
selves no less predaceous than their enemies, feeding chiefly on
smaller fishes.
The flying-fish of the West Indian waters is frequently
allured by the tepid waters of the Gulf-stream into higher lati-
tudes, and Pennant cites several examples of its having been
found near the British coast.
The Flying-Gurnard (7vrigla volitans) of the Mediterranean,
Atlantic, and Indian seas, a highly singular and beautiful species,
also raises itself into the air by means of its large pectoral fins,
ABUNDANCE OF THE SEA. 207
It does not fly very high, but swings itself as far as a musket-
ball reaches, and may thus elude even the rapidity of the
dolphin. That strangely formed fish, the Pegasus of the Indian
seas, is also enabled by its large pec-
toral fins to support itself for some
moments in the air, when it springs
over the surface of the water.
Neither the quadrupeds nor the
birds are subject to so many persecu-
tions as the fishes, which have inex-
orable enemies in all classes of animals. Swimming Pegasus.
Numberless molluscs and zoophytes
feed upon their eggs, or devour their minute fry; myriads of sea-
birds are on the look-out for them along the strands, or on the
high ocean ; seals and ice-bears lie in wait for them, while with
weapons and deceit, with net, angle and harpoon, man carries
death and destruction into their ranks. It would be a difficult
task to state with any degree of exactness the number of fisher-
men disseminated over the face of the globe, but if we consider
that, on a moderate calculation, at least a million of persons are
directly or indirectly engaged in fishing in Great Britain and
Ireland alone, and then cast a glance over the immense coast-
line of the ocean, we may without exaggeration affirm that at
least one-fiftieth part of the human race lives upon the produce
of the seas. If we further reflect that fishes form a great part
of the food of all coast-inhabitants, and consider in what masses
they are sent into the interior,— fresh, dried, salted, smoked,
and pickled,—we cannot doubt that the great extent of the ocean
only apparently limits the numbers of the human race, for how
many thousands of square miles of the most fruitful soil would
it not require to bring forth the quantity of food which the blue
and green fields of ocean supply to man? “ Bounteous mother,”
“ Alma parens,” was the name given by the grateful ancients to
the corn and grass-producing, herd-feeding earth; but how
much more deserving of that endearing appellation is the sea,
that, without being ploughed or manured, dispenses her gifts
with such inexhaustible profusion! Numberless indeed are the
various kinds of fishes which she furnishes to man, for almost
every species affords an equally agreeable and healthy food: but
of all the finny families or tribes that people the ocean none can
203 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
compare for utility with that of the Clupeide, or Herrings,
small in size but great in importance. In mile-long shoals,
often so thickly pressed that a spear cast into them would stand
upright in the living stream, the common herring appears
annually on the coasts of north-west-
ern Europe, pouring out the horn
of abundance into all the lochs,
bays, coves, and fiords, from Norway
to Ireland, and from Orcadia to Nor-
mandy. Sea-birds without end keep thinning their ranks during
Herring.
the whole summer ; armies of rorquals, dolphins, seals, shell-fish,
cods, and sharks devour them by millions, and yet so countless
are their numbers, that whole nations live upon their spoils.
As soon as the season of their approach appears, fleets of herring
boats leave the northern ports, provided with drift-nets, about
1200 feet long. The yarn is so thick that the wetted net sinks
through its own weight, and need not be held down by stones
attached to the lower edge, for it has been found that the
herring is more easily caught in a slack net. The upper edge
is suspended from the drift-rope by various shorter and smaller
ropes, called buoy ropes, to which empty barrels are fastened,
and the whole of the floating apparatus is attached by long
ropes to the ship. Fishing takes place only during the night,
for it is found that the fish strike the nets in much greater
numbers when it is dark than while it is light. The darkest
nights, therefore, and particularly those in which the surface of
the water is ruffled by a fresh breeze, are considered the most
favourable. To avoid collisions, each boat is furnished with one
or two torches. From off the beach at Yarmouth, where often
several thousand boats are fishing at the same time, these num-
berless lights, passing to and fro in every direction, afford a most
lively and brilliant spectacle. The meshes of the net are exactly
calculated for the size of the herring, wide enough to receive tne
head as far as behind the gill-cover, but not so narrow as to allow
the pectoral fins to pass. Thus the poor fish, when once en-
tangled, is unable to move backwards or forwards, and remains
sticking in the net, like a bad logician on the horns of a dilemma,
until the fisherman hauls it on board. In this manner a single
net sometimes contains so vast a booty, that it requires all the
authority of a Cuvier or a Valenciennes to make us believe the
THE HERRING-FISHERY. 209
instances they mention. A fisherman of Dieppe caught in one
night 280,000 herrings, and threw as many back again into the
sea. Sometimes great sloops have been obliged to cut their nets,
being about to sink under the superabundant weight of the fish.
The oldest mention of the herring-fishery is found in the
chronicles of the monastery of Evesham, of the year 709; while
the first French documents on the subject only reach as far as
the year 1030. As far back as the days of William the Conqueror,
Yarmouth was renowned for its herring-fishery; and Dunkirk and
the Brill conducted it on a grand scale centuries before William
Beukelaer of Biervliet, near Sluys, introduced a better method
of pickling herrings in small kegs, instead of salting them as
before in loose irregular heaps. It is very doubtful whether
Solon or Lycurgus ever were such benefactors of their respective
countries as this simple uneducated fisherman has been to his
native land; for the pickled herring mainly contributed to
transform a small and insignificant people into a mighty nation.
In the year 1603, the value of the herrings exported from Hol-
land amounted to twenty millions of florins; and in 1615, the
fishery gave employment to 2000 buysen, or smacks, and to
37,000 men. ‘Three years later we see the United Provinces
cover the sea with 3000 buysen ; $000 additional boats served for
the transport of the fishes, and the whole trade gave employment
to at least 200,000 individuals. At that time Holland provided all
Europe with herrings, and it may without exaggeration be affirmed
that this small fish was their best ally and assistant in casting
off the Spanish yoke, by providing them with money, the chief
sinew of war. Had the emperor Charles V. been able to foresee
that Beukelaer’s discovery would one day prove so detrimental
to his son and successor Philip II., he would hardly have done
the poor fisherman the honour to eat a herring and drink a glass
of wine over his tomb.
But all human prosperity is subject to change; and thus
towards the middle of the sixteenth century a series of cala-
mities ruined the Dutch fisheries. Cromwell gave them the
first blow by the Navigation Act; Blake the second, by his vic-
tories; in 1703 a French squadron destroyed the greatest part
of their herring-smacks; and finally, the competition of the
Swedes, and the closing of their ports by the English, under the
disastrous domination of Napoleon I., coinpleted the ruin of
210 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
that branch of trade which had chiefly raised the fortunes of
their fathers.
In the year 1814, when the Dutch first began to breathe after
having shaken off the yoke of the modern Attila, they made a
faint attempt to renew the herring-fishery with 106 boats, which,
up to the year 1823, had only increased to 128; since 1836, how-
ever, there has been a steady progress, and herring-catching in
the Zuyder Zee during the winter months is yearly increasing in
importance,
During the second half of the last century, while the her-
rings began to desert the Dutch nets, they enriched the Swedes,
who, during the year 1781, exported from Gottenburg alone
136,649 barrels, each of them containing 1200 herrings. But
some years after, the shoals on the Swedish coasts began also to
diminish, so that in 1799 there was hardly enough for home con-
sumption. And now commenced the rapid rise and increase of
the Scotch herring-fisheries; and it is certainly remarkable
that this should have taken place at so late a period, since the
British waters are perhaps those which most abound in her-
rings. When we think of the present grandeur of British com-
merce, which extends to the most distant parts of the globe, and
ransacks all Nature for new articles of trade, it seems almost
incredible that up to the middle of the sixteenth century the
herring-fishery on the British coasts was left in the hands of
the Dutch and Spaniards, and that the acute and industrious
Scotchmen should have been so tardy in working the rich gold-
mines lying at their gates. But if their appearance in the market
has been late, they have made up for lost time, by completely
distancing all their competitors. In 1855, the Scotch herring-
fisheries employed no less than 11,000 smacks or boats, manned
by 40,000 seamen, who were assisted by 28,000 curers and
labourers, exclusive of the vessels and men bringing salt and
barrels or engaged in carrying on the export trade.
The English herring-fishery is also extremely important, for
Yarmouth alone employs in this branch of trade about 400
sloops, of from forty to seventy tons, the largest of which have
ten or twelve men on board. Three of these sloops, belonging
to the same proprietor, landed, in the year 1857, 285 lasts, or
3,762,000 fishes; and as each last was sold for £14 sterling, it is
THE YARMOUTIL HERRING-FISHERY. 211
probable that no whaler made a better business that season.
The importance of the Yarmouth herring-fishery may be in-
ferred from the fact, that it gives employment and bread to
about 5,000 persons during several months of the year, and
engages a capital of at least £700,000. No wonder, that among
the north seamen the herring-fishery is called the “ great”
fishery, while that of the whale is denominated only the “ small.”
But the herring is a very capricious creature, seldom remain-
ing long in one place; and there is not a station along the Bri-
tish coast which is not liable to great changes in its visits, as
well with regard to time as to quantity. The real causes of these
uregularities are unknown; the firing of guns, the manufacture
of kelp, and the paddling of steam-boats have been assigned as
reasons, but such reasons are quite imaginary. The progress of
science promises to find, however, a remedy even for the caprices
of the herring; and if his shoals frequently appeat' and disap-
pear again in the more retired bays or fiords of Norway, before
the fishermen are apprised of his movements, the electric tele-
graph (the most wonderful discovery of a time so rich in won-
derful inventions), will be used for his more effectual capture.
By this time the wires are already laid, which are to communi-
cate along the whole Scandinavian coast, and with the rapidity
of lightning, every important movement of the marine hosts.
Poor herring! who would have thought, when Franklin made
his first experiments upon electricity, that that mysterious
power should ever be used for thy destruction !
The supposed migration of herrings to and from the high
northern latitudes is not founded on fact; the herring has never
been seen in abundance in the northern seas, nor have our whale-
fishers or Arctic voyagers taken any particular notice of them
There is no fishery for them cf any consequence either in Green-
land or Iceland. On the southern coast of Greenland the herring
is arare fish, and, according to Crantz, only a small variety makes
its appearance on the northern shore. This small variety,
or species, was found by Sir John Franklin on the shore of the
Polar basin, on his second journey. There can be no doubt
that the herring inhabits the deep water all round our coast,
and only approaches the shores for the purpose of depositing its
spawn within the immediate influence of the two principal
agents in vivification—increased temperature and oxygen—and
212 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
as soon as that essential object is effected, the shoals that haunt
the superficial waters disappear, but individuals are found, and
many are to be caught throughout the year. So far are they
from being migratory to us from the north only, that they visit
the west coast of Cork in August, arriving there much earlier
than those which come down the Irish Channel, and long
before their brethren make their appearance at places much
farther north. Our common herring spawns towards the end of
October, or the beginning of November, and it is for two or
three months previous to this, when they assemble in immense
numbers, that the fishing is carried on, which is of such great
and national importance. “And here,” Mr. Couch observes,
“we cannot but admire the economy of Divine Providence, by
which this and several other species of fish are brought to the
shores, within reach of man, at the time when they are in their
highest perfection and best fitted to be his food.” The herring
having spawned, retires to deep water, and the fishing ends for that
season. While inhabiting the depths of the ocean, its food is
said, by Dr. Knox, to consist principally of minute entomostra-
ceous animals, but it is certainly less choice in its selection when
near the shore.
Although the common herring of our northern seas is beyond
all doubt the most important of the tribe, yet there is no sea, no
coast, where other species of the same family are not a source of
abundance to man, and of astonishment by their vast numbers.
Thus the enormous shoals of Pil-
chards appearing along our south-
western coasts are not less valuable
. to the fishermen of Devon and
Pilchard. Cornwall than the common herring
to those of the North Sea. The
older naturalists considered the pilchard, like the herring, as a
visitor from a distant region, and they assigned to it also the
same place of resort as that fish, with which indeed the pilchard
has been sometimes confounded. To this it will be a sufficient
reply, that the pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean,
They frequent the French coasts, and are seen on those of Spain,
but on neither in considerable numbers or with much regularity;
so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds.
On the coast of Cornwall they are found throughout all the
THE PILCHARD. 213
seasons of the year, and even there their habits vary in the
different months. In January they keep near the bottom, and
are chiefly hauled up in the stomachs of ravenous fishes; in
March they sometimes assemble in schulls, but this union is only
partialand not permanent and only becomes so in July; when they
regularly and permanently congregate so as to invite the fisher-
man’s pursuit. The season and situation for spawning, and the
choice of food, are the chief reasons which influence the motions
of the great bodies of these fish; and it is probable that a thorough
knowledge of these particulars would explain all the variations
which have been noticed in the doings of the pilchard, in the
numerous unsuccessful seasons of the fishery.
They feed with voracity on small crustaceous animals, and
Mr. Yarrell frequently found their stomachs crammed with thou-
sands of a minute species of shrimp, not larger than a flea. It
is probably when they are in search of something like this, that
fishermen report they have seen them lying in myriads quietly
at the bottom, examining with their mouths the sand and small
stones in shallow water. The abundance of this food must be
enormous, to satisfy such a host.
“When near the coast,’ says the author of the “ History
of British Fishes,” “ the assemblage of pilchards assumes the
arrangement of a mighty army, with its wings stretching parallel
to the land, and the whole is composed of numberless smaller
bodies, which are perpetually joining together, shifting their
position, and separating again. There are three stations occupied
by this great body, that have their separate influence on the
success of the fishery. One is to the eastward of the Lizard, the
most eastern extremity, reaching to the Bay of Bigbury in De-
vonshire, beyond which no fishing is carried on, except that
it occasionally extends to Dartmouth; a second station is included
between the Lizard and Land’s End; and the third is on the
north coast of the county, the chief station being about St. Ives.
The subordinate motions of the shoals are much regulated by
the tide, against the current of which they are rarely known to
go, and the whole will sometimes remain parallel to the coast
for several weeks, at the distance of a few leagues; and then, as if
by general consent, they will advance close to the shore, sometimes
without being discovered till they have reached it. This usually
happens when the tides are strongest, and is the period when
Q
214 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
the principal opportunity is afforded for the prosecution of the
sean-fishery.” The quantity of pilchards taken is sometimes
incredibly large. In 1847, a very productive year, 40,000 hogs-
heads were cured in Cornwall alone, representing probably, after
all deductions, a net value to the takers of £80,000. The Sar-
dine (Clupea sardina), a fish closely allied to the Pilehard
though smaller, is considered as the most savoury of all the
herring tribe. It is chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the
coasts of South France and Africa, and about the islands of
Corsica and Sardinia, where it plays a no less important part
than the Pilchard on the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire.
Though a much less valuable fish than its larger-sized rela-
tives, the diminutive Sprat is not to be despised. Coming into
the market in immense quantities, and at a very moderate
price, immediately after the herring season is over, it affords
during all the winter months a cheap and agreeable food. Like
all other species of the herring tribe, the sprats are capricious
wanderers, and make their appearance in exceedingly variable
numbers. The coasts of Kent, Essex, and Suffolk, are the most
productive. So great is the supply thence obtained, that not-
withstanding the immense quantity consumed by the vast
population of London and its neighbourhood, there is yet occa-
sionally a surplus to be disposed of at so low a price, as to in-
duce the farmers, even so near the metropolis as Dartford, to
use them for manure.
The Mediterranean seems to be the peculiar birthplace of
the Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicholus), where it appears in
the spawning season
in countless multitudes
along the shallow coasts.
Aion Pret / It is about four inches
< “A long, of a bluish-brown
Anchovy. colour on the back, and
silvery-white on the
belly. It is covered with large thin and easily deciduous scales,
and may be readily distinguished from the Sprat and other
kindred species by the anal fins being remarkably short.
It is mostly caught in the neighbourhood of Antibes, Frejus,
and St. Tropez, and sent pickled in enormous quantities
THE BANKS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 215
to the fair of Beaucaire, from whence it is transported in small
tin boxes to all parts of the world.
The Cod-family, to which among others, the Dorse, the
Haddock, the Whiting, the Hake, the Ling, and other valuable
fishes belong, ranks next to that of the herrings in importance
to man. In the seas with which Europeans are best acquainted
the common Cod, the chief representative of the tribe, is found
universally, from Iceland to very nearly as far south as Gibraltar,
but appears most abundantly on the eastern side of the American
continent, and among its numerous
islands, from 40° up to 66° N. lat.,
where it may be said to hold do-
minion from the outer edge of the =
great banks of Newfoundland, which nae
are more than three hundred miles
from land, to the verge of every creek and cove of the bounding
coast. To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends
forth its periodical masses of other
living beings. At one season the cod
is accompanied by countless myriads
of the Capelin (Salmo arcticus),
and at another by equal hosts of
a molluscous animal, the Cuttle-fish (Sepia loligo), called in
Newfoundland the squid. The three animals are migratory,
and man, who stations himself
on the shore for their combined
destruction, conducts his move-
ments according to their mi-
grations, capturing millions upon
millions of capelins and squids,
Ling,
Cod.
to serve as a bait for the capture of millions of cods. In the
United Kingdom alone this fish, in the catching, the curing,
the partial consumption, and sale, supplies employment, food,
and profit to thousands of the human race; but the banks of
Newfoundland are the chief scene of its destruction. As soon
as spring appears, England sends forth 2000 ships, with 30,000
men, across the Atlantic, towards those teeming shallows; France
about one-half the number; and the Americans as many as both
together. .On an average, each ship is reckoned to catch about
40,000 fishes; and we may form some idea of the voracity, as
Q2
216 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
well as of the numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the
course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four
hundred one after another with his line—no easy task con-
sidering the size of the fish, which often attains a length of
from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty
pounds.
The captured fish have but little time left them to bewail
their lot, for a few thousands will be “ dressed down ”—that is,
gutted, boned and salted—in the course of two or three hours.
