Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
58
[Picture:
Pentacrinus
asteria,
Linnæus]
Of
this
you
will
see
a
specimen
or
two
both
at
Liverpool
and
in
the
British
Museum;
and
near
them,
probably,
specimens
of
the
new-old
Crinoids,
discovered
of
late
years
by
Professor
Sars,
Mr.
Gwyn
Jeffreys,
Dr.
Carpenter,
Dr.
Wyville
Thomson,
and
the
other
deep-sea
disciples
of
the
mythic
Glaucus,
the
fisherman,
who,
enamoured
of
the
wonders
of
the
sea,
plunged
into
the
blue
abyss
once
and
for
all,
and
became
himself
“the
blue
old
man
of
the
sea.”
Next
look
at
the
corals,
and
Gorgonias,
and
all
the
sea-fern
tribe
of
branching
polypidoms,
and
last,
but
not
least,
at
the
glass
sponges;
first
at
the
Euplectella,
or
Venus’s
flower-basket,
which
lives
embedded
in
the
mud
of
the
seas
of
the
Philippines,
supported
by
a
glass
frill
“standing
up
round
it
like
an
Elizabethan
ruff.”
Twenty
years
ago
there
was
but
one
specimen
in
Europe:
now
you
may
buy
one
for
a
pound
in
any
curiosity
shop.
I
advise
you
to
do
so,
and
to
keep—
as
I
have
seen
done—
under
a
glass
case,
as
a
delight
to
your
eyes,
one
of
the
most
exquisite,
both
for
form
and
texture,
of
natural
objects.
Then
look
at
the
Hyalonemas,
or
glass-rope
ocean
floor
by
a
twisted
wisp
of
strong
flexible
flint
needles,
somewhat
on
the
principle
of
a
screw-pile.
So
strange
and
complicated
is
their
structure,
that
naturalists
for
a
long
while
could
literally
make
neither
head
nor
tail
of
them,
as
long
as
they
had
only
Japanese
specimens
to
study,
some
of
which
the
Japanese
dealers
had,
of
malice
prepense,
stuck
upside
down
into
Pholas-borings
in
stones.
Which
was
top
and
which
bottom;
which
the
thing
itself,
and
which
special
parasites
growing
on
it;
whether
it
was
a
sponge,
or
a
zoophyte,
or
something
else;
at
one
time
even
whether
it
was
natural,
or
artificial
and
a
make-up,—
could
not
be
settled,
even
till
a
year
or
two
since.
But
the
discovery
of
the
same,
or
a
similar,
species
in
abundance
from
the
Butt
of
the
Lows
down
to
Setubal
on
the
Portuguese
coast,
where
the
deep-water
shark
fishers
call
it
“sea-whip,”
has
given
our
savants
specimens
enough
to
make
up
their
minds—
that
they
really
know
little
or
nothing
about
it,
and
probably
will
never
know.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
