NAUTICAL. 



CHAPTER I. 



Poetry and Science. The Paper Nautilus and the Sail. Montgomery's " Pelican 

 Island." The Nautilus replaced by the Velella. The SailingRaft of Nature 

 and Art. Description of a Velella Fleet off Tenhy. The Natural Raft and 

 its Sail. The Boats of Nature and Art. Man's first Idea of a Boat. The 

 Kruman's Canoe and the Great Eastern. Gradual Development of the Boat. 

 The Outrigger Canoe a Mixture of Raft and Boat. Natural Boats. The 

 Water-snails. The Sea-anemones.* The Egg-boat of the Gnat. The 

 Skin-boat of the same Insect. Shape and Properties of the Life-boat anti- 

 cipated in Nature. Natural Boat of the Stratiomya. 



THE RAFT. 



IT lias been frequently said that the modern developments 

 of science are gradually destroying many of the poetical 

 elements of our daily lives, and in consequence are reducing 

 us to a dead level of prosaic commonplace, in which existence 

 is scarcely worth having. The first part of this rather 

 sweeping assertion is perfectly true, but, as we shall presently 

 see, the second portion is absolutely untrue. 



Science has certainly destroyed, and is destroying, many of 

 the poetic fancies which made a part of daily life. It must 

 have been a considerable shock to the mind of an ancient 

 philosopher when he found himself deprived of the semi- 

 spiritual, semi-human beings with which the earth and water 

 were thought to be peopled. And even in our own time and 

 country there is in many places a still lingering belief in the 

 existence of good and bad fairies inhabiting lake, wood, and 

 glen, the successors of the Naiads and Dryads, the Fauns and 

 Satyrs, of the former time. Many persons will doubtless be 

 surprised, even in these days, to hear that the dreaded Mael- 

 strom is quite as fabulous as the Symplegades or Scylla and 



B 