For this purpose the crew divide themselves into throaters,
headers, splitters, salters, and packers. First the throater
passes his sharp knife across the throat of the unfortunate cod
to the bone and rips open the bowels. He then passes it quickly
to the header, who with a strong sudden wrench pulls off the
head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing
at the same time the fish instantly to the splitter, who with one
cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling
of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After
separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues, and
packed in barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone follows the
entrails overboard, while the fish at the same moment is passed
with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing quick-
ness of the operations of heading and splitting that a good
workman will often decapitate and take out the entrails and
back-bone of six fish in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed
to know something of each of these operations, and no rivals at
cricket ever entered with more ardour into their work than do
some athletic champions for the palm of “dressing down” after
a *day’s catch.”
Besides its excellent firm flesh, the liver-oil of the cod is used
as a valuable medicine, and serves to restore many a scrofulous
or rickety child to health. The sound-bladder is also employed
by the Icelanders for the manufacture of fish-lime or isinglass.
The best quality of the latter article, however, is afforded by a
species of Sturgeon (Accipenser Huso) which is chiefly found in
the Black and Caspian seas, and ascends the tributary rivers in
immense numbers.
The Common Sturgeon (Accipenser sturio), though principally
frequenting the seas and rivers of North-Eastern Europe, where,
especially in the Volga, extensive fisheries are established for its
THE STURGEON. 217
destruction, is also captured on the coasts of Great Britain and
Ireland, as examples are by no means uncommon in the fish-
mongers’ shops of our great cities, a few coming into the hands
of the principal dealers every season. Yarrell mentions one
caught in a stake-net near Findhorn, in Scotland, in July 1833,
Common Sturgeon.
which measured eight feet six inches in length and weighed two
hundred and three pounds; but in the Baltic specimens of a
length of eighteen feet and weighing a thousand pounds have
oceasionally been captured. The body is long and slender from
the shoulders backward, somewhat pentagonal in shape, with five
longitudinal rows of flattened plates, with pointed central spines,
directed backwards, and the snout is tapering and beak-shaped,
the mouth small and toothless, so that the sturgeon, though
almost equalling the white shark in size, is of a much more
harmless character and formidable only to the crustaceans, small
fish, or soft animals, be meets with at the bottom in deep water,
beyond the ordinary reach of sea-nets. Hence he is rarely caught
in the open sea, but falls an easy prey to the cunning of man
when entering the friths, es{uaries, and rivers for the purpose of
spawning. The sturgeon is a highly valuable fish not only for
its well-flavoured flesh but also for its roe, which furnishes the
delicate caviar of commerce The smallest’ but most highly
esteemed of the sturgeons is the Sterlet of the Volga, which
sometimes fetches such extravagant prices that Prince Potemkin
has been known to pay three hundred roubles for a single tureen
of sterlet-soup.
While many of the numerous members of the salmon family
confine themselves to the rivulet or to the lake, others alter-
nate, like the sturgeons, between the river and the sea. Of these
the most remarkable is the noble fish which has given its name
to the whole tribe, and may justly be considered as its head, not
only in point of size but also for its wide-spread utility to man.
218 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
Every spring or summer the salmon leave the ocean to de-
posit their spawn in the sweet waters, often at a distance of many
hundred miles in the interior of the Continent, so that the same
fish which during part of the year may be breasting the waves
of the North Sea, may at another be forcing the current of an
Alpine stream. Their onward progress is not easily stopped :
they shoot up rapids with the velocity of arrows, and make
wonderful efforts to surmount cascades or weirs by leaping,
frequently clearing an elevation of eight or ten feet. ‘These
surprising bounds appear to be accomplished by a sudden jerk,
which is given to its body by the animal from a bent into a
straight position. If they fail in their attempt, and fall back
into the stream, it is only to rest a short time, and thus recruit
their strength for a new effort. The fall of Kilmaroc, on the
Beauly, in Inverness-shire, is one of the spots where the leaping
feats of the salmon can best be witnessed. “The pool below that
fall,” says Mr. Mudie, in the British Naturalist, “ is very large,
and as it is the head of the run in one of the finest salmon
rivers in the north, and only a few miles distant from the sea,
it is literally thronged with salmon, which are continually
attempting to pass the fall, but without success, as the limit of
their perpendicular spring does not appear to exceed twelve or
fourteen feet; at least, if they leap higher than that, they are
aimless and exhausted, and the force of the current dashes them
down again before they have recovered their energy. They often
kill themselves by the violence of their exertions to ascend, and
sometimes they fall upon the rocks and are captured. It is
indeed said that one of the wonders which the Frasers of Lovat,
who are lords of the manor, used to show their guests was a
voluntarily cooked salmon at the falls of Kilmaroc. For
this purpose a kettle was placed upon the flat rock on the south
side of the fall, close by the edge of the water and kept full and
boiling. There is a considerable extent of the rock where tents
were erected, and the whole was under a canopy of overshadowing
trees. There the company are said to have waited until a
salmon fell into the kettle, and was boiled in their presence.
We have seen as many as eighty taken in a pool lower down
the river at one haul of the seine, and one of the number
weighed more than sixty pounds.”
As the salmon laboriously ascend the rivers, it may easily be
SALMON-SPEARING. 219
imagined that the cunning and rapacity of man seeks every
opportunity to intercept their progress. Nets of the most
various form and construction are employed for their capture 5
numbers are entrapped in enclosed spaces formed ip weirs, into
which they enter as they push up the stream, and are then pre-
vented by a grating of a peculiar contrivance from returning or
getting out; and many are speared, a mode frequently practised
at night-time, when torches are made use of to attract them to
the surface, or to betray them by their silvery reflection to the
attentive fisherman.
The ruddy gleam illumining the river banks or sparkling in
the agitated waters, the black sky above, the deep contrasts of
light and shade, attach a romantic interest to this nocturnal
sport, which has been both practised and sung by Walter
Scott.
“Tis blithe along the midnight tide
With stalwart arm the boat to guide,
On high the dazzling blaze to rear
And heedful plunge the barbed spear.
Rock, wood, and scour emerging bright,
Fling on the stream their ruddy light,
And from the bank our band appears
Like Genii armed with fiery spears.”
The natural history of the salmon was until lately but very
imperfectly known, as the parr (brandling, samlet) and the grilse,
which are now fully proved to be but intermediate stages of its
growth, were supposed by Yarrell to be distinct fishes. The first
person who seems to have suspected the true nature of the parr
was James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who in his usual eccen-
tric way took some pains to verify his opinion. As an angler, he
had often caught the parr in its transition state, and had fre-
quently captured smolts (at that time the only acknowledged
youthful salmon) with the scales barely covering the bars or
finger marks of the parr. Wondering at this, he marked a great
number of the lesser fish and offered rewards of whisky (being
himself a great admirer of the genuine mountain-dew) to the
peasantry to bring him any fish that had evidently undergone
the change. These crude experiments of the talented shepherd
convinced him that the parr were the young of the salmon in
the first stage, and since then professed naturalists have fully
settled the question by watching the egg into life, and tracing
920 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
the growth of the young fish step by step until it ultimately
changed into the kingly salmon.
This ignorance of the true nature of the parr had most disas-
crous effects, as it largely contributed to the depopulation of our
streams, for the farmers and cottars who resided near the rivers
used not unfrequently, after filling the frying-pan with parr, to
feed their pigs with them, and myriads were annually killed by
juvenile anglers. This truly deplorable havoc has fortunately
been arrested by Act of Parliament, but the killing of grilse is
still, I believe, a fertile source of destruction,* and should
undoubtedly be restrained by law, as the wholesale slaughter of
these juvenile fishes is a most lamentable example of impro-
vident waste.
In former times our rivers abounded with salmon, more than
200,000 having been caught in a single summer in the Tweed
alone, and 2,500 at one haul in the river Thurso; but, besides
the causes above mentioned, over fishing or fishing at an im-
proper season, and probably in many cases the pollution of the
streams with deleterious matter from mines or manufactories,
have considerably reduced their numbers. Fortunately, public
attention has at length been thoroughly aroused to the danger
which menaces our king of fishes ; and, what with better laws for
his protection and the successful attempts that have latterly
been made in artificial fish-breeding, we may hope that more
prosperous times are in store for our salmon-fisheries.
The salmon not only frequents the streams of Northern
Europe but ascends in vast multitudes the giant rivers of
Siberia and of North America. It
is fished by the Ostjak and the
Tunguse, and speared by the Indian
of the New World. Ross’s Arctic
Salmo Rossu salmon, which is of a more slender
form than the common salmon,
differently marked and coloured, and with a remarkably long
under jaw, is so extremely abundant in the sea near the
mouths of the rivers of Boothia Felix that 3,378 were obtained
at one haul of a small-sized seine. The rivers of Kamtschatka
abound in salmon of various kinds, so that the stream,
* In 1862, 8,467 salmon and 25,042 grilse were captured in the Tweed.
THE TUNNY. 221
swelling as it were with living waves, not seldom overflows
its banks and casts multitudes ashore. Steller affirms that,
in that almost uninhabited peninsula, the bears and dogs and
other animals catch more of these fishes with their mouths
and feet than man in other countries with all his cunning
devices of net and angle.
The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed
by the phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers
for the British market. A small river, bearing the significant
name of Laxaa or Salmon river, has been rented for the trifling
sum of 100/. a year by an English company which sends every
spring its agents to the spot, well provided with the best fishing
apparatus. The captured fish are immediately boiled and her-
metically packed in tin boxes, so that they can be eaten in
London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other
valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us asimilar
tribute ; and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the rail-
way, extends her empire, rivers more and more distant are made
to supply the deficiencies of our native streams. More than
150,000 salmon are annually caught in Aljaska—not a quarter
of a century ago a real “ultima Thule”—and after having been
well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are
chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg.
Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia
and New Zealand; but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved
for a very long time, they have been transported with perfect
success to those far-distant colonies.
If neither the salmon, nor the common herring, nor the cod,
dwell in the Mediterranean, the fishermen of that sea rejoice
in the capture of the Tunny, the
chief of the mackerel or scomberoid
family. Its usual length is about two
feet, but it sometimes grows to eight or
ten; and Pennant saw one killed in
1769, when he was at Inverary, that
weighed 460 pounds. The flesh is as firm as that of the
sturgeon, but of a finer flavour.
“In May and June,” says Mr. Yarrell, “the adult fish rove
along the coast of the Mediterranean in large shoals and triangular
array. ‘They are extremely timid, and easily induced to take a
222 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
newand apparently an open course, in order to avoid any suspected
danger. But the fishermen take advantage of this peculiarity
for their destruction by placing a look-out or sentinel on some
elevated spot, who makes the signal that the shoal of tunnies is
approaching, and points out the direction in which it will come.
Immediately a great number of boats set off, range themselves
in a curved line, and, joining their nets, form an enclosure which
alarms the fish, while the fishermen, drawing closer and closer,
and adding fresh nets, still continue driving the tunnies towards
the shore, where they are ultimately killed with poles.
‘“‘ But the grandest mode of catching the tunny is by means of
the French madrague, or, as the Italians call it, tonnaro. Series
of long and deep nets, fixed vertically by corks at their upper
edges, and with lead and stones at the bottom, are kept in a par-
ticular position by anchors, so as to form an enclosure parallel to
the coast, sometimes extending an Italian milein length; this is
divided into several chambers by nets placed across, leaving
harrow openings on the land side. The tunnies pass between
the coast and the tonnaro; when arrived at the end, they are
stopped by one of the cross-nets, which closes the passage against
them, and obliges them to enter the tonnaro by the opening
which is left for them. When once in, they are driven by
various means from chamber to chamber to the last, which is
called the chamber of death. Here a strong net, placed hori-
zontally, that can he raised at pleasure, brings the tunnies to
the surface, and the work of destruction commences. ‘The
tonnaro fishery used to be one of the great amusements of
rich Sicilians, and, at the same time, one of the most considerable
sources of their wealth. When Louis XIII. visited Marseilles,
he was invited to a tunny-fishery, at the principal madrague
of Morgiou, and found the diversion so much to his taste
that he often said it was the pleasantest day he had spent in
his whole progress through the south.”
The elegant shape and beauti-
ful colouring of the common
Mackerel are too well known to
require any particular description,
and its qualities as an edible fish
have been long duly appreciated. It dies very soon after it is
taken out of the water, exhibits for a short time a phosphoric
Mackerel.
MACKEREL-FISHING. 223
light, and partly loses the brilliancy of its hues. Like all other
members of the family, it is extremely voracious, and makes
great havoc among the herring-shoals, although its own length
is only from twelve to sixteen inches. It inhabits the northern
Atlantic, and is caught in large numbers along the British coast,
where it is preceded in its
annual visit bythe Gar-fish,
which for this reason has
received also the name of
Mackerel-guide. The older
naturalists ascribed to the
mackerel the same distant Gar-Fish.
migrations as to the tunny,
but most probably it only retires during the winter into the
deeper waters, at no very great distance from the shores,
where it appears during the summer season in such incalculable
numbers.
The mackerel is caught with long nets or by hand-lines. It
bites greedily at every bait, hut generally such a one is preferred
as best represents a living prey darting through the water—
either some silvery scaled fish, or a piece of metal, or of scarlet
cloth. With swelling sails the boat flies along, and a sharp
wind is generally considered so favourable that it is called
a ‘ Mackerel-breeze.” The line is short, but made heavy
with lead, and in this manner a couple of men can catch
a thousand in one day. The more rapid the boat the
greater the success, for the mackerel rushes like lightning
after the glittering bait, taking it for a flying prey. The
chieftains of the Sandwich Islands used to catch the bonito
mackerels in a similar way, by attach-
ing flying-fish to their hooks, and ra-
pidly skimming the surface of the waters.
Thus everywhere man knows how to
turn to his advantage the peculiar in-
stincts or habits of the animal creation.
The author of “Wild Sports of the West” has favoured us
with an animated description of mackerel-fishing on the coast
of Ireland.
“It was evident that the bay was full of mackerel. In every
direction, and as far as the eye could range, gulls and puffins
Bonito.
224 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
were collected, and, to judge by their activity and clamour, there
appeared ample employment for them among the fry beneath.
We immediately bore away for the place where these birds were
numerously congregated, and the lines were scarcely overboard
when we found ourselves in the centre of a shoal of mackerel.
For two hours we killed these beautiful fish, as fast as the baits
could be renewed and the lines hauled in; and when we left off
fishing, actually wearied with sport, we found that we had taken
above five hundred, including a number of the coarser species,
called Horse-mackerel. There is not, on sea or river, always
excepting angling for salmon, any sport comparable to this de-
lightful amusement : full of life and bustle, everything about it
is animated and exhilarating; a brisk breeze and fair sky, the
boat in quick and constant motion, all is calculated to interest
and excite. He who has experienced the glorious sensations of
sailing on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above, a
deep-green lucid swell around, a steady breeze, and as much of
it as the hooker can stand up to, will estimate the exquisite
enjoyment our morning’s mackerel-fishing afforded.”
Although an occasional visitor of our shores, the Bonito, or
Stripe-bellied Tunny (Thynnus pelamys), which is much in-
ferior in size to the common tunny of the Mediterranean and
the Black Sea, is a true ocean-fish, and generally met with at
a vast distance from land. It inhabits the warmer seas, of
which it is one of the most active and voracious denizens. It
is well known to all voyagers within the tropics for the amuse-
ment it affords by its accompanying the vessel in its track, and
by its pursuit of the flying-fish. But in its turn the predacious
Bonito is subject to the persecutions of the huge Sperm whale,
who will often drive whole shoals before him, and crush dozens
at a time between his prodigious jaws.
The Pelamid (Thynnus sarda), which abounds in all districts
of the Mediterranean and on both sides of the Atlantic, has but
very lately been discovered in the British waters, a single spe-
cimen having been caught a few years ago at the mouth of the
North Esk. It greatly resembles the species just mentioned in
form and mode of life, prowling about the high seas for cepha-
lopods and flying-fishes, and is very commonly confounded with
the bonito by sailors, who also give both of them the name of
Skip-jacks, expressive of the habit which many of the large
THE PILOT-FISH. 225
Scomberoids have of skimming the surface of the sea, aud
springing occasionally into the air.
Another member of the mackerel family, the Pilot-Fish
(Naucrates ductor), easily recognised by the three dark-blue
bands which surround its silvery body,
will frequently attend a ship during its
course at sea for weeks or even months
together, most likely to profit by the
offal thrown overboard. Regardless Pilot-Fish,—(Naucrates
of the useful precept, “ avoid bad com- ae
pany,” it is frequently found attending the white shark, and
owes its name to its being supposed to act as a trusty guide
or friendly monitor to that voracious monster, sometimes
directing it where to find a good meal, and at others warning it
when to avoid a dangerous bait. At all events, the pilot-fish
is well rewarded for his attendance by snatching up the morsels
which are overlooked by his companion, and as he is an ex-
cellent swimmer, and probably keeps a good look-out, has but
little reason to fear being snatched up himself.
“Tt has been observed,” says Yarrell, “that when a shark and
his pilot were following a vessel, if meat was thrown overboard
cut into small pieces, and therefore unworthy the shark’s atten-
tion, the pilot-fish showed his true motive of action by de-
serting both shark and ship to feed at his leisure on the
morsels.”
The family of the anguilliform fishes, characterised by their
serpent-like bodies, destitute of ventral fins, and generally
covered by a slippery skin, with, in some of the genera, small
scales embedded therein, likewise comprises a number of highly
interesting and useful species, forming many generic groups.
Its chief representative in our waters is the Common Eel
‘Anguilla vulgaris), which, though a frequent inhabitant of
our lakes, ponds, and rivers, may also justly be reckoned among
the marine fishes ; for the same wonderful instinct which prompts
the salmon and the sturgeon annually to leave the high seas
and seek the inland streams for the sake of perpetuating their
race, forces also the eel to migrate, but his peregrinations are
of an opposite character, for here the full-grown fishes descend
the rivers to deposit their spawn in the sea, and the young,
after having been born in the brackish estuaries, ascend the
226 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
streams to accomplish their growth in the sweet waters. The
mode of procreation of eels, which for ages had been an enigma,
has now at length been completely elucidated by Professor
Rathke, who discovered that the eggs, which are of microscopie
smallness, so as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye from
the fat in which they lie imbedded, are expelled through an
opening hardly large enough to admit the point of a needle.
