The Sea And Its Living Wonders - free ebook by G. (Georg) Hartwig

DR. G. HARTWIG AUTHOR OF "THE TROPICAL WORLD" "THE HARMONIES OF NATURE" "THE POLAR WORLD" AND "THE SUBTERRANEAN WORLD"

SEVENTH EDITION WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS AND PLATES LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16 th STREET 1892...

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NOTICE

The right of translation into French is reserved by the Author. All necessary steps for securing the Copyright have been taken....

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.

Nothing can be more agreeable to an author anxious to merit the suffrages of the public, than the opportunity afforded him, by a new edition, of correcting past errors or adding improvements to his work. Should any one of my readers think it worth his while to compare 'The Sea,' such as it now is, with what it formerly was, I have no doubt he will do me the justice to say that I have conscientiously striven to deserve his approbation. Two new chapters—one on Marine Constructions, the other on Ma

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST TWO EDITIONS.

For years my daily walks have been upon the beach, and I have learnt to love the ocean as the Swiss mountaineer loves his native Alps, or the Highlander the heath-covered hills of Caledonia. May these feelings have imparted some warmth to the following pages, and serve to render the reader more indulgent to their faults! Göttingen : July 17, 1860 ....

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CHAPTER XXVII.

« xiv » « xv » Description of the Frontispiece. ARCTIC SLEDGE-JOURNEY. « xvi » « xvii »...

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CHAPTER I. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SEA.

Of all the gods that divide the empire of the earth, Neptune rules over the widest realms. If a giant-hand were to uproot the Andes and cast them into the sea, they would be engulphed in the abyss, and scarcely raise the general level of the waters. The South American Pampas, bounded on the north by tropical palm-trees, and on the south by wintry firs, are no doubt of magnificent dimensions, yet these vast deserts seem insignificant when compared with the boundless plains of earth-encircling oce

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CHAP. II.

THE WAVES OF THE OCEAN. After having admired the sea in the grandeur of its expanse, and the profundity of its depths, I shall, in this and the two following chapters, examine in what manner the perpetual circulation of its waters is maintained. "The movements of the sea," says Humboldt, "are of a three-fold description: partly irregular and transitory, depending upon the winds, and occasioning waves; partly regular and periodical, resulting from the attraction of the sun and the moon (ebb and f

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CHAP. III.

THE TIDES. Living on the sea-coast would undoubtedly be deprived of one of its greatest attractions, without the phenomenon of the tides, which, although of daily recurrence, never loses the charm of novelty, and gives constant occupation to the fancy by the life, movement, and perpetual change it brings along with it. How wonderful to see the sandy plain on which, but a few hours ago, we enjoyed a delightful walk, transformed into a vast sheet of water through which large vessels plough their w

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CHAP. IV.

MARINE CAVES. Whoever has only observed the swelling of the tide on the flat coasts of the North Sea, has but a faint idea of the Titanic power which it develops on the rocky shores of the wide ocean. Even in fair weather, the growing flood, oscillating over the boundless expanse of waters, rises in tremendous breakers, so that it is impossible to behold their fury without feeling a conviction that the hardest rock must ultimately be ground to atoms by such irresistible forces. Day after day, ye

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CHAP. V.

OCEAN CURRENTS. Perpetual motion and change is the grand law, to which the whole of the created universe is subject, and immutable stability is nowhere to be found, but in the Eternal mind that rules and governs all things. The stars, which were supposed to be fixed to the canopy of heaven, are restless wanderers through the illimitable regions of space. The hardest rocks melt away under the corroding influence of time, for the elements never cease gnawing at their surface, and dislocating the a

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CHAP. VI.

THE AËRIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS. Neither storms nor ocean-currents, nor ebb and flood, however great their influence, cause such considerable movements of the waters, or force them to wander so restlessly from place to place as the silent and imperceptible action of the warming sunbeam. In every zone evaporation is constantly active in impregnating the atmosphere with moisture, but the chief seat of its power is evidently in the equatorial regions, where the vertical rays of

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CHAP. VII.

MARINE CONSTRUCTIONS. In one of the finest passages of "Childe Harold," Byron contrasts the gigantic power of the sea with the weakness of man. He describes the resistless billows contemptuously playing with the impotent mariner—now heaving him to the skies, now whelming him deep in the bosom of the tumultuous waters; he mocks the vain pride of our armadas, which are but the playthings of ocean, and points with a bitter sneer at the wrecks with which he strews his shores. A less misanthropic moo

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CHAP. VIII.

