THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



5 



strosities and organisms contrary to the law of 

 nature, such as they interpreted it. The naturalists 

 of our own time hold equal faith in the wonders of 

 the sea, but seek therein rather for the links of 

 nature's chain than for apparent exceptions. Out of 

 the waves they draw subjects for their most patient 

 and elaborate researches, for the creatures that live 

 beneath the waters exhibit more varied and extra- 

 ordinary conformations than those that dwell upon 

 the land. Moreover, a great part of them consists 

 of beings in a manner rudimentary — creatures exhi- 

 biting the elements of higher creatures, living 

 analyses of higher organized compounds, the first 

 draughts of sketches afterwards finished, the frame- 

 work, as it were, of many-wheeled machines. By 

 an examination and study of them we get at a 

 clearer conception of the nature of the structures 

 which, in combination, constitute the complicated 

 bodies of vertebrated animals, and in the end are 

 enabled to throw light upon the organization of man 

 himself, learning thereby much concerning the won- 

 derful construction of the microcosm, and at the 

 same time, through our better knowledge of the 

 nature and capabilities of our organization, acquir- 

 ing a lesser, though more practical gain, in the 

 placing of the science of medicine on a surer and 

 sounder foundation. The day has gone by when 

 a medical student was taught the anatomy and 

 physiology of man with little or no reference to 

 that of inferior beings. 