The energy of the salmon in swimming stream-upwards for
hundreds and hundreds of miles, and bounding over rapids and
cataracts, is truly wonderful, but the instinctive efforts of the
little eels or elvers to surmount obstacles that seem quite out of
proportion to their strength are no less admirable. Mr. An-
derson, upwards of a century ago, described the young eels as
ascending the upright posts and gates of the waterworks at
Norwich until they came into the dam above; and Sir Hum-
phry Davy, who was witness of a vast migration of elvers at
Ballyshannon, speaks of the mouth of the river under the fall as
blackened by millions of little eels. “Thousands,” he adds,
“died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder
for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even
perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or
adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is
the energy of these little animals that they continue to find
their way in immense numbers to Loch Erne. Even the mighty
fall of Schaffhausen (which stops the salmon) does not prevent
them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where
I have seen many very large eels.” After the little eels have
gained the summit of a fall, they rest for a while with their
heads protruded into the stream. They then urge themselves
forward, taking advantage of every projecting stone or slack
water, and never get carried back by the current. Myriads are
destroyed on the way by birds or fishes; but, as usual, their
ereatest enemy is man, who not only devours whole cart-loads of
little eels not larger than a knitting-needle, frying them into
cakes, which are said to be delicious, though rather queer-
looking from the number of little eyes with which they are
bespangled, but after getting tired of eating them, actually
feeds his pigs with them, or even uses them for manure. A
prodigal waste which should be looked after, as these little
eels would soon increase their weight, and consequently their
THE HERON AND THE EEL. 227
yalue a thousand fold. On the Continent many lakes and ponds
have been stocked with elvers, packed in wet grass, and sent by
the railroads or the post far into the interior of the country.
Eels are pre-eminently nocturnal animals. They always con-
gregate at the darkest parts of the stews in which they are
kept, and invariably select the darkest nights for their autumnal
migration to the sea. Owing to the smallness of their gill
aperture, the membranous folds of which, by closing the orifice
when the eel is out of the water, prevents the desiccation of the
branchie, they have the power of living a long time out of the
water when the air is humid, and not unfrequently travel
during the night over the moist surface of meadows or gardens
in quest of frogs or other suitable food.
That eels are not devoid of sagacity is proved by mary well
authenticated anecdotes. “In Otaheite,” says Ellis in his * Poly-
nesian Researches,” “ they are fed till they attain an enormous
size. These pets are kept in large holes two or three feet deep,
partially filled with water. On the sides of these pits they
generally remain, excepting when called by the person who
feeds them. I have been several times with the young chief
when he has sat down by the side of the hole, and by giving a
shrill sort of whistle has brought out an enormous eel, which
has moved about the surface of the water and eaten with confi-
dence out of his master’s hand.”
The eel has many enemies, among others the common heron,
who, in spite of the slippery skin of his victim, knows how to
drive his denticulated middle claw into his body, or to strike
him with his pointed bill. Yarrell relates that a heron had
once struck his sharp beak through the head of an eel, piercing
both eyes, and that the eel—no doubt remembering that one
good turn deserves another—had coiled itself so tightly round
the neck of the heron as to stop the bird’s respiration: both
were dead.
The London market is principally supplied with eels from
Holland, a country where they abound. According to Mr.
Mayhew, about ten millions of eels, amounting to a weight of
1,500,000 lbs., are annually sold in Billingsgate market. These
figures show us at once that the multiplication of eels in our
sluggish rivers, which only contain such fish as are compara-
tively speaking worthless, is a matter worth consideration, and
228 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
powerfully pleads for the protection and transplantation of the
elvers wherever they are likely to prosper.
Eels are extremely susceptible of cold; none whatever are
found in the Arctic regions, and at the approach of winter they
bury themselves in the mud, where they remain in a state of
torpidity until the genial warmth of spring recalls them to a
more active state of existence. In this condition they are fre-
quently taken by eel-spears, and in Somersetshire the people
know how to find the holes in the banks of rivers in which eels
are laid up, by the hoar-frost not lying over them as it does
elsewhere, and dig them out in heaps. Though generally only
from two to three feet long, eels sometimes acquire a much
larger size. Specimens six feet long and fifteen pounds in weight
are occasionally captured, and Yarrell saw at Cambridge the
preserved skins of two which weighed together fifty pounds.
They were taken on draining a fen-dyke at Wisbeach. As eels
are but slow in growth, these sizes speak for a great longevity.
The Conger is in its general appearance so nearly allied
to the common eel that it might
easily be mistaken for the same
species. It, however, materially dif-
fers from it by its darker colour in
the upper part, and its brighter hue
beneath, by its dorsal fin beginning
near the head, and by its snout generally projecting beyond
the lower jaw.
This marine giant of the eel tribe attains a length of ten feet,
and a weight of 130 pounds, and is well known on all the rocky
parts of the coast of the British Islands, though nowhere more
abundant than on the Cornish coast, where, according to Mr.
Couch, it is not uncommon for a boat with three men to bring
on shore from five hundredweight to two tons. The fishing
for congers is always performed at night, and not unattended
with danger, as it is quite a common occurrence for a conger to
attack the fishermen with open jaws, and so great is the strength
of the large specimens that they have occasionally succeeded in
pulling the fisherman quite out of his boat, if by any chance
he has fastened the line to his arm. The congers that keep
among rocks hide themselves in crevices, where they are not
unfrequently left by the retiring tide; but in situations free
Conger Kel.
THE MURRY. 229
from rocks, congers hide themselves by burrowing in the
ground, where it is customary on some parts of the coast of
France to employ dogs in their search. In spite of its tough
flesh and exceedingly nauseous smell, the conger was highly
esteemed by Greek epicures, and in England in the time of
the Henrys considered an article of food fit fora king. Thus,
the Prince and Poins, according to Falstaff's account, found
amongst other reasons for their companionship this one: that
both of them were fond of conger and fennel sauce. In our
times its flesh, though banished from all aristocratic tables,
meets a ready sale at a low price among the poorer classes. In
the Isle of Man the conger may be said to take the place of
the poor man’s pig; it is his bacon, which he would find diffi-
cult to save if it were not for these large eels, which are caught
in great abundance, and sold at the rate of 2d. or 3d. per Ib.
The Manx men split the congers, and then salt them and
hang them up to dry on their cottage walls, where they do not
exactly contribute to perfume the gale.
The Murry or Murena differs from the common eel by the
want of pectoral fins, and its beautifully-marked skin. It is
said to live with equal facility in fresh or salt water, though
generally found at sea, and it is as common in the Pacific as it
is in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The only specimen on
record as a British fish was caught by a fisherman of Polperro,
October 8, 1834; its length was four feet four inches. The
murena has acquired a kind of historical celebrity from the
strange fondness with which it was cherished by the Romans,
who preserved large quantities of them in their numerous
vivaria, as we do the lustrous gold-fish in the water-basins of
our gardens. Pe
296 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
humble sphere of existence. The organs of sight are generally
situated either on a promi-
nence at the base of the
superior pair of tentacles
or, as, for instance, in the
Murex, at the extremity
of these organs (a, b), a
position which enables
the animal to direct them
readily to different ob-
jects.
Many of the Gasteropods
are evidently capable of
perceiving odours; thus,
animal substances let down
in a net to the bottom will
attract thousands of Nass
in one night. We also may
infer that they are not de-
ficient in taste from the presence of papille at the bottom of
their mouth, analogous to those found on the tongue of other
animals; but, of all their senses, that of touch is undoubtedly
the most perfect. The whole soft surface of the body is indeed
of exquisite sensibility, but more especially the vascular foot,
and the tentacles, or horns, which vary both in number and in
shape in different genera. Yet, in spite of this delicacy in
the organisation of the skin, which makes it so sensible of
contact, it appears to have been beneficently ordered that
animals so helpless and exposed to injury from every quarter
are but little sensible to pain. Although they are deprived of
all higher instincts, we find among the Gasteropods a few
examples of concealment under extraneous objects, which
remind us of the masks and artifices frequently employed by
the insects and crustaceans.
The Agglutinating Top (Trochus agglutinans) covers itself
with small stones and fragments of shells, and thus shielded
from the view escapes the voracity of many an enemy but
little suspecting the savoury morsel hidden under the mound of
rubbish which he disdainfully passes by.
Tn animals which are only provided with passive means of
Tentacles and eye of Murex.
e. Eye highly magnified.
SHELL-CAMEOS., 297
defence, we may naturally expect a considerable degree of
caution, and in this respect the gasteropods might give many
useful lessons to man. How carefully they protrude their ten-
tacles as far as possible to sound every obstacle in their way,
before they creep onwards, and how rapidly they withdraw
into their shell at the least symptom of danger! What an
example to so many of us that leap before they look, and fre-
quently break their necks in the fall!
Yet, in spite of all their prudence and of the protection of
their stony dwellings, they serve as food to a host of powerful
enemies. The sea-stars, their most dangerous foes, not only
swallow the young fry but also seize with their long rays the
full-grown gasteropods, and clasp them in a murderous embrace.
They are preyed upon by fishes, crustaceans, and sea-birds,
who pick them up along the shores; but it will sometimes
happen that a crow, while endeavouring to detach a limpet for
its food, is caught by the tip of its bill, and held there until
drowned by tbe advancing tide.
Man also consumes a vast number of sea-snails, for on every
coast there are some edible species; and it may be said that, with
the exception of very few that have a disagreeable taste, they
are all of them used as food by the savage. The miserable
inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego chiefly live upon a large limpet
that abounds on the rocky shores of their inhospitable land, and
but for this resource would most likely long since have been
extirpated by Lunger.
Many of the univalve shells are, moreover, highly prized as
objects of ornament or use both by savage and civilised nations,
The South Sea Islander makes use of a Triton as a war conch;
the Patagonian drinks out of the Magellanic volute, the Arab
of the Red Sea employs a large Buccinum as a water-jug, and
the Cyprea moneta is well known in commerce as the current
coin of the natives of many parts of Africa. In Europe the iri-
descent Haliotis is frequently used for the inlaying of tables or
boxes, and various species of Helmet-shells and Strombi (Cassis
rufa madagascariensis, Strombus gigas), peculiar as being
formed of several differently coloured layers, placed side by side,
are in great request for the cutting of cameos, as they are soft
enough to be worked with ease, and hard enough to resist wear.
More than two hundred thousand of these shells are annually
298 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
imported into France, and the value of cameos produced in Paris
alone amounts to more than a hundred thousand pounds. A large
number are also cut in the small town of Oberstein on the Nahe
(a river flowing into the Rhine at Bingen), which has long been
famous for the manufactory of agate ornaments and trinkets,
and has now added this new branch of industry to the more
ancient sources of its prosperity.
The Pteropods, or Wing-footers, move about by means of
two fin-like flaps, proceeding wing-like from the fore part of the
body. They have no disk to walk upon, nor arms for the
seizure of prey, like the cephalopods and gasteropods, but re-
semble them by the possession of a head distinct from the rest
of the body, which some, like the Hyaleas and Cleodora’‘, con-
ceal in a thin transparent or translucent shell, in which they
also hide their head and wings at the approach of danger, and
immediately sink to the bottom ; while others, like the blue and
violet Clios, beautifully variegated with light
red spots, are perfectly naked. They ge-
nerally inhabit the high seas, and are but
rarely drifted by storms or currents into the
neighbourhood of the land. They mostly
Hyalea globuiosa, SWim about freely, but sometimes also they
are found clinging by their wings to floating
sea-weeds. They are small creatures, but propagate so fast that
the Clio borealis and Limacina arctica form the chief food of
the colossal whale.
While these two little pteropods, in spite of their minute pro-
portions, deserve to rank among the most important inhabitants
of the northern seas, the Mediterranean species belong mainly
to the genera Hyalea, Cleodora, and Criseis—forms wholly
unknown to our own fauna except as waifs. Vast shoals of
these animals frequent the deeper parts of that sea, leaving
their remains strewed over its bed, between depths of from
one hundred to two hundred fathoms; they are short-lived
creatures, and have their seasons, being met with near the
HABITS OF PTEROPODS. 299
surface during spring and winter, sparkling in the water like
needles of glass.
“The pteropods are the winged insects of the sea,” says M.
Godwin-Austen, “reminding us, in their free circling move-
ments and crepuscular habits, of the gnats and moths of the
atmosphere ; they shun the light, and if the sun is bright, you
may look in vain for them during the life-long day—as days
sometimes are at sea; a passing cloud, however, suffices to bring
some Cleodore to the surface. It is only as day declines
that their true time begins, and thence onwards the watches of
the night may be kept by observing the contents of the towing-
net, as the hours of a summer day may be by the floral dial.
The Cleodore are the earliest risers; as the sun sets, Hyalwa
gibbosa appears, darting about as if it had not a moment to
spare, and, indeed, its period is brief, lasting only for the Me-
diterranean twilight. Then it is that Hyalea trispinosa and
Cleodora subula come up; Hyalea tridentata, though it does
not venture out till dusk, retires early, whilst some species,
such as Cleodora pyramidata, are to be met with only during the
midnight hours and the darkest nights. This tribe, like a
higher one, has its few irregular spirits, who manage to keep it
up the whole night through. All, however, are back to their
homes below before dawn surprises them.”
The lamellibranchiate Acephala, or headless molluscs with
comb-like gills, are distinguished from the preceding orders of
molluses by a more simple organisation and the peculiar forma-
tion of their external coverings. They are all contained within
a bivalve shell, articulated after the manner of a hinge, and to
which some of their families are attached by one strong muscle
(Monomyaria), others by two (Dimyaria). In this shell, which
is secreted by two large flaps or folds of their skin or mantle,
they generally lie concealed like a book in its binding, and bid
defiance to many of their enemies. When danger menaces, the
sea-snail withdraws its head and closes the entrance of its her-
mitage with a lid, but the bivalve shuts its folding-doors when
it wishes to avoid a disagreeable intruder. A strong elastic
&00 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
ligament connects the two valves, and opens them wide as
soon as the muscular contraction which closed them ceases
to act.
While the sea-snail creeps along upon a mighty foot, the
bivalve is frequently doomed to a sedentary life, and the former
protrudes from its shell a well-formed head, while the latter,
like many a biped, has no head at all. The lamellibranchiate
Acephala have, however, been treated by nature not quite so
step-motherly as might be supposed from this deficiency, for
many of them have eyes, or at least ocular spots, which enable
them to distinguish light from darkness; and even auditory
organs have been discovered in many of them. Their circu-
lation is performed by a heart generally symmetrical, and their
respiration by means of four branchial leaflets equal in size,
and symmetrically arranged on either side of the body. The
mouth is a simple orifice without any teeth, bordered by mem-
branous lips, and placed at one end of the body between the
two inner leaves of the branchie. The digestive apparatus
consists of a stomach or intestine of different lengths, a liver,
and several other accessory organs. A simple nervous system
brings all the parts of the body into harmonious action.
In many lamellibranchiates the folds of the mantle are dis-
juined, as, for instance, in the oyster, which, on opening its shell,
at once admits the water to its delicately fringed branchiz; in
others they are more or less united, so as to form a closed sack
with several openings, an anterior one (i) for the passage of the
foot, and two posterior ones (g,/) for the ingress and egress of the
water which the animal requires
° for respiration. These posterior
Che openings are often prolonged
into shorter or longer tubes or
siphons, sometimes separate, and
sometimes grown together so
as to form a single elongated
fleshy mass. The use of these
prolongations becomes at once
apparent when we consider that
Bivalve deprived of shell, to show ate they are chiefly developed in
Sl ee those species which burrow in
sand, mud, wood, or stone, and which therefore require to
THE PHOLAS DACTYLUS. 301
be specially guarded against the danger of suffocation. The
interior of these siphonal canals is lined with innumerable
vibratory cilia, by the
action of which the water
is drawn towards the
branchial orffice and con-
veyed inacurrent through 7
the canal over the surface
of the gills; then, having
been deprived of its oxy-
gen, it is expelled by a
similar mechanism through the other tube; and it is by the
force of this anal current that the passage is kept free from the
deposit of mud or other substances, which would otherwise soon
choke it up. The cleaning action of the anal current is as-
sisted by the faculty the burrowing molluscs possess of elonga-
ting and contracting their siphons, and the degree to which this
may be accomplished depends on the depth of the cavity which
the species is accustomed to make. Yet since many particles
of matter float even in clear water, which from their form or
other qualities might be injurious to the delicate tissue of the
viscera to be traversed, how is the entrance of these to be
guarded against in an indiscriminating current? A beautiful
Donax.
a, b. Si; hons.
contrivance is provided for this necessity. The margin of the
branchial siphon, and sometimes, though more rarely, of the anal
one, is set round with a number of short tentacular processes,
endowed with an ‘exquisite sensibility and expanding like
feathery leaves. In Pholas ductylus this apparatus, which is
here confined to the oral tube, is of peculiar beauty, forming a
network of exquisite tracery, through the interstices or meshes
of which the water freely percolates, while they exclude all
except the most minute floating atoms of extraneous matter.
Thus admirably has the health and comfort of the lowly shell-
fish been provided for that spend their whole life buried in
sepulchres of stone or sand.
The fragile shell of the pholades seems to have prompted
them to seek a better protection in the hard rock: a similar
necessity may have induced the shipworm to drill a dwelling
in wood. Its shells, which are only a few lines broad, are very
small compared with the size of the vermiform body, and are
302 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
therefore completely inadequate for its defence. For better
security it bores deep passages in submerged timber, which it
lines with a calcareous secretion, closing
the opening with two small lids. Un-
fortunately, while thus taking care of
itself, it causes considerable damage to
the works of man. It is principally
to guard against the attacks of this
worm that ships are sheathed with
copper, and the beams of submarine
constructions closely studded with nails.
During the last century, the Teredo
caused such devastations in the dykes which guard a great part
of Holland against the encroachments of an overwhelming
ocean that the Dutch began to tremble
for their safety ; and thus a miserable
worm struck terror in the hearts ot
a nation which had Jaughed to scorn
the tyranny of Philip II., and bid de-
fiance to the legions of Louis XIV.
