If my mantle was long enough to allow of its covering my feet
when I slept, I should have nothing to complain of, but then it might
impede my flight, so I must be content."
* * * * *
THE NATURALIST.
* * * * *
DEPTH OF THE SEA.
As to the bottom of the basin of the sea, it seems to have inequalities
similar to those which the surface of continents exhibits; if it were
dried up, it would present mountains, valleys, and plains. It is
inhabited almost throughout its whole extent by an immense quantity of
testaceous animals, or covered with sand and gravel. It was thus that
Donati found the bottom of the Adriatic sea; the bed of testaceous
animals there, according to him, is several hundred feet in thickness.
The celebrated diver Pescecola, whom the emperor Frederick II. employed
to descend the strait of Messina, saw there with horror, enormous polypi
attached to the rocks, the arms of which, being several yards long, were
more than sufficient to strangle a man. In a great many places, the
madrepores form a kind of petrified forest fixed at the bottom of the
sea, and frequently, too, this bottom plainly presents different layers
of rock and earth.
The granite rises up in sharp-pointed masses. Near Marseilles, marble is
dug up from a submarine quarry. There are also bituminous springs, and
even springs of fresh water, that spout up from the depths of the ocean;
and in the Gulf of Spezia, a great spout or fountain of fresh water is
seen to rise like a liquid hill.
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