THE CETACEANS. Of all the living creatures that people the immensity of ocean, the cetaceans, or the whale family, are the most perfect. Their anatomical construction renders them in many respects similar to man, and their heart is susceptible of a warmth of feeling unknown to the cold-blooded fishes; for the mother shows signs of attachment to her young, and forgets her own safety when some danger menaces her offspring. Like man, the cetaceans breathe through lungs, and possess a double heart,

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CHAP. IX.

SEALS AND WALRUSES. The Manatees or Lamantins of the Atlantic Ocean, and the now nearly extinct Dugongs of the Indian seas, form the connecting link between the real whales and the seals and walruses. Like the whales, these animals have no hind feet, and a powerful tail, which is their chief instrument of locomotion; they are distinguishable, however, from them by less fin-like, more flexibly-jointed anterior extremities, on which they lean while cropping the sea-weeds on the shallow shores. Whe

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CHAP. X.

SEA-BIRDS. Countless are the birds of the wood and field, of the mountain and the plain; and yet it is doubtful whether they equal in number those of the fish-teeming seas. For every naked rock or surf-beaten cliff that rises over the immeasurable deserts of ocean, is the refuge of myriads of sea-birds; every coast, from the poles to the equator, is covered with their legions and far from land, their swarms hover over the solitudes of the deep. Many, unfit for swimming, seek their food along the

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CHAP. XI.

THE REPTILES OF THE OCEAN. There was a time when the reptiles were the monarchs of the sea, when the ocean swarmed with gigantic saurians, tyrants of the fishes, combining the swiftness of the dolphin with the rapacity of the crocodile. Had those monsters of the deep been endowed with human intelligence, they would most likely also, with human arrogance, have boasted of an eternal sway. For where in the whole ocean was the enemy that could cope with them? Did not all beings flee wherever they ap

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CHAP. XII.

THE MARINE FISHES. The bosom of the ocean is full of mysteries; it conceals a whole world of curiously-shaped animals, which the naturalist only superficially knows, and may, perhaps, never be able to fathom. To observe the habits of terrestrial animals, and accurately to determine their various species, is a comparatively easy task; but the denser element in which fishes live prevents us from following their motions with exactness, from studying their instincts, and from noting with fidelity th

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CHAP. XIII.

CRUSTACEA. CRABS—LOBSTERS. The Crustaceans were included by Linnæus among his insects, but their internal structure presents such numerous and important differences that modern naturalists have raised them to the dignity of a separate class. They have indeed, in common with the insects, an articulated body, generally cased with hard materials; they are like them provided with jointed legs, with antennæ or feelers, and their organs of mastication are similarly formed; but insects breathe atmosphe

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CHAP. XIV.

MARINE ANNELIDES. The class of the Annelides, or annulated worms—to which also our common earth-worm and the leech belong—peoples the seas with by far the greater number of its genera and species. All of them are distinguished by an elongated, and generally worm-like form of body, susceptible of great extension and contraction. The body consists of a series of rings, or segments, joined by a common elastic skin; and each ring, with the exception of the first or foremost, which forms the head, an

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CHAP. XV.

MOLLUSCS. Simple or compound, free or sessile, peopling the high seas or lining the shores, the marine Molluscs, branching out into more than ten thousand species, extend their reign as far as the waves of ocean roll. Though distinguished from all other sea-animals by the common character of a soft unarticulated body, possessing a complicated digestive apparatus, and covered by a flexible skin or mantle, under or over which a calcareous shell is generally formed by secretion, yet their habits ar

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CHAP. XVI.

ECHINODERMATA. STAR-FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, AND SEA-CUCUMBERS. "As there are stars in the sky, so are there stars in the sea," is the poetical exordium of Link's treatise on Star-fishes, the first ever published on the subject; and James Montgomery tells us in rather bombastic style, that the seas are strewn with the images of the constellations with which the heavens are thronged. This is no doubt highly complimentary to the star-fishes, but is far from being merited by any particularly shining or

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CHAP. XVII.

CŒLENTERATA. POLYPS AND JELLY-FISHES. Despite the low rank they occupy in the hierarchy of animal life, the Cœlenterata, comprising the numerous families of the Jelly-fishes and Polyps, play a most important part in the household of the ocean, for the sea is frequently covered for miles and miles with their incalculable hosts, and whole archipelagos and continents are fringed with the calcareous structures they raise from the bottom of the deep. Their organisation is more simple than that of the

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CHAP. XVIII.

