Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
In your curious dress you must appear monstrous, even to that marine
world, familiar with abnormal creations. The whale looks from eyes on
the top of his head; the flat-fish, sole, halibut have both eyes on
the same side; and certain Crustacea place the organ on a foot-stalk,
as if one were to hold up his eye in his hand to include a wider
horizon. But the monster which the fish now sees differs from all
these. It has four great goggle eyes arranged symmetrically around
its head. Peering through these plate-glass optics, the diver sees
the curious, strange beauty of the world around him, not as the bather
sees it, blurred and indistinct, but in the calm splendor of its own
thallassphere. The first thought is one of unspeakable admiration of
the miraculous beauty of everything around him--a glory and a splendor
of refraction, interference and reflection that puts to shame the
Arabian story of the kingdom of the Blue Fish. Above him is that pure
golden canopy with its rare glimmering lustrousness--something like
the soft, dewy effulgence that comes with sun-breaks through showery
afternoons. The soft delicacy of that pure straw-yellow that prevails
everywhere is crossed and lighted by tints and glimmering hues of
accidental and complementary color indescribably elegant. The floor of
the sea rises like a golden carpet in gentle incline to the surface;
but this incline, experience soon teaches, is an ocular deception,
the effect of refraction, such as a tumbler of water and a spoon can
exhibit in petty. It is perhaps the first observable warning that you
are in a new medium, and that your familiar friend, the light, comes
to you altered in its nature; and it is as well to remember this and
"make a note on it."
Raising your eyes to the horizontal and looking straight forward,
a new and beautiful wealth of color is developed. It is at first a
delicate blue, as if an accidental color of the prevailing yellow.
But soon it deepens into a rich violet. You feel as if you had never
before appreciated the loveliness of that rich tint. As your eye
dwells upon it the rich lustrous violet darkens to indigo, and sinking
into deeper hues becomes a majestic threat of color. It is ominous,
vivid blue-black--solid, adamantine, a crystal wall of amethyst. It is
all around you. You are cased, dungeoned in the solid masonry of the
waters. It is beauty indeed, but the sombre and awful beauty of the
night and storm. The eye turns for relief and reassurance to the
paly-golden lustrous roof, and watches that tender penciling which
brightens every object it touches. The hull of the sunken ship,
lying slant and open to the sun, has been long enough submerged to
be crusted with barnacles, hydropores, crustacea and the labored
constructions of the microscopic existences and vegetation that fill
the sea. The song of Ariel becomes vivid and realistic in its rich
word-power:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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