But while blaming the teredo for its damages, justice bids us
not pass over in silence the services which it renders to man. If it
here and there destroys useful constructions, on the other hand, it
removes the wrecks that would otherwise obstruct the entrance
of rivers and harbours; and we may ask whether these services
do not outweigh the harm it causes. The pholades also belong
to the noxious animals; they perforate the walls and calcareous
jetties which man opposes to the fury of the sea, or raises for the
creation of artificial harbours and land-
ing places, destroy their foundations, and
gradually cause their destruction.
The foot of the lamellibranchiates
presents a great variety of form, and is
found in various degrees of development,
Pholas striata.
gradually passing into a rudimentary
state, until finally it is completely
wanting in the oyster family. In most
of those which live at large it is strong
.Petunculus, 3 :
a, Foot. and muscular, serving either as an ex-
cellent spade for speedy concealment in the sand when an
FOOT OF RAZOR-SHELLS. : 303
enemy approaches, or to dig a furrow into which the animal
forces itself partially, and then advances slowly by making
slight see-saw or balancing motions, or even to jump along with
tolerable rapidity. Thus, the common Cockle protrudes its
foot to its utmost length, bending it and fixing it strongly
against the surface on which it stands; then by a sudden
muscular spring it throws itself into the air, and, by repeating
the process again and again, hops along at a pace one would
hardly expect to meet witb in a shell-bound molluse.
Even some of those which have but a very rudimentary foot,
incapable of subserving locomotion, are able to move from place
to place by the sudden opening or shutting of their valves. In
this manner the scallop, which inhabits deep places, where it
lies on a rocky or shelly bottom, swims or flies through the
water with great rapidity, and the file or rasp mussel, a closely
related genus, principally occurring in the Indian Ocean, glides
so swiftly through the water that the French naturalists Quoy
and Gaimard were hardly able to overtake it.
In the stone or wood-boring bivalves
the functions of the foot with regard to
locomotion are much more limited than
in the Cockle, or Tellina, as they merely
consist in moving the animal up and
down in the cavity where it has fixed its
residence. In the Razor-Shells, which
will sometimes burrow to the depth of
two feet, and very rarely quit their holes,
the cylindrical foot, no longer fit for hori-
zontal locomotion, serves the animal for rising or sinking in the
sand, for when about to bore, it attenuates it into a point, and
afterwards contracts it into a rounded form so as to fix it by its
enlargement when it desires to rise.
In places where the razor-shells abound, they are sought
after as bait for fish, and taken in spite of their mole-like
facility of concealment, for when the tide is low, their retreat is
easily recognised by the little jet of water they eject when
alarmed by the motion of the fishermen above. Having thus
detected their burrow, the wily enemy who is well aware that,
though inhabiting the salt water, the Solen does not like too
much of a good thing, merely throws some salt into the hole,
304 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
which, sadly irritating the nerves of the poor creature, generaliy
bring$ it to the surface. He must, however, be very quick in
grasping it firmly, for should he fail, the animal speedily sinks
again into the sand and will remain there, being either in-
sensible to the additional irritation or its instinct of self-
preservation teaching it to remain beneath.
The pholades, which have very delicate milk-white valves,
burrow holes in limestone or sandstone rocks, though occa-
sionally they content themselves with houses of clay or turf.
How creatures invested with shells as thin as paper and as
brittle as glass are able to work their way throngh hard stone
has long been a puzzle to naturalists, some of whom asserted
that they attained their object by means of an acid solvent,
others that they bored like an auger by revolving; but recent
investigations have discovered that their short and truncated
foot is the chief instrument they use in their mining operations,
being provided at its base with a rough layer of sharp erystals
of flint, which, when worn off, are soon replaced by others, and
act as excellent files.
In several of the sedentary genera the rudi-
mentary foot, thougb incapable of locomotion, makes
itself useful by spinning a bundle of silken threads,
called byssus, or beard, which serve to anchor the
animal to any solid submarine object as firmly as a
ship in harbour. Generally the connection is per-
manent, but some species, among others the edible
mussel, are able to detach the filaments from the
glandular pedicle situated at the inferior base of the
foot which originally secreted them, and then to seek
another point of attachment.
If the byssus be examined under a powerful lens,
before any of the filaments are torn, it is easy to per-
ceive that these are fixed to submarine bodies by
means of a small disc-like expansion of their ex-
tremities of various extent, according to the genus
poclensor and species. Certain genera are celebrated for the
a. Foo. abundance and fineness of their byssus; that of the
Pinne, or Wing-Shells, among others, which are very common
in some parts of the Mediterranean, and attain a considerable
size, is so long and firm that in Naples it is sometimes manu-
FOOD OF BIVALVES. 305
factured into gloves and other articles of dress, though more as
an object of curiosity than for use.
Thus we find in the same class of animals the same organ
most variously modified in form and structure; now serving
as a foot, now as a spade, or as a rasp, or as a spinning machine,
and, throughout all these modifications, admirably adapted in
every case to the mode of life
of its possessor.
The whole construction, and
generally the extremely restricted
locomotion, of the bivalves tells
us at once that they are unable
to attack their prey, but must be
satisfied with the food which the
sea-currents bring to the door of
their shells, or within the vortex
of their branchial siphons. But
they have as little reason to com-
plain as the equally slow or ses-
si.e polyps, bryozoa, and ascidians,
for the waters of the ocean har-
bour such inealeulable multi-
tudes of microscopic animals and
plants that their moderate ap-
petite never remains long un-
satisfied. The same streams
: - k /
which aérate their blood also Pinna.
eonvey) to thei mouth all the» orcucs fom, which; the Slamonts ane
d. Inferior base of the foot.
food which they require.
Deprived of more active weapons, most bivalves rely upon
their shells as their best means of defence, and to answer this
purpose, their stony covering must naturally increase in solidity
the more its owner is exposed to injury. The pholades, litho-
domes, and teredines, which scoop out their dwellings in stone
or wood, and thus enjoy the protection of a retrenched camp,
can do with a thin and brittle or even with a mere rudimentary
shell. The solens, which at the least alarm bury themselves
deeper and deeper in the sand, likewise require no closely-fitting
valves; but the oysters or mussels, which have no external
fortress to retire to, and are unable to move from tke spot, would
306 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
be badly off indeed if they could not entirely conceal themselves
within their thick shells, and keep them closed by strong
muscular contraction.
Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his “Studies of Nature,” points
out another admirable provision for the safety of molluscs.
Thus, those which crawl and travel, and can consequently choose
their own asylums, are in general those of the richest colours.
Such, among the Gasteropods, are the gaudily-tinted Nerites,
and the polished marbled Cowries, the Olives, richly ornamented
with three or four colours, and the Harps, which have tints as
rich as the most beautiful tulips; while among the bivalves the
vivacious Pectens, coloured scarlet and orange, and a host of
other travelling shells, are impressed with the most lively colours.
But those which do not swim, as the Oysters, which are adherent
always to the same rocks, or those which are perpetually at
anchor, as the Pinnas and Mussels, or those which repose on the
bosom of Madrepores, such as the Arcs, or those which are
entirely buried in the calcareous rocks, as the Lithodomi, or
those which immovably, by reason of their weight, pave the sur-
face of the reefs, as the Tridacna, are of the colour of the bottoms
or floors which they respectively inhabit, in order, no doubt,
that they shall be less perceived by their enemies.
But even so the best guarded of the bivalves fall a prey to
innumerable enemies, and when we see the strand covered for
miles and miles with their débris, we may rest assured that but
few of the quondam inmates of these fragmentary shells have
died a natural death. Annelides and Sea-snails, crustaceans
and star-fishes, strand birds and even quadrupeds, all fatten
upon their delicate flesh, and man devours incalculable numbers.
In vain the Pholas buries itself in stone, or the cockle in the
sand; their security was at an end as soon as man had found
out that they were grateful to the palate. The former was
reckoned a delicacy by the ancients, and
the latter is preferred by some to the oyster
itself. So much is certain, that, during
the years of famine caused by the potato
disease, it preserved the lives of many of
the poor Shetlanders and Orcadians.
The Razor-Shells, particularly when
roasted, and the Clam-Mussels, which are not only a favourite
Edible Cockle.
MUSSEL-GARDENS. 307
repast of the Greenlander but also of the white bear and arctic
fox, are equally reckoned among the most delicate of bivalves.
The common Mussel (Mytilus edulis), which is found in
the littoral zone on almost every rocky shore, is eaten in vast
numbers by the coast inhabitants, and carried in enormous
masses into the interior of the country; it furnishes an equally
cheap and agreeable food, but is not easy of digestion, and some-
times produces symptoms of poisoning, which have been ascribed
to the eggs of asterias, on which it feeds
during the summer. In the northern coun-
tries it is also in great request as a bait for
cod, ling, rays, and other large fishes that
are caught by the line. In the Frith of
Forth alone from thirty to forty millions of
mussels are used for this purpose, and in
many places they are enclosed in gardens,
the ground of which is covered with large
stones, to which they attach themselves by
their byssus or beard.
It is a curious fact that the rearing of mussels should have
been introduced into France as far back as the year 1235, by an
Irishman of the name of Walton. This man, who had been
shipwrecked in the Bay de l’Aigui!lon, and gained a precarious
living by catching sea-birds, observed that the mussels, which
had attached themselves to the poles on which he spread his nets
over the shallow waters, were far superior to those that naturally
grow in the mud, and immediately made use of his discovery
by founding the first “ bowchvl,” or mussel-park, consisting of
stakes and rudely interwoven branches. His example soon
found imitators, and, strange to say, the method of construction
adopted by Walton, six centuries ago, has been maintained un-
altered to the present day. It may give some idea of the
immense resources that might be obtained from so many utterly
neglected lagunes when we hear that the fishermen of |’Aiguillon,
although they sell three hundredweight of mussels for the very
low sum of five francs, or four shillings, annually export or send
them into the interior to the amount of a million or twelve
hundred thousand francs.
The praise which Pliny bestowed on the oyster, calling it the
palm or glory of the table, is still re-echoed by thousands of
Edible Mussel.
308 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
enthusiastic admirers. We know that this king of the molluses
congregates in enormous banks, often extending for miles and
miles, particularly on rocky ground, though it is also found on
a sandy or even on a muddy bottom. Along the shallow
alluvial shores of many tropical lands, great quantities of
oysters are often found attached to the lower branches of the
mangroves, where they are so situated as to be covered when
the flood sets in, and to remain suspended in the air when it
retires, swinging about as the wind agitates their movable
support. The oyster inhabits all the European seas from the
shores of the Mediterranean to the Westenfiord in Norway, where
it finds its northern boundary, lat. 68° N., but the British
waters may be considered as its headquarters, for nowhere is it
found in greater abundance and of a richer flavour. After the
ancient Romans had once tasted the oysters of Kent—the re-
nowned Rutupians—they preferred them by far to those of the
Lucrine lake, of Brindisi, and of Abydos, and Macrobius tells
us that the Roman epicures in the fourth century never failed
to have them at table. The “ Pandores” of Edinburgh, and
the “ Carlingfords ” of Dublin, are likewise celebrated for their
delicious flavour ; and if we turn to the Continent, we find the
Bay of Biscay, and the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, of
Holland and of Schleswig-Holstein, renowned for the excellence
of their oysters.
Three sorts of oysters are distinguished in the trade. The
first comprises those which are dredged from the deeper banks.
These are the largest-sized, but also the least valued. The
second consists of those that are gathered on a more elevated
situation. Being accustomed to the daily vicissitudes of ebb
and flood, they retain their water much longer, and can there-
fore be transported to much greater distances than the former.
Those are preferred that grow on a clear bottom near the
estuaries of rivers. The third and most valued sort of oysters
are those that are cleaned and fattened in artificial parks or
stews.
This branch of industry was already known to the Romans,
and Pliny tells us that Sergius Orata, a knight, was the first
who established an artificial basin for the cultivation of oysters,
and realised large sums of money by this ingenious invention.
At present Harwich, Colchester, Whitstable, and many other
OYSTER PARKS. 309
seaports along our coast are famed for their oyster-stews, as are,
in France and Belgium, Marennes, Havre, Dieppe, Tréport, and
Ostend, where real British natives are cleaned and fattened for
continental consumption.
The renowned oyster-parks of Ostend, the oldest of which
celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 1866, are extensive
walled basins, communicating by sluices with the open sea, so
that the water can be let in and out with every returning tide.
As microscopic algze and animaleule are produced in much
greater numbers in these tranquil reservoirs than in the bois-
terous sea, the oysters find here much more abundant food, and
being detached one from the other, they can also open and close
their shells with greater facility, so that nothing hinders their
growth. Thus fostered and improved by constant attention,
they are greatly superior in flavour to the rough children of
nature that are sent without any further preparation to market
and condemned to the knife soon after having been dragged
forth from their submarine abode. The highly prized green
oysters owe their colour to the number of ulve, enteromorphe,
and microscopic infusorie, that are abundantly generated in
the parks, and communicate their verdant tinge to the animal
that swallows them.
In spite of their high price, which unfortunately debars the
poorer classes from their enjoyment, the consumption of oysters
is immense ; so that in a commercial point of view they are by
far the most important of all the molluse tribes. Of the quan-
tities eaten in London alone, it is impossible to give even an
approximate guess, as no reliable statistics can be arrived at.
Exclusive of those bred in Essex and Kent, in the rivers Crouch,
Blackwater, and Colne, and in the channel of the Swale and the
Medway, vast numbers are brought from Jersey, Poole, and
other places along the coast. The Channel Islands alone, which
export about 100,000 bushels a year, send a great part of their
oysters to the metropohtan market.
The luxurious tables of Paris likewise consume unnumbered
millions, and when we consider that, thanks to the railroad,
even the most distant inland towns of the Continent may now be
supplied with Ostend oysters, we cannot wonder that their
price has risen enormously with the constantly increasing de-
mand.
Y
810 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
This great augmentation of value has naturally directed
attention to the creation of new oyster-banks, and to the better
management of those already existing, and fortunately the
manner in which the molluse propagates renders its culture in
appropriate localities a by no means difficult task.
The oyster spawns from June to September. Instead of im
mediately abandoning its eggs to their fate, as is the case with
so many sea-animals, it keeps them for a time in the folds of its
mantle, between the branchial lamelle, and it is only after having
thus acquired a more perfect development that the microscopie
larvee, furnished with a swimming apparatus and eyes, emerge
from the shell, and are then driven about by the floods and
currents, until they find some solid body to which they attach
themselves for life. In this manner the oyster produces in one
single summer a couple of millions of young, which, however,
mostly perish during the first wandering stage of their existence.
Thus we see what rich rewards may be gained by protecting and
fixing the oyster-larvee at an early date; and that this can be
done in many places without any great outlay of capital is
proved to us by successful examples both in ancient and modern
times.
Between the Lucrine Lake, the ruins of Cums, where of yore
the Sibyl uttered her ambiguous oracles, and the promontory of
Misenum, lies a small salt-water lake, about a league in cir-
cumference, generally from three to six feet deep, and reposing
ona voleanie, black, and muddy bottom. This is the old Acheron
of Virgil, the present Fusaro. Over its whole extent are spread
from space to space great heaps of stones, that have been
originally stocked with oysters brought from Tarentum. Round
each of these artificial mounds stakes are driven into the ground,
tolerably near each other, and projecting from the water, so as
to be pulled up easily. Other stakes stand in long rows several
feet apart, and are united by ropes, from which bundles of brush-
wood hang down into the water. All these arrangements are
intended to fix the oyster-dust, that annually escapes from the
parental shells, and to afford it a vast number of points to which
it may attach itself. After two or three years the microscopic
larvee have grown into edible oysters. Then, at the proper
season, the stakes and brushwood bundles are taken out of
the water, and after the ripe berries of the marine vineyard
THE PEARL-OYSTER. ail
have been plucked, they are again immersed into the lake,
until a new generation brings a new harvest. Thus the indolent
Neapolitans have for ages given an example which -has but
recently been imitated by the men of the North. In 1858 a
mason named Beef (a name which, if not misspelt, would seem
to point out an Enelish origin) inaugurated the modern era of
oyster cultivation, at the island of Ré, near La Rochelle, by
laying down a few bushels of growing oysters among a quantity
of large stones on the fore shore. His success encouraged his
neighbours to follow his example, so that now already upwards
of 4,000 beds or claires extend along the coast.
Between March and May 1859 a quantity of oysters taken
from different parts of the sea were distributed in ten longitu-
dinal beds in the Bay of St. Brieux, on the coast of Brittany.
The bottom was previously covered with old oyster-shells and
boughs of trees arranged like fascines, which afford a capital
holding-ground for the spat. In 1860 three of the fascines were
taken up indiscriminately from one of the banks, and found to
contain about 20,000 oysters each, of from one inch to two
inches in diameter. The total expense for forming the above
bank was 221 francs, and reckoning the number of oysters on
each of the 300 fascines laid down on it at only 10,000, these
sold at the low price of 20 francs a thousand would produce
the sum of 60,000 francs, thus yielding a larger profit than any
other known branch of industry.
Encouraged by these successful examples, an English com-
pany has obtained a grant by Act of Parliament of a piece of
fore shore lying between the Whitstable and Faversham Oyster
Companies’ beds, and thus admirably situated for receiving a
large quantity of floating spawn from these establishments.
There can be no doubt that oyster cultivation will spread further
and further, and that ultimately all the worthless bays and
lagunes along our coasts will be converted into rich oyster-fields,
yielding a good profit to their owners and enjoyment to millions
of consumers.
