"THE DEEP, DEEP SEAP' 



All ! what pleasant visions liaunt me, as I gaze upon the sea ! 



All the old romantic legend?, all my dreams come back to me. 



Till my soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, 



And the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me. 



Longfellow, 



" "PI^O-^I^I^^ awake but deliciously dreamiug," 

 J^ we cast ourselves upon the dazzling saudy 

 beacli, and gaze upon " the deep, deep sea." The 

 sky above, so beautifully blue, is unsullied by a 

 single cloud ; " a holy calm pervades us, all is peace 

 within." Above, below— without, witliin— exists a 

 harmony of repose, and as we adjust the welcome 

 expanse of our broad-brimmed " felt " to shield our 

 eyes and shelter our complexion, we sink into a 

 reverie, — 



With half-shut eyes ever to seem 

 Falling asleep in a half- dream. 



There always seems to be a mysterious influence 

 in the sea,— itself a mystery, covering three-fourths 

 of the surface of the globe, and hiding the earth 

 and its inhabitants from the gaze of the " lords of 

 creation." How little do we know, compared with 

 the unknown, of three-fourths of the world that is 

 buried in the sea. "We tried," says Sir James 

 Eoss, "but did not obtain soundings with 4,600 

 fathoms of Line, or 27,000 feet," upwards of five 

 miles. And this in "the deep, deep sea." 



Erom the bottom of this vast expanse the 

 plummet brings to the surface evidence of the past 

 existence of myriads of minute organisms. "The 

 ocean," wi-ites Lieutenant Maury, " especially within 

 and near the tropics, swarms with life. The remains 

 of its myriads of moving things are conveyed by 

 currents, and scattered and lodged in the course of 

 time all over its bottom. This process, continued 

 for ages, has covered the depths of the ocean as 

 with a mantle, consisting of organisms as delicate 

 as the macled frost, and as light as the undrifted 

 snowflake on the mountain." And that these fragile 

 and delicate objects repose at peace in their ocean 

 bed is now past a doubt. " My investigations," 

 writes Professor Bailey, " show that the bottom is 

 so free from currents and abrading agents that a 

 rope of sand, if once laid there, would be stout 

 enough to withstand the pulling of all the forces 

 that are at play upon the bottom of the sea." 



Not only the remains of past life, but also the 

 living present, exist in countless numbers in the 

 ocean. "In examining animalcula; in sea-water," 



says Capt. Poster, " I have heretofore used surface 

 water. This afternoon, after pumping for some 

 time from the stem pump seven feet below the sur- 

 face, I examined the water, and was surprised to 

 find that the fluid was literally alive with animated 

 matter." And what shall we say of — 



The stupendons mounds of catacombs 



Fill'd with dry mummies of the builder worms? 



of the coral reefs reared by the combined efforts of 

 myriads of diminutive artisans, and v/hich Captain 

 Flinders encountered for five hundred, and Captain 

 King for seven hundred miles ? 



Some of the wonders of this vast storehouse of 

 marvels have been transferred to the marine aquaria, 

 public and private, which fashion called into exist- 

 ence in haste, and nearly abandoned at leisure. Sea- 

 anemones, so like the flowers of earth as to deceive 

 the insects of earth ; jelly-fish, unlike anything in 

 creation but themselves ; and even the poor hermit 

 crab doomed to forego his retirement and be gazed 

 upon by every little "charity boy" that chooses to 

 spend his holiday sixpence at the Zoological 

 Gardens. 



Leaving sea-serpents to assert their own identity, 

 and prove their own existence in some remote future, 

 by one of their family swallowing a cargo of hard- 

 ware, and being stranded in a fit of indigestion, we 

 should like to know, since the fauna of the land is 

 continually being augmented by the knowledge of 

 new genera and species, what can be predicated of 

 our knowledge of the fauna of " the deep, deep sea." 

 Surely half its wonders are yet entirely unknown. 



O sea ! old sea ! who yet knows half 

 Of thy v/onders or thy pride ! 



Still we repose upon the beach and dream, as old 

 Neptune chides oar idleness by casting at our fecit 

 seaweeds, corallines, zoophytes, shells, starfisli, and 

 many such triidicts of his, each of which would 

 employ us many an hour fidly to comprehend. 



Break, break, break. 



At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 

 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 



Will never come back to me. 



