4 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



nature, much less to make any stay there, I pre- 

 sume it will not be unpleasant, if about a subject of 

 which, though none of those very few naturalists 

 that write anything at all, write otherwise than by 

 hearsay, I recite in this place what I learned by 

 inquiry from those persons, that, among the many 

 navigators and travellers I have had opportunity to 

 converse with, were the likeliest to give me good in- 

 formation about these matters." 



Since the days of the illustrious experimental 

 philosopher, naturalists have made great advances 

 in their knowledge of submarine phenomena, and can 

 now speak from their own knowledge, though, for 

 even a good half century after Boyle's censure had 

 been written, they were mainly dependent for their 

 acquaintance with the depths of the ocean on travel- 

 lers and mariners, whose powers of observation were 

 untrained, and who had no initiation into the ele- 

 ments of natural history. Naturalists have even 

 visited personally the bottom of the sea, for of late 

 years the diving-bell has, in some instances, been 

 used as a means of scientific research, one, however, 

 of limited application ; the net and the dredge are 

 the surest means at our command for exploration 

 of the ocean's recesses, especially the last-named 

 instrument, the full use and value of which, how- 

 ever, can scarcely be said to have been understood 

 until within the last twenty years. 



The naturalists of yore esteemed the ocean to be 

 a treasury of wonders, and sought therein for mon- 



