The first book of this Volume--_A glance at the Seas_, is, as the title indicates, merely a preliminary promenade. All the important matters therein are discussed in the following three books. I except two, however, _Tides_ and _Beacons_. Here my principal guide has been M. Chazallon's important _Annual_, already numbering twenty volumes, the first having appeared in 1839. If the Civic Crown was bestowed upon the man who saved one human life, how many such crowns has not M. Chazallon deserved! Anterior to his labors, the errors, as to the tides, were enormous. By immense labor he has corrected the observations for nearly five hundred ports from the Adour to the Elbe. His _Annual_ gives the most exact information upon the Beacons. Similarly valuable is the clear and agreeably written exposition in the _Souvenirs_ of M. de Quatrefages on the Lighthouse system of Fresnel and Arago. The admirable system of revolving lighthouses, in which the lights flash and disappear, at short and regular intervals, is due to Lemoine, Mayor of Calais. For the various names of the Sea refer to Ad. Pictet-_Origines Indo-Europeennes_. On the water, consult the Introduction to Deville's _Annual of the Waters of France_; Aime's _Annale's de Chimie_ II., V., XII., XIII., and XV. Morren, the same, I, and Acad de Bruxelles, XIV., &c. On the saltness of the Sea Chapman quoted by Tricaut _Ann. de Hydrographie_ XIII., 1857, and Thomassy's _Bulletin de la Société Geographique_, 4 June, 1860. I did not thoroughly comprehend the Shore of _Saint Michel en Greve_ and the questions concerning it, until I read in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ the two very fine articles of M. Baude, full alike of facts and ideas. I speak elsewhere of his excellent views on the Fisheries. In speaking (Chap. III.) of Brittany, I must acknowledge my obligation to the book of Cambry which formerly gave me my first ideas upon that subject. It should be read in the edition which Émile Souvestre enriched, and we may say doubled, with his excellent notes and notices which thenceforth made us thoroughly acquainted with the _Derniers Bretons_. In several admirable little tales of graphic and striking truthfulness, Souvestre has given the best existing pictures of our western coasts, especially of Finisterre and the neighboring shores of the Loire. I should be glad to quote something from a writer so agreeable, and a friend so sincerely lamented, but the limits of this little book prevent me from quoting any literary matter. The remarkable observation made by Elie de Beaumont, quoted by me in Chapter 4 of Book I., stands at the head of his article--which, in itself, is a great book--_Terrains_ in the Dictionary of M. d'Orbigny.