42 THE SEA-SIDE AND AQUAKIUM. 



such circumstances to believe the sea to be as dry 

 land, through which one might travel at will. Not 

 a silvery fish darted by, but I could have supposed 

 it breathed upon air like a bird : the weeds waved 

 as gently as if it were a breeze of west wind blowing 

 over a clump of heather : nay, the stones, save for 

 their shelly crusts, looked like the pebbles on the 

 beach. 



Although it is, of course, impossible to realise such 

 a fancy, we are not altogether incapacitated from 

 forming some tolerably accurate conception of the 

 floor of that untrodden sea vault, at a depth far below 

 what the quickest eye can pierce, even on the calmest 

 day. Sea-speculators in the olden time, were obliged 

 to draw upon their imagination, or to trust to the 

 doubtful evidences of the lead or anchor. In our 

 day, the rapid advances of geological knowledge has 

 enabled a good, though as yet an unrealised view to 

 be taken of that terra incognita. We have not space 

 nor inclination, on this bright day, to pursue the 

 latter track to travel over mountains higher than 

 the Dhawilghiry, to descend into valleys wider and 

 deeper than the Mississippi, or to encounter those 

 marvellous rivers that float through the heart of the 

 sea. In limiting ourselves to what has been actually 

 visited in discoursing only of such curiosities as have 

 been brought home by actual travellers, we must not 

 in this place omit to notice the high position occupied 

 among such hardy explorers by one of the most 

 eminent of living zoologists. We refer to M. Milne- 