PROTOZOA. Think not, reader, that the life of the ocean ends with the innumerable hosts of fishes, molluscs, crustacea, medusæ, and polyps we have reviewed, and that the waters of the sea or the sands of the shore have now no further marvels for us to admire. The naked eye indeed may have attained the limits of life, but the microscope will soon reveal a new and wonderful world of animated beings. Take only, for instance, while wandering on the beach, a handful of drift-sand, and examine it thro

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CHAP. XIX.

MARINE PLANTS. The dry land develops the most exuberant vegetation on the lowest grounds, the plains and deep valleys, and the size and multiplicity of plants gradually diminish as we ascend the higher mountain regions, until at last merely naked or snow-covered rocks raise their barren pinnacles to the skies: but the contrary takes place in the realms of ocean; for here the greater depths are completely denuded of vegetation, and it is only within 600 or 800 feet from the surface that the calca

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CHAP. XX.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MARINE LIFE. The wanderer to distant lands sees himself gradually surrounded by a new world of animals and plants. On crossing the Alps, for instance, the well-known vegetable forms of our native country leave us one after the other; the beech, the fir, the oak, no longer meet the eye, or appear but rarely, and of more stunted growth, while in their stead citron and olive-trees decorate the landscape; and finally, on the shores of the Mediterranean the world of p

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CHAP. XXI.

THE PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. He who still lingers on the shore after the shades of evening have descended, not seldom enjoys a most magnificent spectacle; for lucid flashes burst from the bosom of the waters, as if the sea were anxious to restore to the darkened heavens the light it had received from them during the day. On approaching the margin of the rising flood to examine more closely the sparkling of the breaking wave, the spreading waters seem to cover the beach with a sheet of fire. E

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CHAP. XXII.

THE PRIMITIVE OCEAN. The greatest of all histories, traced in mighty characters by the Almighty himself, is that of the earth-rind. The leaves of this giant volume are the strata which have been successively deposited in the bosom of the sea, or raised by volcanic powers from the depths of the earth; the wars which it relates are the Titanic conflicts of two hostile elements, water and fire, each anxious to destroy the formations of its opponent; and the historic documents which bear witness to

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CHAP. XXIII.

Among the nations of antiquity, navigation, as may well be supposed, was in a very rude and imperfect state. Unacquainted with the mariner's compass, which during the darkest and most tempestuous nights safely leads the modern seaman over the pathless ocean, the sparkling constellations of a serene sky, or the position of the sun, were the only guides of the ancient navigator. He therefore rarely ventured to lose sight of land, but cautiously steering his little bark along the shore, was subject

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CHAP. XXIV.

The reigning idea of a century finds always one or more eminent spirits, in whom and through whose agency the desires and hopes of thousands ripen into deeds, and are changed from dreams into realities. One of these rare and highly gifted men was Prince Henry of Portugal, a son of King John I., who made it the chief aim of his life to extend the boundaries of maritime discovery, and devoted with glowing ardour all the powers of his energetic mind, and all the influence of rank and riches to the

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CHAP. XXV.

The riches which the Indian trade had poured into the lap of Venice, and which at a later period fell to the share of the Portuguese, formed the chief incitement to the great maritime discoveries which illustrated the end of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. The hope to discover a new road to India had not only animated the Portuguese navigators, but also led Columbus and Cabot across the Atlantic. It caused the unfortunate Cortereal to sail into the Gulf of St. Lawrence

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CHAP. XXVI.

To form a correct estimate of Cook's discoveries, it is necessary that, before following the track of that great seaman, we should glance over the vast regions of the Pacific previously unknown to man. Many navigators indeed, since Magellan, had traversed that immense ocean, but the greater part of its expanse still lay buried in obscurity. To the north of the line, the Spaniards, sailing from Manilla to Acapulco, still servilely followed the route which Urdaneta had pointed out, and all beyond

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CHAP. XXVII.

Although the undaunted courage and indomitable perseverance of the great navigators whom I have named in the preceding chapters had gradually circumscribed the bounds of discovery, and no vast ocean remained to be explored by some future Cook or Magellan, yet at the beginning of this century many secrets of the sea still remained unrevealed to man. The north coast of America and the Arctic Ocean beyond were still plunged in mysterious darkness; and although Cook in several places had advanced fa

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