A shell nearly related to the oyster produces the costly pearls
of the East that have ever been as highly esteemed as the
diamond itself. The most renowned pearl-fisheries are carried
on at Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, and in the Bay of Condatchy,
in the island of Ceylon, on banks situated a few miles from _
m2
312 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
the coast. Before the beginning of the fishery, the govern-
ment causes the banks to be explored, and then lets them to
the highest bidder, very wisely allowing only a part of them to
be fished every year. The fishing begins in February, and
ceases by the beginning of April. The boats employed for this
purpose assemble in the~bay, set off at night at the firing of a
signal-gun, and reach the banks after sunrise, where fishing goes
on till noon, when the sea-breeze which arises about that time
warns them to return to the bay. As soon as they appear
within sight, another gur is fired, to
inform the anxious owners of their
return. Each boat carries twenty men
and a chief; ten of them row and
hoist up the divers, who are let down
by fives,—and thus alternately diving
and resting keep their strength to the
end of their day’s work. The diver,
when he is about to plunge, com-
presses his nostrils tightly with a small piece of horn, which
keeps the water out, and stuffs his ears with bees’-wax for the
same purpose. He then seizes with the toes of his right foot a
rope to which a stone is attached, to accelerate the descent,
while the other foot grasps a bag of network. With his right
hand he lays hold of another rope, and in this manner rapidly
reaches the bottom. He then hangs the net round his neek,
and with much dexterity and all possible despatch collects as
many oysters as he can while he is able to remain under water,
which is usually about two minutes. He then resumes his
former position, makes a signal to those above by pulling the
rope in his right hand, and is immediately by this means hauled
up into the boat, leaving the stone to be pulled up afterwards
by the rope attached to it. Accustomed from infancy to their
work, these divers do not fear descending repeatedly to depths
of fifty or sixty feet. They plunge more than fifty times in a
morning, and collect each time about a hundred shells. Some-
times, however, the exertion is so great that, upon being brought
into the boat, they discharge blood from their mouth, ears, and
nostrils.
While the fishing goes on, a number of conjurors and priests
Ceylon Pearl-Oyster.
PEARL-FISHING IN CEYLON. 313
are assembled on the coast, busily employed in protecting the
divers by their incantations against the voracity of the sharks.
These are the great terror of the divers, but they have such
confidence in the skill or power of their conjurors that they
neglect every other means of defence. The divers are paid in
money, or receive a part of the oyster-shells in payment. Often,
indeed, they try to add to their gains by swallowing here or there
a pearl, but the sly merchant knows how to find the stolen
property. The oysters, when safely landed, are piled up on mats,
in places fenced round for the purpose. As soon as the animals
are dead, the pearls can easily be sought for and extracted from
the gaping shells. After the harvest has been gathered, the
largest, thickest, and finest shells, which furnish mother-of-pearl,
are sorted, and the remaining heap is left to pollute the air.
Some poor Indians, however, often remain for weeks on the spot,
stirring the putrid mass in the hopes of gleaning some forgotten
pearls from the heap of rottenness. The pearls are drilled and
stringed in Ceylon, a work which is performed with admirable
dexterity and quickness. For cleaning, rounding, and polishing
them, a powder of ground pearls is made use of.
The Pacifie also furnishes these costly ornaments to wealth
and beauty, but the pearls of California and Tahiti are less
prized than those of the Indian Ocean.
Pearl-like excrescences likewise form on the inner surface of
our oysters and mussels, and originate in the same manner as
the true pearls. The formation of the pearl, however, is not
yet quite satisfactorily accounted for. Some naturalists believe
that the animal accumulates the pearl-like substance to give
the shell a greater thickness and solidity in the places where it |
has been perforated by some annelide or gasteropod; and ac- —
cording to Mr. Philippi, an intestinal worm stimulates the exu-
dation of the pearl-iike mass, which, on hardening, encloses and
renders it harmless.
Brillianey, size, and perfect regularity of form are the
essential qualities of a beautiful pearl. Their union in a single
specimen is rare, but it is of course still more difficult to find a
number of pearls of equal size and beauty for a costly necklace
or a princely tiara.
Nature has given the bivalves the same beauty of colouring
314 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
and wonderful variety of elegant or capricious forms as to the
sea-snails ; so that they are equally esteemed in the cabinets of
wealthy amateurs. Among the most costly are reckoned the
Spondyli, which are found in the tropical seas, where they grow
attached to rocks. They are distinguished by the brilliancy of
their colours, but particularly by the long thorny excrescences
with which their shells are covered. A Parisian professcr once
pawned all his silver spoons and forks to make up the sum of
six thousand frances which was asked for a Royal Spondylus ;
but on returning home was so warmly received by his lady
that, overwhelmed by the hurricane, he flung himself on a chair,
when the terrific cracking of the box containing his treasure
reminded him too late that he had concealed it in his skirt-
pocket. Fortunately but two of the thorns had been broken
off, and the damage was susceptible of being repaired; his
despair, however, was so great that his wife had not the heart
to continue her reproaches, and in her turn began to soothe the
unfortunate collector.
The gigantic Tridacna, which is now to be found in the shop
of every dealer in shells, was formerly an object of such rarity
and value that the Republic of
Venice once made a present of
one of them to Francis I., who
gave it to the Church of St-
Sulpice in Paris, where it is
still made use of as a basin for
holy water. The tridacna at-
tains a diameter of five feet,
und a weight of five hundred pounds, the flesh alone weighing
thirty. The muscular power is said to be so great as to be able
to cut through a thick rope on closing the shell. It is found in
the dead rocks on the coral reefs, where there are no growing
lithophytes except small tufts. Generally only an inch or two
in breadth of the ponderous shell is exposed to view, for the
tridacna, like the pholas, has the power of sinking itself in the
rock, by removing the lime about it. Without some means like
this of security, its habitation would inevitably be destroyed
by the roaring breakers. A tuft of byssus, however strong,
would be a very imperfect security against the force of the sea
for shells weighing from one to five hundred pounds. It
Tridacna gigas,
THE BRACHIOPODS. S1é
is found in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific as far as the
coral zone extends. The animal
of the tridacna, and of the near-
ly related Hippopus, distinguishes
itself by the beauty of its colours.
The mantle of the Tridacna sa-
franea, for instance, has a dark
blue edge with emerald-green
spots, gradually passing into a
light violet. When a large num-
ber of these beautiful creatures
expand the velvet brilliancy of Hippopus maculatus.
their costly robes in the transparent waters, no flower-bed on
earth can equal them in splendour.
Like the Lamellibranchiate Acephala, the Brachiopods are
covered with a bivalve shell, but their internal organisation is
very different. Instead of being disposed in separate gills,
their respir. tory system is combined with the ciliated mantle on
which the vascular ramifications are distributed, but their most
striking feature is the possession of spiral fringed arms or
buccal appendages which serve to open the shell and occupy
the greater part of its cavity. These curious organs are in some
Brachiopods quite free, in others attached to a complicated
cartilaginous or calcareous skeleton. None of the existing
molluscs of this class are capable of changing place, but are
either fixed to extraneous substances by the agglutination of one
of their valves or by a muscular peduncle passing through a
perforation of their shells. There are no more than forty-nine
living species, chiefly belonging to the genera Terebratula and
Crania, and generally found at great depths in the Southern
Ocean; but the fossil remains of 1,370 species prove their
importance in the primitive seas, where they rivalled the
lamellibranchiates in numbers and variety. Though now so
rare or so local in the British seas that ordinary collectors are
not likely to meet with any, they abound in many of our oldest
rocks. A visit to the quarries at Dudley,” says E. Forbes,
or an Irish lime-kiln, or an oolitic section on the Dorsetshire
coast, or a green sand ravine in the Isle of Wight, will afford
316 THE INIABITANTS OF THE SEA.
more information about the Brachiopods than an examinatio.
of the finest collection of the living species. In each of the
above excursions a different set of forms would be collected, for
many of the palzeozoic genera have altogether disappeared when
we rise among the secondary rocks, and in the latter we find
forms which closely remind us of existing species, but which,
though very near, are yet unquestionably distinct. In forma-
tions of all epochs, a few generic types are common, and the
' Lingule of the earliest sedimentary formations, presenting
traces of organic life, strikingly remind us of the species of
that curious group living in exotic seas at the present day.”
At the lower extremity of the great series of molluscous
animals we find the Polyzoa (Bryozoa, or Sea-Mosses) and
Tunicata. The former, which comprise the Sea-Mats (Flustree,
Escharz), the Sea-Scurfs (Lepralize), the Retepores, the Cellu-
Jarize, and several other families, were formerly reckoned among
the polyps, whom they greatly resemble in appearance and mode
of life, but far surpass by the complexity of their internal or-
ganisation. The Sea-Mats are among the commonest objects
which the tide casts out upon our shores, for you will hardly ever
walk upon the strand without finding their blanched skeletons
among the relics of the retiring flood.
Their flat leaf-like forms might easily
% sl weeds, but a pocket-lens suffices to show
Ml that they are built up of innumerable
YiiG i! little oblong cells, placed back to back
like those of a honey-comb, and each
crowned by four stout spines, which give
their surface a peculiarly harsh feel
when the finger is passed over it from the apex to the base.
“The individual cells,” says Mr. Gosse, “are shaped like a
child’s cradle, and if you will please to suppose some twenty
thousand cradles stuck side to side in one plane, and then
turned over, and twenty thousand more stuck on to these bottom
to bottom, you will have an idea of the framework of a flustra.
And do not think the number outrageous, for it is but an ordi-
nary average. I count in an area of half an inch square sixty
cause them to be mistaken for dried sea-
Leaf-hke Sea-Mat.
FLUSTRA AND ESCHARZ. 317
longitudinal rows, each of which contains about twenty-eight
cells in that space; this gives 5,720 cells per square inch on each
surface. Now a moderate-sized polyzoary contains an area of
three square inches, i.e. six on both surfaces, which will give the
high number of 40,320 cells on such a specimen. Many, how-
ever, are much larger.”
Before the stormy tide detached them from the bottom of the
sea, and left them to perish on the shore, each of the cells con-
tained a living creature whose mouth was surrounded by a
coronet of filiform and ciliated tentacles, destined to produce
a vortex in the water, and thus to provide the tiny owner with
its food. The body was bent on itself somewhat like the letter
V, the one branch (a) being the mouth and throat, the other (b):
the rectum, opening by an anus, and the middle part (c) the
stomach. Each of these tiny members of the
flustra colony possessed a considerable number
of muscles; each was furnished with a movable
lip or lid to block up the entrance of his
cell when he courted retirement; each had
his individual nerves, and consequently his
individual sensations, though feeling and
moving simultaneously with his fellow citizens
by the agency of a system of nerves common
to the whole republic, and sending forth a
delicate filament to the inmate cf each cell.
Such are the wonders which but for the
= l ae > ] med Flustra in its cel.
microscope wou or ever have remained (iighly magnified.)
unknown to man.
The Escharze greatly resemble the Flustre, for here also the
cells are disposed side by side upon the same plane, so as to
form a broad leaf-like polyzoary, which, however, is not of a
horny or coriaceous texture, as in the latter genus, but com-
pletely calcified, so as to present something of the massiveness
of the stony corals. The annexed wood-cuts, showing us
Eschara cervicornis, first A, in its natural size; then B, a few
cells magnified twenty diameters, and ultimately c, a single
individual so highly magnified as to reveal some of the details
of its otherwise invisible structure, give us a good idea of the
trnly remarkable organisation of the Polyzoa.
In the Escharee and Flustree the cellular extension of the
318 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
common stock or polyzoary is unbroken, and opening on both
surfaces, while in the Retepores we find the cells opening only
on one side, and the leaf-like expansion pierced like network,
Eschara cervicornis.
(Natural size.) Eschara cervicornis, magnified twenty
diameters, to show the form and ar-
rangement of cells.
In cabinets of natural history, the species commonly called
Neptune’s ruffles will rarely be found wanting. It is a native
of the Mediterranean, but individuals of a smaller size are also
found in the British seas.
An individual of Eschara cervicornis, Retepora cellulosa.
highly magnified. (Neptune’s Ruffle.)
a. Tentacula. 6. First digestive cavity.
d. Stomach. J. Anus.
The Lepraliz, or Sea-Scurfs, form thin calcareous crusts of
a white-yellow or reddish colour on rocks, shells, and sea-
weeds. To the naked eye they avpear as rude unsightly
eal
BIRD'S HEAD PROCESSES, 319
eruptions, so as to justify their name derived from the hideous
leprosy of the East, but, when magnified, their cells, generally
disposed in regular concentric rows, exhibit a surprising
diversity and elegance of structure. Forty species are found
in the North Sea alone; hence we may judge how great the
number of still unknown forms must be that spread their
microscopic traceries over the algze and shells of every zone,
It would lead me too far were I minutely to describe the
Cellulariz with their cells disposed in alternating rows on
narrow bifurcated branches; the Tubulipores, with their mouths
at the termination of tubular cells without any movable
appendage or lip; the Bowerbankias and Lagunculas, with
their creeping stems and separate cells; suffice it to say that a
wonderful exuberance of fancy displays itself in the structure
of the numerous varieties of the Polyzoa.
But a closer inspection reveals still greater miracles to the
marine microscopist, for most genera, and chiefly the Cellularia,
possess very remarkable appendages, or processes, presenting the
most striking resemblance to the head of a bird. Each of these
processes, or “ avicula-
riz,” as they have been
named, has two “ man-
dibles,” of which one is
fixed like the upper jaw
of a bird, the other
movable like its lower
jaw; the latter is opened
and closed by two sets of
muscles, which are seen
in the interior of the
head, and between them
is a peculiar body, fur-
nished with a pencil of
bristles, which is pro-
bably a tactile organ,
being brought forwards
when the mouth is open,
A. Portion of a Cellulana, magnified.
B
so that the bristles Cee . A Bird’s Head Process, more highly magnified,
ject beyond it, and being and seen in the act of grasping another.
drawn back when the mandible closes. During the life of the
320 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
polyzoon, these tiny “ vulture-heads,” which are either sessile
or pedunculated, keep up a continual motion, and it is most
amusing to see them see-sawing and snapping and opening
their jaws, and then sometimes in their incessant activity even
closing upon the beaks of their neighbours.
It is still very doubtful what is their precise function in the
economy of the animal; whether it is to retain within reach of
the ciliary current bodies that may serve as food, or whether it
is like the pedicellariz of the sea-urchins to remove extraneous
particles that may be in contact with the surface of the poly-
zoary. The latter would seem to be the function of the vibra-
cula,” which are likewise pretty generally distributed among the
polyzoa. Each of these long bristle-shaped organs, springing
at its base out of a sort of cup, that contains muscles by which
it is kept in almost constant motion, sweeps slowly and carefully
over the surface of the polyzoary, and removes what might be
injurious to the delicate inhabitants of the cells, when their
tentacles are protruded. So carefully have these lowly molluscs
been provided for!
The polyzoa can neither hear nor see, at least as far as we are
able to ascertain, but the delicacy of their sense of touch is very
great. ‘ When left undisturbed in a glass of fresh sea-water,”
says Dr. Johnston,* “they push their tentacula beyond the
mouth of the cell by straightening the body, and then expand-
ing them in the form of a funnel or bell, they will often remain
quiet and apparently immovable for a long time, presenting a
very pretty and most interesting object to an observer of the
‘minims of nature.’ If, however, the water is agitated, they
withdraw on the instant, probably by aid of the posterior liga-
ment or muscle ; the hinder part of the body is pushed aside up
the cell, the whole is sunk deeper, and by this means the tenta-
cula, gathered into a close column, are brought within the cell,
the aperture of which is shut by the same series of actions.
The polyzoa of the same polyzoary often protrude their thou-
sand heads at the same time, or in quick but irregular succes-
sion, and retire simultaneously, or nearly so, but at other times
I have often witnessed a few only to venture on the display of
their glories, the rest remaining concealed, and if, when many
are expanded, one is singled out and touched with a sharp in-
* “History of the British Zoophytes,” 2nd edit. vol. i. p. 259.
TITE TUNICATA. 321
strument, it alone feels the injury, and retires, without any
others being conscious of the danger, or of the hurt inflicted on
their mate. Tbe polyzoa propagate by gemmation and by ova
or eggs, which, germinating on the inner surface, escape at a later
period into the visceral cavity, and are finally discharged into
the wide sea, so to fulfil their mission in creation, and people the
shores of every clime with myriads of busy workers in horn and
in lime, which, with subtle chemistry, they draw from a fluid
quarry and build up in textures of admirable beauty and
heaven-ordered designs.”
Each polyzoon begins with a single ovum. The original or
seminal cell of a flustra or lepralia has no sooner fixed itself
upon some stone, shell, or alga, than new buds begin to shoot
forth, which in their turn produce others from their unattached
margins, so as rapidly to augment the number of cells to a very
large amount. Thus a common specimen of Flustra carbasea
presents more than 18,000 individual polyzoa, and as each of
these has about twenty-two tentacula, which are again furnished
with about a hundred cilie a piece, the entire polyzoary pre-
sents no less than 396,000 tentacula and 39,600,000 ciliz. The
Rey. Dayid Landsborough calculated that a specimen of Flustra
membranacea five feet in length by eight inches in breadth had
been the work and the habitation of above two millions of in-
mates, so that this single colony on a submarine island was about
equal in number to the population of Scotland. As the tentacula
are numerous in this species, four thousand millions of ciliz
must have provided for its wants, about four times the number
of the inhabitants of this globe!
The Tunicata are so called because their soft parts are not
enclosed in a calcified shell such as invests the majority of their
class, but in a more or less coriaceous envelope or tunic which
is either bag-shaped, and provided with two apertures, or tube-
shaped, and open at the ends. They present a strong resem-
blance to the Polyzoa, not merely in their general plan of
conformation, but also in their tendency to produce composite
structures by gemmation; they may, however, be at once dis-
tinguished from them by the absence of the ciliated tentacula
which form so conspicuous a feature in the external aspect of a
flustra or a retepore. Their branchiwe, which have generally
the form of ridges (e), occupy a large sac, forming, as it were,
322 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
the antechamber of the alimentary canal, which is barely
distinguishable into gullet, stomach, and intestine, and always
convoluted or folded once on itself. The Tunicata are ex-
clusively marine, and widely spread from the arctic to the
tropical seas. All of them are free during the earlier parts of
their existence; some remain permanently so (Pyrosomide,
en
ceca
MS
Clavellina producta. Group of two adult Ascidia mammillata.
and several young individuals, mag- a. Branchial orifice, open.
nified about five times. b. Anal orifice, closed.
c. Branchial orifice. e. Branchiz. #. Anal orifice.
