CHAPTER X.

THE OCEAN AND ITS LIVING WONDERS. Perfection in Nature’s smallest Works—A Word on Scientific 111 Classification—Protozoa—Blind Life—Rhizopoda—Foraminifera—A Robbery Traced by Science—Microscopic Workers—Paris Chalk—Infusoria—The “Sixth Sense of Man”—Fathers of Nations—Milne‐Edwards—Submarine Explorations—The Salt‐water Aquarium—The Compensating Balance required—Brighton and Sydenham—Practical Uses of the Aquarium—Medusæ: their Beauty—A Poet’s Description—Their General Characteristics—Battalions of “Jelly‐fish”—Polyps—A Floating Colony—A Marvellous Organism—The Graceful Agalma—Swimming Apparatus—Natural Fishing Lines—The “Portuguese Man‐of‐War”—Stinging Powers of the Physalia—An Enemy to the Cuttle‐fish