16 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
mineral world; and there is a universal harmony never disturbed, 
ever the same, and always worthy of our admiration. God alone 
is everlasting ; all else is transitory! 
The waters teem with more life than the land. Beneath a 
surface less varied than that of the continents, the sea enfolds 
in its bosom an exuberance of life of which no other region of 
the globe can afford the faintest idea. Its life extends from the 
poles to the equator, from east to west. Everywhere the sea is 
peopled; everywhere, down to its unfathomable depths, live and 
sport creatures suited to the locality. In every spot of its vast 
expanse the naturalist finds instruction, and the philosopher medi- 
tation ; while the very varieties of life tend to impress upon our souls 
a feeling of gratitude to the Creator of the universe. Yes, the shores 
of the ocean and its depths, its plains and its mountains, its valleys 
and its precipices, even its dédrzs, are enlivened and beautified by 
thousands of living beings. There are the solitary or sociable plants, 
upright or pendant, stretching in prairies, grouped in oases, or grow- 
ing inimmense forests. These plants give a cover to and feed millions 
of animals which creep, run, swim, fly, burrow in the sand, attach 
themselves to roots, lodge in the crevices, or build for themselves 
shelters, which seek or fly from one another, which pursue or fight 
each other, which caress each other with affection or devour each 
other without pity. Charles Darwin truly says that the terrestrial 
forests do not contain anything like the number of animals as 
those of the sea. The ocean, which is for man the element of 
death, is for myriads of animals a home of life and health. There 
is joy in its waves, there is happiness upon its shores, and 
heavenly blue everywhere. 
The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, vegetable and 
animal, by its temperature, its density, its saltness, its bitterness, 
the motion of its waves, and the rapidity of its currents. We have 
seen in the preceding chapter that the waters of the sea only freeze 
upon their surface, and that at a depth of 550 fathoms there is a 
uniform temperature which is the same for all latitudes. On the 
other hand, it is to be borne in mind that the effect of the most 
tremendous storms, even of the most furious hurricanes, is not felt 
