THE LIVING WORLD. 
23 
The argonaut does not depend wholly upon favoring winds to propel him whither 
he wishes to go, if, indeed, he ever relies on the wind except when he wishes to 
ride listlessly. His proper mode of locomotion is by withdrawing himself par¬ 
tially within his shell, and then driving himself swiftly backward by forcing a 
strong stream of water through a siphon appendage with which he is provided, 
and is thus propelled by the reaction. It can also creep, though slowly, along 
the ocean bottom, where it is most frequently found attached to stones by its 
tentacles, which are provided with very powerful suckers. In size it rarely 
exceeds three or four inches in diameter. It has the power to leave its shell 
at will, though this privilege is very 
rarely exercised, and never without 
some exciting cause. It subsists off 
the smaller polyps , especially the 
coral-worm. 
The Pacific Ocean has been a 
veritable wonderland from the mo¬ 
ment when, in 1513, as our school 
geographies tell us, Vasco Nunez 
de Balboa saw it from Darien, and 
from the time—only seven or eight 
years later—when Magellan gave to 
it a place among human habitations 
and a name. The very meagreness 
of our acquaintance with it, as com¬ 
pared with our knowledge of the 
Atlantic, has possibly added to the 
glamour of the sea whose Golden 
Gate at San Francisco is known by 
experience to the countless throngs 
which now crowd their way to the 
coast so celebrated, and which is each 
day contributing more and more to 
the variety and excellence of our 
markets. Not that, as in the tropics, 
the luxuriance of nature has dwarfed 
the useful energies of man ; for while 
we remember the benefactions of 
Stanford and Lick, and others who the nautilus. 
have accepted the responsibilities as 
well as the opportunities of great wealth; while readers continue to enjoy the 
inimitable products of the pen of Bret Harte; so long as lovers of wit and 
humor retain an acquaintance with Phcenixiana; until we lose all recollection of 
the audacious courage and indomitable persistence of those who conceived and exe¬ 
cuted the magical enterprise of connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, and 
making what was before an intervening desert to blossom as the rose, and to be 
occupied by the industries of man; until we forget these and many other 
achievements we shall be apt to believe that, perhaps, the most valued product 
of the Pacific slope is its race of men. The sunlit isles of the Pacific, with their 
Southern vegetation, strange native tribes, queer customs and their odd animal life, 
