THE BOOK ABOUT THE SEA GARDENS 



are never seriously interested in the composite 

 creatures that are, after all, only grotesque mon- 

 strosities like the medieval conception of the 

 angels of heaven or the devils of hell. 



The sea covers two-thirds of the globe and con- 

 tains more wonderful things than faint echoes of 

 royal courts, creatures far stranger than mermen 

 and harpies about which the mind refuses to work 

 intelligently ; only the scientist and naturalist have 

 begun to give us a glimpse of the real romance of 

 the ocean, and so far they have only given us facts 

 without fancy, bones without life, specimens pre- 

 served in formalin or alcohol which the layman 

 gazes at vaguely, wondering, with little more than 

 a passing interest, why men devote their lives to 

 the study of such things at all. 



What is there to interest one in the deep sea 

 that we can in any degree approach? 



The sea is like a great library, the secrets of 

 which are only given up to the eager lifelong 

 student ; but the shallow rock pools can be observed 

 by any one, and the Sea Gardens in the "white 

 waters" around the Bahama Islands provide an 

 opportunity which can be found in very few other 

 places at all. There are many hundreds of miles 

 of apparently open sea which seldom exceeds three 

 fathoms, or eighteen feet. With unaided eye there 

 is much that can be recognised at that depth, while 

 a glass-bottomed boat or water glass reveals more 



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