Nature and Art, March 1, 1867.] 
VENUS’S FLOWER-BASKET.’’ 
91 
although there are certain kinds found in fresh 
water. Like many other inhabitants of the deep, 
the sponges thrive best in the warm genial seas of 
the tropics, and perhaps in no part of the world are 
they to be found in greater variety and perfection 
than among the Australasian islands. The West 
Indies and the Mediterranean also yield them in 
considerable quantities; those of commerce being 
chiefly from the two last-mentioned sources. Our 
colder seas, although containing their sponges, are 
by no means rich in them. Dr. Bowerbank 
enumerates twenty-four genera as being found on 
the shores of Great Britain. These differ much 
from the huge vase or chalice- shaped Pin sponges 
( Raphidophora patera) found in the Indian Ocean. 
We have seen some of these which would readily 
hold from three to four gallons in their cup-shaped 
cavities. Yenus’s fans ( Gorgonia flabellum) are 
there, too, found on the coasts of Bermuda, large 
enough for the toilet-table of a giantess, and fit 
companions for the huge sponge goblets above 
referred to. The sea- feather, or plume coral, is 
found sprouting, like some ocean fern-leaf, from the 
rock- cave’s edges, far down in the clear, tranquil 
water, amongst the reefs, and we shall see how one 
of them proved a guide to fortune, station, and 
nobility. Thus goes the tale, which, unlike many 
such, has the inestimable advantage of being strictly 
true. 
In the year 1G50, one Phipps, a blacksmith of 
Pemaquid, in New England, was blessed with a 
son, who was christened William, and who, in very 
early life, manifested much ingenuity and a passion 
for ship-building. Yery shortly after the term of 
his apprenticeship to a shipwright had expired, he 
built a vessel for himself, which he navigated in 
person, and hearing it reported that a Spanish 
merchant ship freighted with bullion had sunk in 
the neighbourhood of the Bahamas, he at once be- 
took himself to the scene of the disaster, and made 
the most determined but fruitless efforts to recover 
the lost gold. Treasure-seeking now appears to 
have become a fixed occupation with Captain 
Phipps. In the year 1683 we find him employed 
by the English Government to discover another lost 
Spanish ship of immense value. This he failed to 
do, but was convinced that perseverance in the 
search would be ultimately crowned with success. 
For five years he was unsuccessful in his applica- 
tions for funds to renew his investigations, when the 
Duke of Albemarle, the then Governor of Jamaica, 
not only believed in the assurances of Captain 
Phipps, but furnished him with ample means and 
fitting apparatus for his new expedition. How he 
reached the scene of his labours ; how every lagune 
and gulf between the reefs was searched in vain, 
until hope well-nigh vanished, we need not dwell 
on here. No wreck could be discovered, and he 
had almost determined to abandon the undertaking 
in despair, when, after a day of more than ordinary 
fatigue and anxious exploration amongst the coral 
rocks, his boat’s crew were rowing him slowly and 
dejectedly back to his ship, one of the sailors 
directed his attention to a beautiful sea-feather | 
growing from the ledge of a sunken rock. “Alas !” 
said poor Phipps, “ there is a sea treasure indeed, I 
wish I could get it.” One of the good-humoured 
black divers who accompanied him, anxious to 
oblige his commander, shot rapidly down to the 
coveted specimen, and just as rapidly returned with 
it, exclaiming, “ Feather safe, fine feather ; hut 
plenty hig cannon down where feather live .” This 
report, as may be readily imagined, made the sink- 
ing heart of poor Phipps leap again. Blackey was 
despatched to the regions below to have another 
look, and returned with the glorious news that 
there were “ plenty hig boxes too, and lots of this,” 
exhibiting his hands filled with silver. Now the 
captain was in his true element, and there lay his 
work cut out for him. He Was quite equal to the 
occasion, for from that deep gulf, far down among 
the corals and the sponges, where it had lain con- 
cealed for moi*e than half a century, he brought to 
light thirty -two tons of silver bullion, besides large 
quantities of gold, pearls, and other valuables. We 
find that Phipps was knighted by James II. He 
was also appointed sheriff of New England, and 
took command of a large expeditionary force against 
the French. We afterwards find him in command 
of a fleet fitted out to oppose the French in Canada, 
and subsequently taking part in the border warfare 
of the period, as a leader of note. And at this 
point of his career we bid adieu to Sir James 
Phipps, and the feather which led him on to fortune. 
Amongst the endless objects of interest which 
each hour passed on the sea brings to notice, few 
are more curious than the family of Medusidce 
“ There’s not a gem 
Wrought by man’s art to be compared to them; 
Soft, brilliant, tender, through the wave they glow, 
And make the moonbeams brighter where they flow.” 
The rippling waves as they divide beneath the 
good ship’s cutwater, the dipped oar-blade, and 
the fisher’s net, glisten in the moonlight like molten 
metal, and the boat’s track is marked out as in 
liquid fire. We are passing through myriads of 
Noctiluca miliaris, members of the order we are 
glancing at. From the most minute and micro- 
scopic size to the most gigantic dimensions do these 
strange organisms exist, and there appears no known 
limit to the vast size to which they can grow»in the 
tropic seas. The ponderous jelly-like masses at 
times cast by storms on our coasts, or left by the 
receding tide on our beaches, are as mere pigmies 
to the huge creatures of this class found in the 
Indian seas ; and if northern latitudes were as con- 
genial to their rapid and prodigious development as 
the warmer seas of the East, the Tcrahen might not 
prove as great a myth as has been generally supposed. 
Thus Mr. Telfair writes of one he saw washed on 
shore near Bombay, in 1819, which, as he says, must 
have weighed many tons : — “ I went to see it when 
the gale had subsided, which was not for three days 
after its being cast upon the sand ; but it had 
already become offensive, and I could not distin- 
I guish any shape. The sea had thrown it high above 
| the reach of the tide, and I instructed the fisher- 
