TOILERS IN THE SEA. 145 



CHAPTER V. 



PLANT-ANIMALS, OR ZOOPHYTES. 



AN enthusiastic naturalist, who wrote and 

 published most interesting records of his 

 " Rambles," has given the following note of one 

 of his experiences. " Every morning," he says, 

 "when the weather was good, one of us went out 

 in a boat." This was on the Sicilian coast, where 

 he saw the sea under an aspect entirely new to him, 

 in an absolute and profound calm, with the surface 

 as smooth as a mirror, permitting the eye to dis- 

 tinguish the minutest details at an incredible depth. 

 " Leaning over the side of the boat, we could see, 

 flitting beneath our eyes, a vision of plains, valleys, 

 and hills, in one place with bare and rugged sides, 

 in another, clothed with verdant herbage, or dotted 

 over with tufts of brownish shrubs, and in all 

 respects calling to mind the distant view of a 

 passing landscape. But it was not the varied out- 

 lines of a terrestrial scene on which our eyes were 

 riveted, for we were scanning the rugged contour of 



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