6 THE OCEAN HOME. 



able to discover a great many interesting facts, and to 

 make very probable guesses as to things which we 

 cannot clearly observe. 



So come with me some fine summer morning down 

 to the ocean beach. We will choose a day when low 

 tide occurs about sunrise, and we will be promptly on 

 hand at that hour. There is a light fog floating over 

 the water, and as we come down to the shore we are 

 surprised to see what a broad stretch of mossy rocks 

 has been left bare by the retreating tide. 



We walk quickly across the sandy beach, clamber 

 over the slippery rocks as far as the water will allow us, 

 and then we look and listen. Some distance out the 

 big waves come rolling in, smooth and glassy, till 

 they strike the shoaling bottom. There the lower 

 part of the wave is stranded, but the top by no means 

 loses its shoreward motion. Rushing forward, it curls 

 and breaks into foam with a roaring splash, while the 

 water at our feet, feeling the impulse, presses in be- 

 tween the rocks with a soft murmur and then flows 

 back again to meet the next incoming wave. 



There are tones of music in all this never-ending 

 motion of the sea which can hardly be described, but 

 which bring to the ear of the sympathetic listener the 

 sweetest of nature's harmonies. The deep bass of 

 the breakers mingled with the lighter notes of the 

 throbbing wavelets, the dripping of the m,ssy rocks, 

 and the rustle of little crustaceans — all these sounds, 

 united with the sweet breath of the sea, and joined 

 with the lovely forms and beautiful colors which 

 are all around us, all these make us believe that we 

 are in fairyland, and we almost envy the mermaids in 

 their homes among the coral groves, where the dra- 

 peries are mosses and the pavements are of pearl. 



