THE BODY TEMPLE 39 



Each structure and organ has been named and care- 

 fully described; and to such a degree has knowledge 

 on this subject accumulated that the work of a life- 

 time is required to become fully acquainted with the 

 minute details of the body and its work. In this brief 

 chapter we can only glance at a few of the leading 

 characteristics of the body, and the curious processes 

 by which human life and activity are sustained. 



The Beginnings of Life. —One warm, sunny after- 

 noon the writer was coasting in a little yacht among 

 the mangrove-covered isles of Florida Keys. The 

 helmsman had run our little ship into a sheltered bay, 

 where scarcely a breath stirred the glistening waters, 

 and while slowly floating with the tide, we used the 

 opportunity to study life beneath the ocean wave. 



One of our two sturdy seamen brings out a water 

 telescope, by the aid of which, leaning over the vessel's 

 side, we are able to look down through the crystal 

 waters twenty, fifty, even a hundred feet, and see with 

 wonderful distinctness the curious and luxuriant vege- 

 table growths and strange and uncouth animal forms 

 which in tropical climes inhabit the vast bottom of the 

 briny deep. There are broad fields of branching, som- 

 ber-colored sea-weeds, with great sea-crabs running 

 out and in among them ; all sorts of bivalves and uni- 

 valves, half imbedded in the mud; lovely corals and 

 madrepores, attached to fragments of rocks, or cling- 

 ing to some marine plant; all kinds of sponges— red, 

 green, yellow, black ; queer little starfish, slowly crawl- 

 ing along over the rocks; and wonderful jelly-fish, 

 floating with the tide. 



A Live Sponge.— "We thrust down a long pole, with 

 a hook in the end, and seize one of those great yellow 

 sponges. Hauling it up into the boat, we examine the 