Z. Stomach. o. Heart. wu, wu’, u’’. Reproductive
buds, springing from the abdomen of the adults.
Salpze), but the generality (Ascidiz, Botrylli) become fixed to
shells and other marine bodies; some exist as distinct individuals
(Ascidiz, Cynthia), whilst various degrees of combination are
effected by others (Botryllus, Clavellina, Pyrosoma), and some
are simple in one generation and combined in the next (Salpe).
SEA-SQUIRTS. 323
Thus the whole family is divisible into two groups, the
simple and the aggregate; both branching out into numerous
genera, of which my limits only allow me to mention some of
the most remarkable. The simple Ascidiz, or Sea-Squirts, are
very common on our shores. “Rarely,” says Forbes, “is
the dredge drawn up from any sea-bed at all prolific in
submarine creatures without containing few or many of their
irregularly shaped leathery bodies, fixed to sea-weed, rock,
or shell, by one extremity, or by one side, free at the other,
and presenting two more or less prominent orifices, from
which, on the slightest pressure, the sea-water is ejected with
great force. On the sea-shore, when the tide is out, we find
similar bodies attached to the under surface of rough stones.
They are variously, often splendidly, coloured, but otherwise
are unattractive or even repulsive in aspect. Some are of a
large size, several inches in length. As may easily be imagined,
they lead a very inactive life, except in the young state, when
by means of a long tail they rapidly swim about, until finally
settling in some convenient spot, they gradually assume the
form and adopt the quiet life of the parent from which they
sprang.”
To the simple Tunicata belong also the Chelyosomata, whose
coriaceous envelope, consisting of eight somewhat horny angular
plates, reminds one of the
carapace of the turtle.
Their small and promi-
nent orifices, perforating
the plated surface, are
each surrounded by six
triangular valvules.
Some species of simple
Ascidians on the coasts
of the Channel and the
Mediterranean are valued Chelyosoma Macleayanum.
as articles of food. At a. Branchial orifice. 5. Anal orifice,
c. Coriaceous envelope of the sides.
Cette sea-squirts are taken d. Stone to which the animal is fixed.
regularly to market, and Cynthia microcosmus, although so
repulsive externally, furnishes a very delicate morsel.
Ri, Pes seek :
While in the Clavellinide the animals are connected by
creeping tubular prolongations of the common tunic through
324 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
which the blood circulates, the Botrylli form translucent jelly-
b b
Botryllus violaceus. Two of the
stems magnified.
a. Common test.
b. Some of the branchial orifices.
ec. The common anal orifice of one of the
systems.
like masses of various hues of
orange, yellow, purple, blue, grey,
and green ; sometimes nearly uni-
form in tint, sometimes beautifully
variegated, and very frequently
pencilled as if with stars of
gorgeous device; now encrust-
ing the surface of the rock, now
descending from it in icicle-like
projections. They are also fre-
quently attached to the broad-
leaved fuci, investing the stalks,
or clothing with a glairy coat
the expanse of the fronds. “In
examining their bodies,” says
the distinguished naturalist pre-
viously quoted, “we find that it
is not a single animal which is
before us, but a commonwealth
of beings bound together by common and vital ties. Each
Diazona violacea (magnified).
star is a family, each group of stars a community. Individuals
are linked together in systems, systems combined into masses.
THE PYROSOMA. 325
Few bodies among the forms of animal life exhibit such exquisite
figures as those which we see displayed in the combinations of
these compound Ascidians.”
In the genus Diazona, which has its chief seat in the Mediter-
ranean, the animals, which are very prominent and arranged in
concentric circles, form a single system expanded into a disc like
that of a flower or of an Actinia. The anal orifices, it will be
seen, are situated close to the branchial apertures at the free end
of the single animals, while in the Botrylli
they open into a central excretory cavity.
In the Pyrosomes we find large co-
lonies of small individuals aggregated in
the form of a cylinder open at one end.
Their mouths or anterior extremities are
situated on the exterior of this hollow
body, which they bristle with large and
longish tubercles (a), whilst the opposite
or anal orifices (b) open into the cavity
of the cylinder, whose smooth wall they
perforate with numerous small holes. By
a simultaneous action the central cavity is
either narrowed or enlarged, and by this
means the strange social republic glides
slowly through the waters.
The Pyrosomes inhabit the Mediterra-
nean and the warmer parts of the ocean.
In the former at times their abundance is
a source of great annoyance to the fisher-
men, sometimes even completely clogging
their nets, and on the high seas they are
not seldom met with in almost incredible
profusion. Their delicate and transpa- , so Ve SR aA aS,
Sg j . ints ip Pyrosoma giganteum, cut
rent forms, their elegant tints, and their Py eee Sl eae eum cut
unrivalled phosphorescence render them PEC epee
: ° . a. Branckial or external ori-
objects of admiration to the voyager, and fice.
, &. Anal or internal orifice.
entitle them to rank amongst the most @. Stomach. e. Liver.
ae Jf. Branchie.
resplendent living gems of the ocean.
While the sessile Ascidiz remind one of the polyps, the
transparent Salpz, freely swimming in the sea, bear a great
resemblance to the pellucid jelly-fishes. Each resembles a
Z
826 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SBA.
crystalline tube, through which one can distinctly see the internal
coloured parts. Sometimes these animals, which abound in the
Salpa maxima.
a. Upper lip or posterior orifice. 8. Anterior orifice. c. Prolongations of the test by which the
animal is adherent to its neighbours.
warmer seas, are found solitary, at other times associated in cir-
cular or lengthened groups, termed garlands, ribands, and chains ;
but, strange to say, these two forms so different in outward
Salpz, isolated and associated.
A Salpa runcinata, solitary. B. Salpa runcinata, associated. C. Salpa xonaria, aggregated.
appearance are only the alternating generations of one and the
same animal. The chained Salpz produce only solitary ones, and
the latter only chains, or, as Chamisso, to whom we owe the dis-
covery of this interesting fact, expresses himself, “a salpa. mother
never resembles her daughter, or her own mother, but is always
like her sister, her grand-daughter, or her grand-mother.” When
Chamisso first made known his discovery, he was laughed at as
a fanciful visionary, but all later observations have not only
fully confirmed his statement but also discovered similar or
even more wonderful metamorphoses among the jelly-fish,
polyps, crustacea, sea-urchins, and other marine animals. Thus
Chamisso gave the first impulse to a whole series of highly
interesting observations, and his rank is now as well established
among naturalists as it has long been among the most distin-
SENSES OF THE TUNICATA. 327
guished poets of Germany. The Salpze progress by the alternate
contractions and dilatations of their tubular body. In this
manner the chains, as if obeying a common impulse, glide
along with a serpentine movement, and are often regarded by
sailors as sea-snakes.
Before quitting the Tunicata, a few points of interest in their
simple history remain to be noticed. Despite their humble
organisation, they have a heart which, as may easily be ascer-
tained in the transparent species, is subject to strange alter-
nations of action. For after having received for a minute or
two the blood from the branchiz, and propelled it to the
system at large, it will at once cease to pulsate for a moment
or two, and then propel the
blood to the branchial sac,
recelving it at the same
time from the system gene-
rally. After this reversed
course has continued for
some time, another pause
occurs, and the first course
is resumed. It is very pro-
bable that many of the
Tunicata are able to hear
aud to see. In Chelyosoma,
organs have been discovered
whose structure seems to
indicate that they are des-
tined for the transmission
of sound, and the Ascidie
have frequently around the
extremity of their tubes a
5 ._.. Inner or under side of the superior plated
row of coloured points simi- surface of Chelyosoma Macleayanum.
. H fe os a. Branchial orifice. 6. Anal orifice.
lar to the imperfect organs ¢. Muscles bordering the carapace-plates.
: 7 : d@. Central hexagonal plate. e. Surrounding plates.
of sight present in the ma- f. The nerve-ganglion and nerve-fibres.
A 2 - h. Auditory apparatus.
jority of the bivalve Acepha- e Row of Centanles, anterior to the cesopnagus.
: Jj. Stomach. 4%. Part of the intestine.
lans. Thus a closer exami-
nation of the lower animals is constantly bringing new faculties
to light, and the further we penetrate into the secrets of their
life the more we find occasion to admire the power and wisdom
of their Maker !
Z2
328 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
CHE xa.
ECHINODERMATA.
STAR-FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, AND SEA-CUCUMBERS.
The Star-Fishes —Their Feet or Suckers.—Voracity of the Asterias—The Rosy
Feather-Star.—Brittle and Sand-Stars.—The real Sea-Stars of the British Waters,
—The Sea-Urchins. —The Pedicellarize.—The Shell and the Dental Apparatus
of the Sea-Urchin.— The Sea-Cucumbers—Their strange Dismemberments.—
Trepang-fishing on the Coast of North Australia.—In the Feejee Islands.
“ As there are stars in the sky, so are there stars in the sea,” is
the poetical exordium of Link’s treatise on Star-fishes, the first
ever published on the subject ; and James Montgomery tells us in
rather bombastic style, that the seas are strewn with the images
of the constellations with which the heavens are thronged.
This is no doubt highly complimentary to the star-fishes, but
is far from being merited by any particularly shining or radiant
quality ; as they occupy a very inferior grade among the deni-
zens of the sea,and merely owe their stellar name to their form,
which somewhat resembles the popular notion of a star.
But if they are of an inferior rank to most marine animals;
if even the stupid oyster boasts of a heart, which they do not
possess; yet a closer inspection of their organisation shows us
many wonderful peculiarities, and proves to us once more that
nature has impressed the stamp of perfection as well upon her
lowest and most simple creations, as upon those beings that rank
highest in the scale of life. :
Every one knows the common Star-fish, with its lanceolate
arms; its generally orange-coloured hack, thickly set with tu-
bercles, and the pale under-surface, with its rows of feet, feelers,
or suckers, which serve both for locomotion and the seizure of
food.
When one of these creatures is placed on its back, in a plate
filled with sea-water, it is exceedingly curious to watch the
activity which those numberless sucking feet display. At first
SUCKERS OF STAR-FISHES. 329
the star-fish is motionless; for, offended by the rough handling
it has undergone, the feet have all shrunk into the body; but
soon they are seen to emerge like so many little worms from
Star-Fish,
.
The upper tuberculated surface is shown, with some of the spines of the under surface
projecting at the sides of the rays. At one of the angles between the rays, on the right
side, is seen the eccentric calcareous plate, or madreporic tubercle, which indicates the
existence of a bilateral symmetry.
their holes, and to grope backwards and forwards through the
water, evidently seeking the nearest ground to lay hold of.
Those that reach it first immediately affix their suckers, and, by
contracting, draw a portion of the body after them, so as to
enable others to attach themselves, until, pulley being added
to pulley, their united power is sufficient to restore the star-fish
to its natural position.
This act of volition is surely remarkable enough in so simple
an animal, which scarcely possesses the rudiments of a nervous
system, but the simple mechanism by which the suckers are
put into motion is still mere wonderful. Each of these little
organs is tubular, and connected with a globular vesicle filled
with an aqueous fluid, and contained within the body of the
star-fish immediately beneath the hole from which the sucker
330 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
issues. When the animal wishes to protrude its feet, each
vesicle forcibly contracts, and, propelling the fluid into the cor-
responding sucker, causes its extension; and, when it desires
to withdraw them, a contraction of the suckers drives back the
fluid into the expanding vesicles. The internal walls of the
suckers and their vessels are furnished with vibratory cilia, and
by this simple means a continual circulation of the fluid they
contain goes on within them.
Numerous species of star-fishes are so very common in our
waters, that in many places the sea-bottom is literally paved
with them. They likewise abounded in the primeval ocean, for
deep beds of carboniferous limestone and vast strata of the
triassic muschelkalk are often formed by the
accumulation of little else than the skele-
tons of Encrinites and Pentacrinites, which,
unlike the sea-stars which every storm drifts
upon our shores, did not move about freely,
but were affixed to a slender flexible stalk,
composed of numerous calcareous joints con-
Lily-Encrinite. nected together by a tleshy coat. The
feathered bifurcated arms of the Crinoids
are unprovided with suckers, which would have been perfectly
useless to creatures not destined to pursue their game to any
distance, but passively to receive the nutriment
which the current of sea-water set in motion
by their richly-ciliated pinnules conveys to the
mouth. These beautiful creatures were for-
merly supposed to be nearly extinct, for up to
within the last few years only two living
stalked crinoids were known in the ocean of
the present period, but the dredge has latterly
brought up new and remarkably fine species
: from depths of more than 2000 fathoms, and
Portion ofthe Peo there is every reason to believe that these
Ce animals still form an important element in
the abyssal fauna.*
Of freely-swimming Crinoids but one single representative is
known in the northern seas, the Rosy Feather-star (Comatula
rosacea), whose long and delicately fringed rays and deep rose
* See page 420.
COMATULA ROSACEA. 331
colour dotted with brown may serve to give us an idea of the
beauty of the submarine landscapes where Pentacrinus Wyville-
Thomson or Bathyerinus gracilis abound. During the earlier
stage of its existence, the comatula is attached to a stalk ; a dis-
covery for which science is indebted to Mr. T. V. Thompson, who
in 1823 dredged in the Cove of Corkasingular little pedunculated
erinoid animal ( Pentacrinus ewropeus),which he found attached
to the stems of zoophytes. It measured about three-fourths of
an inch in height, and resembled a minute comatula mounted on
the stalk of a pentacrinus. When this pygmy representative
of the ancient hly-stars was first dragged up from its submarine
haunts, it created a great sensation among naturalists, as it was
the first recent animal of the encrinite kind which had ever
been seen in the seas of Europe. At first it was supposed to be
a distinct species, but Mr. Thompson, by carefully following it
through all the stages of its growth, succeeded in proving that
it was merely the hitherto unnoticed young of the rosy feather-
star.
This elegant crinoid is found all round our coasts, and its
range extends from Norway to the shores of the Mediterranean.
In swimming, the movements of its arms exactly resemble the
alternating stroke given by the medusa to the liquid element,
and have the same effect, causing the animal to raise itself from
the bottom and to advance back foremost, even more rapidly
than the medusa. When dying, either in fresh water or in
spirits, it emits a most beautiful purple colour, which tinges
the liquid in which it is killed.
The Ophiuride, or snake-stars, are essentially distinguished
from the true star-fishes by the long serpent or worm-like
arms, which are appended to their round, depressed, urchin-
like bodies. They have no true suckers with which to walk,
their progression being effected (and with great facility) by
the twisting or wriggling of their arms, which are moreover
in many species furnished with spines on the sides, assisting
locomotion over a flat surface. These arms are very different
from those of the true star-fishes, which are lobes of the
animal’s body, whereas the arms of the Ophiurids are mere
processes attached or superadded to the body.
These animals are very generally distributed through the
seas of our earth, both of its northern and southern hemi-
332 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
spheres, but are found largest in the tropical ocean, In
our own waters they are very abundant, and are among the
most curious and beautiful game pursued by
the dredger.
The British Ophiuride belong to two
generic types, that of the Ophiwre and that
of the Euryales. The former, to which the
sand and brittle-stars belong, have simple
arms; the latter, arms ramifying into many
processes,
The rays of the Sand-stars have a whip-like
or lizard-tail appearance, while those of the
Brittle-stars look like so many centipedes or
annelides attached at regular distances round
alittle sea-urchin. We have ten native brittle-
stars, the most common of which (Ophiocoma
vosula, Forbes) is also one of the handsomest,
presenting every variety of variegation, and
the most splendid displays of vivid hues ar-
rauged in beautiful patterns. Not often are
two specimens found coloured alike. It is
the most brittle of all brittle-stars, separating itself into
pieces with wonderful quickness and ease. Touch it, and
it flings away an arm; hold it, and in a moment not an
arm remains attached to the body. “The common brittle-
star,” says Edward Forbes, “often congregates in great num-
bers on the edges of scallop-banks, and I have seen a large
dredge come up completely filled with them; a most curi-
ous sight, for when the dredge was emptied, these little
creatures, writhing with the strangest contortions, crept about
in all directions, often flinging their arms in broken pieces
around them; and their snake-like and threatening attitudes
were by no means relished by the boatmen, who anxiously asked
permission to shovel them overboard, superstitiously remarking
that the things weren’t altogether right.”
Fancy the naturalist’s vexation, who has no other means of
preserving a brittle-star entire than by quickly plunging it into
cold fresh water, which acts as a poison on the Ophiure as well
as on most other marine animals, and kills them so instan-
Sand-star.
baal
THE SHETLAND ARGUS. 833
taneously that even the most brittle species have no time to
make the contraction necessary to break off their rays.
The Ophiocoma rosula seems to be equally abundant on all
parts of the coast of Britain and Ireland. It is fond of rocky
places, and grows in Shetland to a much larger size than else-
where. It is said to prey on little shells and crabs, and is
greatly relished by the cod in its turn, great numbers being
often found in the stomach of that voracious fish.
The Scoteh or Shetland Argus (Huryale verrucosum, La-
marck), a very rare animal, of which the adjoining wood-cut
represents a segment, is the only
British Huryale. It measures a foot
or more across, and its singular aspect
has long excited admiration among
naturalists. ‘*So odd a creature as
this,” remarks Bradley in his “ Works
of Nature,” “is well worth the con-
templation of such curious persons _@&
as live near the sea, where every day Y@*
they have subjects enow to employ
their curiosity and improve their
understanding.” Grew says that
“as he swims he spreads and stretches
out all his branches to their full Warted Euryale.
length, and so soon as he perceives
his prey within his reach, he hooks them all in, and so takes it
as it were in a net.”
The British species of true star-fishes may be arranged under
four families. The Urasters are distinguished from all others
by having four rows of suckers in each of the avenues which
groove the under surface of their rounded rays. In consequence
of the great number of these singular organs, the under surface
of a living cross-fish presents a sight truly curious and wonderful.
Hundreds of worm-like suckers, extending and contracting,
coiling and feeling about, each apparently acting independently
of the others, give the idea rather of an assemblage of polypi
than of essential parts of one animal. They are sensitive m
the extreme, for, if we touch one of those singular tubes when
outstretched, all those in its neighbourhood are thrown into a
state of agitation ; and when it shrinks from our touch, changing
334 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
from a lengthy fibre to a little shrunk tubercle, some of its
neighbours, as if partaking in its fears, contract themselves in
like manner.
