File:Ocean wonders- a companion for the seaside (1879) (14763125031).jpg

Identifier: oceanwonderscomp00damo (find matches)
Title: Ocean wonders: a companion for the seaside
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Damon, William Emerson, 1838-
Subjects: Marine animals Aquariums
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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en kinds of marine animals! Successiveobservers added their mites of observation, but knowledgeon this subject was of very slow growth, for, until the inven-tion of the microscope, the numerically largest division ofthese curious creatures were invisible; and we may say that,until the era of scientific expeditions and the invention of INTRODUCTORY. 5 machines for deep-sea dredging, thousands of curious formsof coral, shells, algse, and all their congeners, were never be-held by any human eyes. But the human imagination was never idle, though sci-ence has been so tardy in its marches; and those poeticalfancies, which conceived of mermaids and fairy-grottoes be-neath the bright sea-waves, were in many respects nearerto the truth than the so-called facts of some of the old natu-ralists, for certainly no fairy-land could exceed in beautymany of the gorgeous bowers formed by the combined pro-ductions of the marine flora and the animated dwellers inthe submarine depths of the tropical seas.
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Shells of Living Foeaminifeea.—a, Orbulina universa, in its perfect condition, showingthe tubular spines which radiate from the surface of the shell; &, Globigerina bulloides,in its ordinary condition, the thin hollow spines which are attached to the shell when per-fect having been broken off; c, Textularia variabilis; d, Peneroplis planatus; e, Rota-Ua concamerata; ,f\ Crislellaria mbareuatula. Fig. a is after Wyville Thomson; theothers are after Williamson. All the figures are greatly enlarged (after Nicholson). 6 THE OCEAN. < In those masses known as macciotta an almost unnum-bered variety of garden and even forest-like structures areformed, consisting of polypiers, hydroids, corals, algse, andsea-anemones, of the most brilliant hues and graceful forms,which neither pen nor pencil can ever adequately describe. It must here be noted that modern facilities of observa-tion have greatly extended the area of animal life; not onlyin our recognition of about 500,000 varieties of

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