TEANSLATOK'S PREFACE. 



This little book supplies a general and instructive 

 outline of a certain number of interesting facts con- 

 nected with the sea. It bears the same relation to 

 the strictly scientific treatment of the subject as a 

 popular lecture on art to instruction in the studio, 

 a ramble through a museum to a lecture on science ; 

 or a short pleasure-sail on the coast, with here and 

 there an opening glimpse of the scenery, and a 

 pleasant chat on the wonders of the deep, to an ac- 

 curate survey and a formal report on the same sub- 

 jects. Occasionally, it may be hoped, the reader will 

 find something more in the following chapters on 

 " The Bottom of the Sea," than these remarks would 

 lead him to suspect ; but its pretentions are not such 

 as would justify the kind of criticism which a scien- 

 tific treatise like that of Professor TyndalFs book on 

 Heat, and many works of less scientific importance, 

 are rightly supposed to cliallenge. 



Our knowledge of the sea is not, indeed, so exact 

 as to justify the same high pretensions to accuracy, 