The common Cross-fish (Uraster rubens) abounds on most
parts of our shores, so as in some places to be used for manure
in large quantities. “It isa
sworn enemy to oysters, and
as it is frequently found with
one or more of its rays broken
off, the fishermen faney that
it loses them in consequence
of its oyster-hunting propen-
sities; that it insinuates an arm
into the incautious oyster’s
gape, with the intent of whip-
ping out its prey, but that
Common Cross-fish. sometimes the apathetic mol-
lusk proves more than a match
for its radiate enemy, and closing on him, holds him fast by the
proffered finger; whereupon the cross-fish preferring amputation
and freedom to captivity and dying of an oyster, like some
defeated warrior flings his arms away, glad to purchase the
safety of the remaining whole by the reparable loss of a part,
as it has the power of reproducing the broken rays.
“There is, however, reason to think that the cross-fish destroys
lis prey in a very different manner from that just narrated; for
star-fishes are not unfrequently found feeding on shell-fish,
enfolding their prey within their arms, and seeming to suck it
out of its shell with their mouths, pouting out the lobes of the
stomach, which they are able to project in the manner of a
proboscis. Possibly the stomach secretes an acrid and poisonous
Huid, which, by paralysing the shell-fish, opens the way to its
soft and fleshy parts.” — Forbes’s Star Fishes,
The Solasters are “suns in the system of sea-stars,” and are
entitled to this distinguished rank among the marine constel-
lations by their many rays and brilliant hues. The Solaster
papposa, or common Sun-star, with rays varying in number
from twelve to fifteen, is one of the commonest, and at the
same time handsomest, of all the British species. Sometimes
the whole upper surface is deep purple, and frequently the
THE BUTT-THORN. 335
disk is red, and the rays white tipped with red. It grows toa
considerable size, having been found eleven inches broad.
The Goniasters, or Cushion-stars, are distinguished from thie
allied species by their pentagonal form. One of the most singular
of our native species is the Birdsfoot Sea-star (Palmipes membra-
naceus), being the thinnest and flattest of all its class) When
alive it is flexible, like a piece of leather, and a person who
had never seen it before would be apt to mistake it for the torn
off dorsal integument of some gibbous goniaster. The colour
is white, with a red centre and five red rays, proceeding one to
each angle. The whole upper surface is covered with tufts of
minute spines arranged in rows.
The Asteriz, with their stellate body and flat rays, are very
different in aspect from the Goniasters. The Butt-thorn (Aste-
rias aurantiaca) owes its name to one of those strange super-
stitions which originate in some inexplicable manner, and are
handed down by one credulous generation to the next. “The
first taken by the fishermen at Scarborough is carefully made a
prisoner, and placed on a seat at the stern of the boat. When
they hook a butt (halibut) they immediately give the poor
star-fish its liberty and commit it to its native element; but if
their fishery is unsuccessful it is left to perish, and may even-
tually enrich the cabinet of some industrious collector.”
To the family of the Asteriz belongs also the Ling-thorn
(Luidia fragilissima), the largest, and one of the most interest-’
ing of our British species. When full grown, it measures two
feet across, and would appear to exceed that size occasionally, judg-
ing from fragments. The rays are from five to seven in number,
quite flat, and generally five times as long as the disk is broad.
The colour is brick-red above, varying in intensity, the under
surface being straw-coloured. The wonderful power which the
Luidia possesses, not merely of casting away its arms entire, but of
breaking them voluntarily into little pieces with great rapidity,
approximates it to the brittle-stars, and renders the preservation
of a perfect specimen a very difficult matter.
“The first time I ever took one of these creatures,” says
Edward Forbes, “I succeeded in getting it into the boat entire.
Never having seen one before, and quite unconscious of its
suicidal powers, I spread it out on a rowing-bench, the better
to admire its form and colours. On attempting to move it for
836 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
preservation, to my horror and disappointment I found only an
assemblage of rejected members. My conservative endeavours
were all neutralised by its destructive exertions, and it is now
badly represented in my cabinet by an armless disk and a
diskless arm. Next time I went to dredge on the same spot,
determined not to be cheated out of a specimen in such a way
a second time, I brought with me a bucket of cold fresh water,
to which article star-fishes have a great antipathy. As I ex-
pected, a luidia came up in the dredge, a most gorgeous specimen.
As it does not generally break up before it is raised above the
surface of the sea, cautiously and anxiously I sunk my bucket
to a level with the dredge’s mouth, and proceeded in the most
gentle manner to introduce luidia to the purer element.
Whether the cold air was too much for him, or the sight of
the bucket too terrific, I know not, but in a moment he pro-
ceeded to dissolve his corporation, and at every mesh of the
dredge his fragments were seen escaping. In despair I grasped
at the largest, and brought up the extremity of an arm with
its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and
closed with something exceedingly like a wink of derision.”
The Sea-star might be called a flattened sea-urchin, with
radiated lobes, and the Sea-urchin, a contracted or condensed
sea-star, so near is their re-
lationship. In both we find
the same radiating construc-
tion, in which the number five
is SO conspicuous, and in both
also the rows of suckers, which,
starting from a centre, are
set into motion by a similar
mechanism, and used for the
same purpose. In all the sea-
urchins finally, and in many
of the sea-stars, we find the
surface of the body covered
with numerous exceedingly minute, two- or three-forked pincers,
that perpetually move from side to side, and open and shut with-
out intermission. These active little organs, which have beep
named Pedicellariw, were formerly supposed to be parasites,
working on their own account, but they are now almost univer-
Goniaster.
THE SEA-URCHINS. 337
sally recognised as organs subservient to the nutrition of the
animal, and destined to seize the food floating by, and to convey
it to the mouth, one passing it to the other. Even in their out-
ward appearance, the sea-urchins are not so very different from
the sea-stars as would be imagined on seeing a Butt-thorn near
a globular urchin, for both orders approach each other by
Shell of Echinus, or Sea-Urchin.
On the right side covered with spines, on the left the spines removed.
gradations; thus, the Goniasters, with their cushion-shaped
disks and shortened rays, approximate very much in shape to
the sea-urchins; and among the latter we also find a gradual
progression from the flattened to the globular form. Still
there are notable differences between the two classes. Thus in
the sea-urchins the digestive organs form a tube with two
openings, while in the true sea-stars they have but one single
orifice. Their mode of life is, however, identical.
The Echinidz move forward by means of the joint action of
their suckers and spines, using the former in the manner of the
true star-fishes, and the latter as the snake-stars. They also
make use of the spines, which move in sockets, to bury them-
selves in the fine sand, where they find security against many
enemies.
Some species even entomb themselves pholas-like in stone,
inhabiting cavities or depressions in rocks, corresponding to
their size, and evidently formed by themselves. Bennett de-
scribes each cavity of the edible Echinus lividus as circular,
agreeing in form with the urchin within it, and so deep as to
embrace more than two-thirds of the bulk of the inhabitant.
338 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
It is large enough to admit of the creature’s rising a little, but
not of its coming out easily. The echinus adheres so firmly to
this cavity by its suckers, as to be forced from it with extreme
difficulty when alive. On the coasts of the county of Clare
thousands may be seen lodged in the rock, their purple spines
and regular forms presenting a most beautiful appearance on
the bottoms of the grey limestone rock-pools. How the boring
is performed has, like many other secrets, not yet been settled by
naturalists. The first perforation is most likely effected by
means of the teeth, and then the rock softened by some secreted
solvent.
Sea-urchins are found in all seas, but as they are extremely
difficult to preserve, and many of them have such long and deli-
cate spines that it is almost impossible
to procure perfect specimens, probably
not one tithe of their species is known.
On our coasts the common “ egg-ur-
chin” affords the poor a somewhat scanty
repast ; but, throughout the Mediterra-
nean, its greater size, and also that of its
allies, Echinus melo and KE. sardicus,
Mammillated Sea-Urchin. Hae oh)
render them, when “in egg,” important
articles of food. In Sicily these animals are in season about the
full moon of March; there the £. esculentus is still called the
« King of Urchins ;” whilst the larger melon-urchin is popularly
considered to be its mother. The size and abundance of these
edible species are among the striking peculiarities of the fish
markets of the Mediterranean sea-board.
The calcareous shell of the “sea-urchin” seems, at first sight,
to be composed of one simple crust, but proves, on nearer in-
spection, to be a masterpiece of mosaic
consisting of several hundred parts,
mostly pentagonal. These are so closely
united that their junctions are hardly
visible, but on allowing the shell to
macerate for some days in fresh water,
it falls to pieces. This complicated
structure is by no means a mere archi-
tectural fancy, a useless exuberance of ornament, but essen-
tially necessary to the requirements of the animal’s growth. A
simple hard crust would not have been capable of distension,
Edible Sea-Urchin.
THE SEA-URCHIN’S SHELL. 339
whereas a complicated shell, such as the sea-urchin possesses,
can grow in the same ratio as the internal parts, by continual
deposits on the edges of the individual pieces. On closely
examining a living sea-urchin, we find the whole surface of the
shell and spines covered with a delicate skin, which, in spite
of their close connexion, penetrates into the intervals of the
several pieces. This membrane secretes the chalk of which the
shell is composed, and deposits fresh layers on the edges of the
plates, so that in this manner the shell continually widens until
the animal has attained its perfect size. The spines are secreted
in the same manner, and show under the microscope an admi-
rable beauty and regularity of structure. So bountifully has
the great Architect of worlds
provided for the poor insignifi-
cant sea-urchin !
The dental apparatus of the
animal —the so-called lantern
of Aristotle—is another master-
piece in its way. Fancy five
triangular bones or jaws, each
provided with a long, project-
ing, movable tooth. A com-
plicated muscular system sets
the whole machinery going, and pental Apparatus of the Sea-urchin,
enables the jaws to play up and Met Garvomy aD OF ee
down, and across, so that a more effective grinding-mill can
scarcely be imagined.
The Holothuriaw, or Sea-
cucumbers, may be regarded
in one light as soft sea-urchins,
and in another as approxi-
mating to the Annelides or
worms. Their suckers are
similar to those of the true
star-fishes and sea-urchins.
Besides progression by means
of these organs, they move,
like annelides, by the exten- Boe sea eh the ee Fee el
sion and contraction of their
bodies, The mouth is surrounded by plumose tentacula, the
340 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
number of which, when they are complete, is always a multiple
of five. They all have the power of changing their shapes in
the strangest manner, sometimes elongating themselves like
worms, sometimes contracting the middle of their bodies, so. as
to give themselves the shape of an hour-glass, and then again
blowing themselves up with water, so as to be perfectly globular.
The great Sea-cucumber is the largest of all the known
European species, and probably one of the largest Cucumerve in
the world, measuring when at rest fully one foot, and capable
of extending itself to the length of three. Under the influence
of terror, it dismembers itself in the strangest manner. Having
no arms or legs to throw off, like its relations the luidia and the
brittle-star, it simply disgorges its viscera, and manages to live
without a stomach; no doubt a much greater feat than if it
contrived to live without a head. _ According to the late Sir
James Dalyell, the lost parts are capable of regeneration, even
if the process of disgorgement went so far as to leave but an
empty sac behind. Considering the facility with which the
sea-cucumber separates itself from its digestive organs, it is the
more to be wondered how it tolerates the presence of a very
remarkable parasite, a fish belonging to the genus Fierasfer,
Fierasfer.
and about six inches long. This most impudent and intrusive
comrade enters the mouth of the cucumber, and, as the stomach
is too small for his reception, tears its sides, quartering himself
without ceremony between the viscera and the outer skin. The
reason for choosing this strange abode is as yet an enigma.
The Holothurice, which in our part of the globe are very little
noticed, play a much more important part in the Indian Ocean,
where they are caught by millions, and, under the name of
Trepang or Biche de mer, brought to
the markets of China and Cochin-
China. Hundredsof praosare annually
fitted out in the ports of the Sunda
Islands for the gathering of trepang; and sailing with help-of the
Eatable Trepang.
TREPANG-FISHING 341
western monsoon to the eastern parts of the Indian Archipelago,
or along the northern coast of Australia, return home again by
favour of the eastern monsoon. The bays of the inhospitable
treeless shores of tropical New Holland, the abode of a few half-
starved barbarians, are enlivened for a few months by the
presence of the trepang fishers.
“During my excursions round Raffles Bay,” says Dumont
d’Urville, (“‘ Voyage to the South Pole,”) “I had remarked here
and there small heaps of stones surrounding a circular space.
Their use remained a mystery until the Malayan fishers arrived.
Scarce had their praos cast anchor, when without loss of time
they landed large iron kettles, about three feet in diameter, and
placed them on the stone heaps, the purpose of which at once
became clear tome. Close to this extemporised kitchen they
then erected a shed on four bamboo stakes, most likely for the
purpose of drying the holothurias in case of bad weather. To-
wards evening, all preliminaries were finished, and the following
morning we paid a visit to the fishermen, who gave usa friendly
reception. Each prao had thirty-seven men on board, and carried
six boats, which we found busily engaged in fishing. Seven or
eigbt Malays, almost entirely naked, were diving near the ship,
to look for trepang at the bottom of the sea. The skipper alone
stood upright, and surveyed their labours with the keen eye of a
master. A burning sun scorched the dripping heads of the divers,
seemingly without incommoding them; no European would have
been able to pursue the work for any length of time. It was
about noon, and the skipper told us this was the best time for
fishing, as the higher the sun, the more distinctly the diver is able
to distinguish the trepang crawling at the bottom. Scarce had
they thrown their booty into the boat when they disappeared
again under the water, and as soon as a boat was sufficiently
laden, it was instantly conveyed to the shore, and succeeded by
another.
“The holothuria of Raffles Bay is about six inches long, and
two inches thick. It forms a large cylindrical fleshy mass,
almost without any outward sign of an organ, and as it creeps
very slowly along is easily caught. The essential qualities of a
good fisherman are great expertness in diving, and a sharp eye
to distinguish the holothurias from the similarly coloured sea-
bottom.
A A
342 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
The trepang is first thrown into a kettle filled with boiling sea-
water. After a few minutes, it is taken out of its hot-bath and
ripped open with a knife to cleanse it of its intestines. It is
then thrown into a second kettle, where a small quantity of
water and the torrefied rind of a mimosa produce dense vapours.
This is done to smoke the trepang for better preservation. Finally,
it is dried in the sun, or in case of bad weather under the above-
mentioned shed. I tasted the trepang, and found it had some
resemblance to lobster. In the China market the Malays
sell it to the dealers for about fifteen rupees the picul of 125
pounds. From the earliest times, the Malays have possessed
the monopoly of this trade in those parts, and Europeans will
never be able to deprive them of it, as the economy of their
outfit and the extreme moderation of their wants forbid all
competition. About four in the afternoon the Malays had
terminated their work. In less than half an hour the kettles
and utensils were brought on board, and before nightfall we saw
the praos vanish from our sight.”
The inhabitants of the island of Waigiou, to the north of New
Guinea, prepare the trepang in the Malay manner, and barter it
for cotton and woollen stuffs, which are brought to them by some
Chinese junks. “In every hut,” says Lesson, “ we found great
heaps of this dried leathery substance, which has no particular
taste to recommend it, and is so highly esteemed by the Chinese
for no other reason than because they ascribe to it,— as to some
other gelatinous substances, as agar-agar, shark-fins, and edible
bird’s nests, — peculiar invigorating properties, by neans of which
their enervated bodies are rendered fit for new excesses.”
The Feejee islanders have the reputation of being the greatest
cannibals and the most perfidious savages of the whole Pacific,
yet the trepang fishery attracts many American and European
speculators to that dangerous archipelago. Captain Wilkes, of the
United States Exploring Expedition, found there a countryman,
Captain Eagleston, who had been successful in more than one of
these expeditions, and obligingly communicated to him all the
particulars of his adventurous trade. There are six valuable sorts
of biche de mer, or trepang; the most esteemed is found on
the reefs one or two fathoms deep, where it is caught by diving.
The inferior sorts occur on reefs which are dry, or nearly so, at
low water, where they are picked up by the natives, who also
THE FEEJEE ISLANDERS. 343
fish the biche de mer on rocky coral bottoms by the light of the
moon or of torches, as they come forth by night to feed. The
most lucrative fisheries are on the northern side of Viti Levu.
They require a large building for drying, with rows of double
staging, on which reeds are placed. Slow fires are kept up by
natives underneath, about fifteen hands being required to do
the ordinary work of a house.
Before beginning, the services of some chief must be secured,
who undertakes the building of the house, and sets his depen-
dants at work to fish. The usual price is a whale’s tooth for a
hogshead of the animals just as they are taken on the reef; but
they are also bought with muskets, powder, balls, vermilion,
blue beads, and cotton cloth of the same colour. When the
animals are brought on shore, they are measured into bins
containing about fifty hogsheads, where they remain until next
day. They are then cut along the belly for a length of three or
four inches, taking care not to cut too deep, as this would cause
the fish to spread cpen, which would diminish its value. They
are then thrown into boilers, two men attending each pot, and
relieving each other, so that the work may go on night and day.
No water need be added, as the fish itself yields moisture enough
to prevent burning. After draining on a platform for about an
hour, they are taken to the house and laid four inches deep
upon the lower battens, and afterwards upon the upper ones,
where they remain three or four days. Before being taken on
board they are carefully picked, all damp pieces being removed.
They are stowed in bulk, and sold in Manilla or Canton by the
picul, which brings from fifteen to twenty-five dollars. In this
manner Captain Eagleston had collected in the course of seven
months, and at a trifling expense, a cargo of 1200 piculs, worth
about 25,000 dollars, The outfit is small, but the risk is great,
as no insurance can be effected; and it requires no small activity
and enterprise to conduct this trade. A thorough knowledge of
native character is essential to success, and the utmost vigilance
and caution must always be observed to prevent surprise, or
avoid difficulties.
