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
This curious intimacy was continued for weeks: the fish, unless driven
away by some rover of prey of their kind, were in regular attendance
during his hours of work. Perhaps the solitude and silence of that
curious submarine world strengthened the impression of recognition
and intimacy, but by every criterion we usually accept in terrestrial
creation these little creatures had an interest and a friendly feeling
for one who furnished them food, and who was always careful to avoid
injuring them or giving them any unnecessary alarm. He could not,
of course, take up a fish in his hand, any more than a chicken will
submit to handling; but as to the comparative tameness of the two,
the fish is more approachable than the chicken. That they knew and
expected the diver at the usual hour was a conclusion impossible
to deny, as also that they grew into familiarity with him, and were
actuated by an intelligent recognition of his service to them. It
would be hard to convince this gentleman that a school of fish cannot
be as readily and completely tamed as a flock of chickens.
Why not? The fear of man is no instinctive feeling in the invertebrate
creation. The pioneer who penetrates into the uninhabited wilds of
our Western frontier finds bird and beast fearless and familiar. Man's
cruelty is a lesson of experience. The timid and fearful of the lower
creation belong to creatures of prey. The shark, for example, is as
cowardly as the wolf.
I thought to speak of other marine creations with which the diver
grows acquainted, finding in them only a repetition of the same degree
of life he has seen in the upper world. But let it be enough to state
the conclusion--as yet only an impression, and perhaps never to be
more--that in marine existence there is to be found the counterpart
always of some animate existence on earth, invertebrate or radiate,
in corresponding animals or insects, between whose habits and modes
of existence strong analogies are found. The shrimps that hang in
clusters on your hand under the water are but winged insects of the
air in another frame that have annoyed you on the land.
Let me dismiss the subject with the brief account of a diver caught in
a trap.
In the passion of blind destruction that followed and attended the
breaking out of hostilities between the North and the South, as a
child breaks his rival's playthings, the barbarism of war destroyed
the useful improvements of civilization. Among the things destroyed by
this iconoclastic fury was the valuable dry-dock in Pensacola Bay. It
was burned to the water's edge, and sunk. A company was subsequently
organized to rescue the wreck, and in the course of the submarine
labor occurred the incident to which I refer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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