58 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
of animals the region of life and health: there is enjoyment for 
myriads in its waves ; there is happiness on its banks. 
The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, animal or vegetable, 
by its temperature, by its density, by its saltness, by its bitterness, by 
the never-ceasing agitation of its waves, and by the rapidity of its 
currents. 
We have seen in preceding chapters that the sea only freezes 
under intense cold, and then only at the surface. 
What immense varieties of size, shape, form, and colour, from the 
nearly invisible algee which serve to nourish the small zoophytes and 
molluscs, to the long, slender alge of fifty, and even 500, yards in 
length! How vast the disparity between the microscopic Infusoria 
and the gigantic Whales ! 
“We find in the sea,” says Lacepede, “unity and diversity, 
which constitute its beauty ; grandeur and simplicity, which give it 
sublimity ; puissance and immensity, which command our wonder.” 
In the following pages we shall figure and describe many inhabit- 
ants of the sea; but how many will still remain to be figured and 
described! From the days of Aristotle research has been succeeded 
by research, without interruption. ‘But how vast the field,” as 
Lamarck observes, “which Science has still to cultivate, in order to 
carry the knowledge already acquired to the degree of perfection 
of which it is susceptible !” 
“When the tide retires from the shore, the sea leaves upon the 
coast some few of the numberless beings which it carries in its 
bosom. In the first moments of its retreat, the naturalist may collect 
a crowd of substances, vegetable and animal, of various characteristic 
colours and properties. The inhabitants of the coast may find there 
their food, their commerce, and their occupations. At low water the 
nearest villages and hamlets send their contingents, old and young, 
men, women, and children, to the harvest. Some apply themselves 
to gathering the riband seaweed (Zostera), the membranous U/va, the 
sombre brown Fucus vesiculosus a source of great wealth to the 
dwellers by the sea, being much used in making kelp ; others gather 
the small shells left on the sand ; boys mount upon the rocks in search 
of whelks (Buccinum) and of mussels (Myztlus), and detach limpets 
(fatella) from the rocks to which they attach themselves. On some 
coasts shells are sought for their beauty. By turning the stones, or 
by sounding the crevices of the rocks with a hook at the end ofa 
pole, cuttles and calmars are sometimes surprised—sometimes even 
