The mighty deep

They had not yet taken possession of two Isles, which in the then distant future were to become the Headquarters of a world-wide Empire. Already one characteristic of the race w...

The annual stampede of Britons to the coast says much for our National belief in Sea-breezes. In other countries also people go to the sea for change; but perhaps nowhere does t...

In these days we know the Ocean as one vast whole. Not like our early forefathers, standing on the brink, to gaze with awe-stricken eyes into mysterious distances, and to specul...

Things are what they are in this world very largely because of the pull of opposing forces, and among such forces not one is more universal than that of Gravity. Many causes bes...

He could sail on the sea; he could bathe in the shallow waters near land. If a good swimmer, he might go farther out, and might even dive for one or two minutes out of sight. In...

Actual Rivers in the Ocean; distinct streams of water, flowing over a bed of water, with banks of water. Not merely one or two such rivers, but scores of them, hundreds of them,...

Over the great Deep of blue water lies the greater Deep of blue air. And between these two--the Ocean of Air and the Ocean of Water, both dragged earthward by the perpetual pull...

Not that the Ocean is always and everywhere blue. In a certain “arm of the sea,” the Bristol Channel, it is commonly any tint that you please rather than blue--brown, green, yel...

“In all time, Calm or convulsed,--in breeze or gale or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of Eternity,--the...

So wrote the wisest of men, long centuries ago; and the words are true in a world-wide sense, which the writer with all his wisdom could not then have fully grasped.

The land is always endeavouring to keep its present state unchanged. The ocean is ever trying to tear down and demolish the land. Yet the very object of the ocean in so doing se...

The very long past--how long no man can say. Some rash attempts have been made to name the numbers of thousands of years which may have elapsed since this or that particular sta...

As a vast Cathedral is made of separate blocks of stone, laid one upon another and cemented together, so a stratified rock is formed of tiny particles of substance, placed one o...

“Peace, moaning Sea, what tale have you to tell, What mystic tidings, all unknown before? Whether you break and thunder on the shore, Or whisper like the voice within the shell,...

“The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the Straits; on the French Coast the light Gleams, and is gone; the Cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil...

Coral is a familiar enough object with us all, whether in the shape of a child’s first plaything, or a girl’s first trinket, or a Museum curiosity. It may be red or pink or whit...

“The wrecks dissolve above us: their dust drops down from afar;-- Down to the dark, the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are. There is no sound, no echo of sound, in...

We know a good deal more now, thanks to the famous voyage of the _Challenger_, and to many other observations, though still the full sum of our information is small compared wit...

“We have already learned,” wrote Albert, Prince of Monaco, not long since, in reference to recent Ocean researches--“that a whole world of Fishes, Molluscs, Annelids, Medusæ, Ce...

Among the multitudinous hosts of living creatures which throng the Ocean, vast hordes are furnished with some kind of protective armour, the better to take their part in the cea...

Once upon a time that name was equally common. Everything that had its home in the sea was popularly supposed to be a fish. We know now that not one of the above belongs to any...

No part of the wide Ocean may be found where fishes are not, and in places, at seasons, the water positively teems with them, so that they may be said almost to hustle one anoth...

Of fishes which are remarkable for beauty names might be mentioned by the hundred; alike of food-fishes, of powerful and fierce-tempered kinds, and of those which may be describ...

“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a fish hook? Or press down his tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a rope into his nose? Or pierce his jaw through with a hook?”--JOB xli. 1,...

“Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage! (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) For the Lord our God Most High, He hath made the Deep as dry, He hath smote for...

“This Royal throne of kings; this sceptred Isle; This earth of majesty; this seat of Mars; * * * * * This happy breed of men; this little world; This precious stone, set in a si...