No large canoes should ever be allowed to remain alongside
the vessel, and a chief of high rank should be kept on board as
ahostage. That these precautions are by no means unnecessary,
is proved by the frequent attempts of the savages to cut off
AaA 2
344 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
small vessels trading on their coasts. One of the most frequent
methods is to dive and lay hold of the cable; this, when the
wind blows fresh to the shore, is cut, in order that the vessel may
drift upon it, or in other cases a rope is attached to the cable by
which the vessel may be dragged ashore. The time chosen is
just before daylight. The moment the vessel touches the land,
it is treated as a prize sent by the gods, and the crew murdered,
roasted, and devoured.
Sea-horee.
345
ChHPAUP XeV EL.
CCELENTERATA.
POLYPS AND JELLY-FISHES.
Thread-cells or Urticating Organs.—Sertularie.—Campanulariade.—Hydrozoie
Acalephx.— Meduside.— Lucernariade.— Calycophoride.— The Velella.— The
Portuguese Man-of-war.—Anecdote of a Prussian Sailor—Alternating Fixed
and Free-swimming Generations of Hydrozoa.—Actinozoa.—Ctenophora—Their
Beautiful Construction.—Sea-anemones.—Dead Man’s Toes.—Sea-pens.—Sea-
rods——Red Coral.—Coral Fishery.—Isis hippuris.—Tropical Lithophytes.—
History of the Coral Islands—Darwin’s Theory of their Formation— The
progress of their Growth above the level of the Sea.
Despite the low rank they occupy in the hierarchy of animal
life, the Coelenterata, comprising the numerous families of the
Jelly-fishes and Polyps, play a most important part in the house-
hold of the ccean, for the sea is frequently covered for miles
and miles with their incalculable hosts, and whole archipelagos
and continents are fringed with the calcareous structures they
raise from the bottom of the deep.
Their organisation is more simple than that of the preceding
classes, for they have neither the complex intestinal tube of the
polyzoa or the sea-urchins nor the jointed rays or arms of the
star-fishes ; their whole digestive apparatus is but a simple sac,
and their instincts are reduced to the mere prehension of the
food that the currents bring within reach of their tentacles, or
to the retraction of these organs when exposed to a hostile
attack.
But, simple as they are, they have been provided by Nature
with a comparatively formidable weapon in those remarkable
“ thread-cells,” or urticating organs, which are so constantly met
with in their integuments, and chiefly in their tentacles.
The thread-cells are composed of a double-walled sac having
its open extremity produced into a short sheath terminating in
346 - THE INHABITANTS OF TUE SEA.
a lung thread. A number ‘of barbs or hooks are sometimes
disposed spirally around the sheath, the thread itself being often
delicately serrated. Under pressure or irritation the thread-
cell suddenly breaks, its fluid escapes, and the delicate thread is
so rapidly projected that the eye is utterly unable to follow the
Urticating Organs of Coelenterata.
2,e. f. Threads and thread-cells of Caryophyllia Smithii. 6. Thread-cell of Corynact?s Allmani.
c. Peculiar receptacle of Wilisza stel/ata, containing thread-cells. d. A single thread-cell of the
same. g. Thread-cell of Actinia crassicornis.—( All magnified.)
process. The violent protrusion of this barbed missile, along
with the acrid secretion of the cell, causes many a worm or
crustacean of equal or superior strength, that might have gone
forth as victor from the struggle of life, to succumb to the ceelen-
terate, and is even in many cases exceedingly irritating to the
human skin. Besides enabling its possessor to derive his sub-
sistence from animals whose activity, as compared with his own,
might be supposed to have removed them altogether out of the
reach of danger, these stings serve also as admirable weapons of
defence, and many a rapacious crab or annelide that would
willingly have feasted upon a sea-anemone is no doubt repelled
by the venomous properties of its urticating tentacles.
The Ceelenterata have been subdivided into two great classes:
the Hydrozoa, in which the wall of the digestive sac is not sepa-
rated from that of the cavity of the body, and the Actinozoa, in
THE SERTULARLE. 347
which the stomach forms a distinct bag separated from the wall
of the cavity of the body by an intervening space, subdivided
into chambers by a series of vertical partitions. Each of these
two classes comprises a number of families of various forms and
habits of life. Thus among the Hydrozoa, with whom I begin
my brief survey of ccelenterate life, some are of a compound
nature (Sertularida, &c.), and, having once settled, remain per-
manently attached to the site of their future existence; while
cthers (Rhizostomide, &e.) continue freely to roam through the
water, and others again appear in the various stages of their
development either as sessile polyps or as free-swimming
Medusz.
The sertularian tribes
are remarkable for the
elegance of their forms,
resembling feathers more
or less stiff and angular,
mere or less flexible and
plumose. Their bleached
skeletons are among
the commonest objects
thrown out by the waves,
and so plant-like is their
appearance and manner
of growth that, like the
Flustre, they might
easily be mistaken for
sea-weeds.
Originally — produced
from a single ovulum,
every species, by the
evolution of a succession
of buds, after an order Sertularia tricuspidata.
eculiar to ea o a. Skeleton (natural size). 5. Portion of the same, highly
se ch, ShOWS magnified. xz. Caenosarc, or common trunk. 2’. Hydro-
up toa populous colony, theca, or protective envelope of individual polyp.
e’. Gonoblastidium, or reproductive germ or body.
and simultaneously with
its growth the fibres by which it is rooted extend, and at un-
certain intervals give existence to similar bodies, whence new
polypiferous shoots take their origin, for these rout fibres are
full of the same medullary substance with the rest of the bod ye
348 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA,
Thus the graceful sea-fir (Sertularia cupressina), the largest of
our native species, may attain a height of two or three feet, and
bear on its branches no less than 100,000 distinct microscopical
polypi, each with its own crown of tentacles, and each of. these
armed with numerous thread-cells, as formidable in their way as
the crustacean’s claw or the annelide’s embrace. But though
each polyp has a certain share of independence yet its body is
continuous with the more fluid pulp that fills the branches and
stem of the common trunk, and by this means all the polyps of
it are connected together by a living thread, and made to con-
stitute a family whose workings are all regulated by one har-
monious instinct. Each of
these plant-like structures
may therefore be considered
as one animal furnished with
a multitude of armed heads
and mouths, and in all the
other compound ccelenterates
we find a similar organisation.
All the soft parts of a sertu-
larian polypary are enclosed
in a horny sheath (hydro-
soma) which develops peculiar
cup-shaped processes (hydro-
thecew) for the protection of
each individual polyp, and
capsules for the reproductive
bodies (gonoblastidia) in
Precis tee erence reai winiely the ova are —prodMeei
g Reproductive boar of Compenularia slab. The various modificaliongydl
form and_ structure of the.
polyps, of their hydrothece and gonoblastidia, give rise to a
number of families, genera, and species. Thus in the Sertulariz
the polypites are sessile, biserial, alternate, or paired ; sessile and
uniserial in the Plumularie, and stalked in the Campanulariade.
The free-swimming Jelly-fishes, or Acalephz, as they have
been named by Aristotle on account of the stinging properties
due to their urticating cells, are likewise among the commonest
objects left upon our shores by the retreating tide. When
stranded, they appear like gelatinous masses, disgusting to
THE MEDUSID. 349
the sight; but these shapeless objects were beautiful while
they moved along in their own element, and their simple
organisation shows no less the masterhand of the Creator
than the complex structure of the higher stages of animal
existence. With the exception of the Ctenephora, they all
belong to the hydrozoic class, and from the great diversity
of their structure have been ranged under four orders, Me-
duside, Lucernarid#, Calycophoride, and Physophoride.
The Medusidee are distinguished by their globular or bell-
shaped dise, which by its alternate contractions and expansions
forces them forward through the water. By contracting the
whole or only part of its disc, the medusa has it in its power to
”. Medusid seen in profile. 5. Thesameviewed from below. c. Its polypite. d. Part of its mar-
ginal canal, and other structures in connection therewith. y. Disk or swimming organ.
zx. Polypite. J. Veil. z. Tentacle. y. Radiating canal. y’. Marginal canal.
w. Reproductive organ. 0’. Coloured spot. 0’. Marginal vesicle.
direct its movements, and while thus swimming along with the
convex side of the disc directed forwards, and its oral lobes and
tentacles following behind like “streamers long and gay,” it
may well rank among the most elegant children of the sea.
_ From the roof of the dise a single polypite is suspended,
whose mouth, generally produced into four lobes, though in some
forms it is much more divided, passes into the central cavity
(stomach) of the swimming organ, from which canals (either
four in number, or multiples of four) radiate to join a circular
vessel surrounding the margin of the bell. A shelf-like mem-
brane or veil, extending around the margin, and highly contrae-
tile, assists locomotion by narrowing more or less the aperture
550 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
of the bell, and thus concentrating its efforts upon a narrower
space. More or less numerous tentacles generally depend from
the margin, and around it are disposed two kinds of remarkable
bodies—* vesicles ” and “ pigment spots,” or “ eye-specks ”—
which are supposed to be able to communicate the impressions
of light and sound. This complexity of organisation in crea-
tures which Réaumur contemptuously styled mere lumps of
animated jelly is all the more wonderful when we consider that
they consist almost entirely of water, and shrink to a mere
nothing when abandoned by their vital power. Thus of a
medusa originally weighing many pounds but few traces remain
Various forms of Meduside.
@ Aequorea formosa, scen in profile. 5b. Thesame, viewed from above. c. Upper view of Willsta
stellata. d. Slabberia comca. e. Portion of the marginal canal of Traropsis Pattersunit.
f. Polypite of Bougainvillea dinema. g. Part of its marginal canal. h. Steenstrupia Owenii.
(a, 6, and d are about the natural size ; the others are magnified. )
after death ; the ground is covered with a light varnish ; all the
rest has been absorbed by the thirsty sands.
The oceanic or free-swimming forms of the Lucernaridz
resemble the Meduside by their bell-shaped umbrella, but
differ from them by their internal structure, by the absence of
a marginal veil, by the nature of their canal system and mar-
ginal bodies, and by their mode of development. The radiating
canals, never less than eight in number, send off numerous
branches, which form a very intricate network, and the vesicles
THE LUCERNARIDA. 351
and pigment-spots, here united into a single organ, termed the
lithocyst, are each protected externally by a sort of hood, whence
these jelly-fishes have been named “ Stegonophthalmia,” or
*‘ covered-eyed,” by Forbes, to distinguish them from the
naked-eyed * Gymnophthalmia,” or Meduside. The Pelagide
(Clirysaora), which form one of the divisions of this group, are
simple, and have their margin surrounded with tentacles like the
Merlusidze, while the Rhizostomide have no marginal tentacles,
and consist of numerous polyps studding the trunks of a de-
HU
Oceanic forms of Lucernaride.
a. Rhizostuma pulmo. 6. Chrysaora hysoscella. c. Its hthocyst.—(All reduced.”
pendent tree. These animals have consequently no central
mouth, but hundreds of little mouths all active for the welfare
of the community.
The sessile Lucernaride differ from the other members of
the order by the narrow disc or stalk which serves to fix their
body when at rest. Their quadrangular mouth is in the centre
of the umbrella expansion, and round the margin of the
cup arise a number of short tentacles, disposed in eight or nine
tufts in Lucernaria, and forming one continuous series in
Carduella.
352 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
Though generally preferring to lie at anchor, the Lucer-
nariz are able to detach themselves, and to swim in an
inverted position by the
slowly repeated movements
of their cup-like umbrella.
When in a state of expan-
sion, few marine creatures
exceed them in beauty and
singularity of fourm; when
Poe contracted, they are shape-
less, and easily overlooked.
“(heir mode of progression,” says Mr. Couch, “ differs under
different cireumstances. If intending to move to any great
distance, they do so by loosening their attachments, and then, by
various and active contortions, they waft themselves away till they
meet with any obstruction, where they rest; andif the situation
suits them, they fix themselves; if not, they move on in the
same manner to some other spot. If the change be only for a
short distance, as from one part of a leaf to another, they bend
their campanulate rims, and bring the tentacula in contact with
the jaws, and by them adhere to it. The foot-stalk is then
loosened and thrown forward and twirled about till it meets
with a place to suit it; it is then fixed, and the tentacula are
loosened, and in this way they move from one spot to another.
Sometimes they advance like the Actiniz, by a gliding motion
of the stalk. In taking their prey, they remain fixed with their
tentacula expanded, and if any minute substance comes in con-
tact with any of the tufts, that tuft contracts, and is turned to
the mouth, while the others remain expanded watching for prey.”
The Calycophoride are distinguished by the cup-shaped
swimming organs, which form the most prominent part of their
body. Generally transparent like glass, their course upon
distant inspection is only revealed by the bright tints of
some of their appendages. In Diphyes, the type of the group,
the two cups (vy, v”) fit into each other so as to form a
more or less perfect close canal. The common stem of the
numerous polyp colony freely glides up and down the chamber
thus formed, into which it can be completely retracted, and
along its sides are placed the several appendages of the compound
creature, consisting chiefly of polypites (7), tentacles, and
VOGTIA PENTACANTHA. 353
organs of reproduction. Large specimens of Diphyes attain,
when fully extended, a length of several inches, the stem
giving support to at least fifty
different polypites. The other
genera of the order exhibit a
great variety in the form and
arrangement of their various
parts; thus, in Vogtia, each of
the swimming organs (v) is pro-
duced into five points, of which
the three upper are much longer
and stronger than the two lower,
The individual polyps (7), large
in size, but few in number, are
congregated immediately under
the swimming apparatus, and
are provided with long and for-
midable tentacula.
In the Physophoride the
basal end of the common polyp
stem is modified so as to form a {
float or aériform sac, which is, ,* Deut. age aoa
however, extremely different in ee
shape, structure, and size in the
various families. In the Velelle, the float, whose under sur-
face is studded, besides one larger central polypite, with nume-
rous small nutritive, reproductive, and tentacular bodies, forms
a horizontal disc traversed by a diagonal triangular crest, and
divided into numerous hollow chambers. Thus equipped, the
semi-transparent velella, beautifully tinged with ultramarine,
sails on the surface of the warmer seas, but the currents of the
Gulf Stream, and the westerly winds, frequently drift it to the
coast of Ireland, where it is often found on the beach, entangled
in masses of sea-weed. Of the vast numbers in which it some-
times occurs, Herr von Kittlitz relates an interesting instance in
his “Travels to Russian America and Micronesia.” ‘ Having
passed 30° N. lat. in the Pacific, the sea was suddenly found
covered with myriads of Velellz, of a size somewhat greater
than the Atlantic species. Two days long the ship sailed
through these floating masses, when suddenly the scene changed,
Foor
—
es L BS
a ee ae FH oe
<>
354 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
and large clusters of barnacles appeared, which, having no
doubt devoured the soft parts of the Velelle, now invested their
horny skeletons. As the ship advanced, the number of the
barnacle clusters augmented, which, to judge from the various
sizes of the individuals, must have taken some time for their
formation, and were apparently destined to increase until the
final destruction of the Velellz hosts, into which, from their
greater weight, they were continually drifting deeper and
deeper by the action of the currents. Again two or three days
elapsed, and as the surface of the sea occupied by both species
of animals extended at the least over four degrees of latitude,
Velella spirans, somewhat enlarged.
b. One of its smaller polypites, much magnified. v. Crest. A. Liver. o. Mouth of polypite,
6. Its diges ive cavity. ¢’. Rounded elevations, containing thread-cells. g. Medusiform zodids.
a faint idea may be formed of their numbers. Shoals of
dolphins and sperm-whales were busy exterminating the bar-
nacles, as these had devoured the Velelle. The whole scene
was an example on the grandest seale of the destruction and
regeneration perpetually going on in the wastes of the ocean.
The Physaliz, which far surpass the Velelle in size and
beauty, are also inhabitants of the warmer seas, where the Phy-
salia caravella, or ‘* Portuguese man-of-war,” is the mariner’s
admiration. On a large float-bladder eight or nine inches long
and three inches broad, whose transparent crystal shines in every
THE PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR. - 355
shade of purple and azure, rises a vertical comb, the upper
border of which sparkles with fiery red. This beautiful float
has a small opening at either
end, and strong muscular
walls, so that by their con-
traction its cavity can be con-
siderably diminished. And
thus partly by the escape of
air forced out through the
Openings, and partly by the
compression of what remains,
the specific gravity is so much
altered as to admit of the
animal’s sinking into the
deep when danger threatens.
v
%
4
+
i)
i
Numerous polyps proceed ‘ ae
from the lower surface, ac- Ai
companied by tentacles hav- 6 (
ing a sac-like extension at he ;
their base, and hanging down ‘ ‘
in beautifully blue and violet )
coloured locks or streamers. /
When fully extended, these =
tentacles form fishing lines eee
fifteen or sixteen feet long, Physalia caravella—(Considerably reduced.)
which, as their thread-cells * Pneimatophore, oc deat paddies a. Pclypites.
are uncommonly large, at
once paralyse the resistance of the fish or cephalopod they meet
with. Then rolling together, they convey the senseless prey to
the numerous mouths of the compound animal, which, sucking
like leeches, pump out its nutritious juices. In this manner the
greedy physalia devours many a bonito or flying-fish of a size
far superior to its own, and such is the corrosive power of
its tentacles that even man is punished with excruciating
pains when heedlessly or ignorantly he comes within their reach.
‘ One day,” says Dutertre in his “ History of the Antilles,” ‘as
I was sailing in a small boat, I saw a physalia, and as I was
anxious to examine it more closely, I tried to get hold of it.
But scarcely had I stretched out my hand when it was suddenly
enveloped by a net of tentacles, and after the first impression of
356 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA.
cold (for the animal has a cold touch) it seemed as if my arm
had been plunged up to the shoulder in a caldron of boiling oil,
so that I screamed with pain.” In his journey round the
world, Dr. Meyen also relates the case of a sailor who jumped
overboard to catch a physalia. But scarce had he come within
reach of its tentacles when the excruciating pain almost de-
prived him of sensation, and he was with great difficulty hauled
out of the water. A severe fever was the consequence, and
his life was for some time despaired of.
Several of the Physophoride are provided, besides the float,
with swimming-bells (nectocalyces) and peculiar appendages
or bracteze (hydrophyllia), which, over-
lapping the polypites, serve for their
protection. The graceful