or swallows, roamed among the crags, wandered through the thickets of the sea-plants, and shot away like arrows as our boat passed over them. Caryophyllias, Gorgonias, and a thousand other zoophytes unfolded their sensitive petals, and could hardly be distinguished from the real plants with whose fronds their branches intertwined. Enormous dark blue Holothurias crept along upon the sandy bottom, or slowly climbed the rocks, on which crimson sea-stars spread out immoveably their long radiating arms. Molluscs dragged themselves lazily along, while crabs, resembling huge spiders, ran against them in their oblique and rapid progress, or attacked them with their formidable claws. Other crustaceans, analogous to our lobsters or shrimps, gambolled among the fuci, sought for a moment the surface waters to enjoy the light of heaven, and then by one mighty stroke of their muscular tail, instantly disappeared again in the obscure recesses of the deep. Among these animals whose shapes reminded us of familiar forms appeared other species, belonging to types unknown in our colder latitudes: _Salpæ_, strange molluscs of glassy transparency, that, linked together, form swimming chains; great _Beroës_, similar to living enamel; _Diphyæ_ hardly to be distinguished from the pure element in which they move, and finally, _Stephanomiæ_, animated garlands woven of crystal and flowers, and which, still more delicate than the latter, disappear as they wither, and do not even leave a cloud behind them in the vase, which a few moments before their glassy bodies had nearly entirely filled." [Illustration: Hill at the Rapid on Bear Lake River. (North-West Territory, North America.)] CHAP. II. THE WAVES OF THE OCEAN. Waves and the Mode of their Formation.--Height and Velocity of Storm-Waves, on the High Seas, according to the Calculations of Scoresby, Arago, Sir James Ross, and Wilkes.--Their Height and Power on Coasts.--Their Destructive Effects along the British Shore.--Dunwich.--Reculver.--Shakspeare's Cliff. After having admired the sea in the grandeur of its expanse, and the profundity of its depths, I shall, in this and the two following chapters, examine in what manner the perpetual circulation of its waters is maintained. [Illustration: H.M.S. "Resolute" lying to in the North Atlantic.] "The movements of the sea," says Humboldt, "are of a three-fold description: partly irregular and transitory, depending upon the winds, and occasioning waves; partly regular and periodical, resulting from the attraction of the sun and the moon (ebb and flood); and partly permanent, though of unequal strength and rapidity at different periods (oceanic currents)." Who has ever sojourned on the coast, or crossed the seas, and has not been delighted by the aspect of the waves, so graceful when a light breeze curls the surface of the waters, so sublime when a raging storm disturbs the depths of the ocean?