THE ''SAILING'' OF THE NAUTILUS. 79 



He, when the hghtning-winged tornadoes sweep 

 The surge, is safe : his port is in the deep ; 

 And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind 

 Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind." 



The very names by which this animal is known to the 

 science which some persons erroneously think must be so 

 hard and dry are poetic. In Aristotle's day it was called 

 the Naiitihis or Nautic?is, " the mariner," and though two 

 thousand two hundred years have passed since the great 

 master wrote, the name still clings to it. As the Pearly 

 Nautilus, a very different animal, also bears that name, 

 Gualtieri perceived the necessity of distinguishing the Paper 

 Nautilus from it, and was followed by Linnseus, who there- 

 fore entitled the genus to which the latter belongs, 

 Argonauta, after the ship Argo, in which Jason and his 

 companions sailed to Colchis to carry off the "Golden 

 Fleece " suspended there in the temple of Mars, and 

 guarded by brazen-hoofed bulls, whose nostrils breathed 

 out fire and death, and by a watchful dragon that never 

 slept. According to the Greek legend, the Argo was 

 named after its builder Argus, the son of Danaus, and was 

 the first ship that ever was built. Oppian (' Halieutics,' 

 book I.) expresses his opinion that the Nautilus served as 

 a model for the man who first conceived the idea of con- 

 structing a ship, and embarking on the waters : — 



" Ye Powers ! when man first felled the stately trees, 

 And passed to distant shores on wafting seas, 

 Whether some god inspired the wondrous thought, 

 Or chance found out, or careful study sought ; 

 If humble guess may probably divine. 

 And trace th' improvement to the first design, 

 Some wight of prying search, who wond'ring stood 

 When softer gales had smoothed the dimpled flood, 

 Observed these careless swimmers floating move, 

 And how each blast the easy sailor drove ; 



