The ocean world : being a description of the sea and some of its inhabitants / From the French of Louis Figuier.

  • Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean world : being a description of the sea and some of its inhabitants / From the French of Louis Figuier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the rivers of the eanh vvould require to pour their waters into it fox 40,000 years, in order to fill the vast basins anew. If we could imagine the entire globe to be divided into 1,786 parts by weight, we should find approximately, according to Sir John Herschel, that the total weight of the oceanic waters is équivalent to one of these parts. The spécifie density of sea water is a little above that of fresh water, the proportion being as 1,000 to 1,027. The Dead Sea, which receives no fresh water so as to enable it to maintain itself al the same level as other seas, acquires a higher degree of saltness each year : its présent density is equal to 1,028. The colour of the sea is continually varying, and is chiefly caused by filtration of the solar rays. According to the testimony of the majority of observers, the océan, seen by reflection, présents a fine azuré blue or ultramarine (cœriileuni mare). When the air is pure and the surface calni, this tint softens insensibly, until it is lost and blended with the blue of the heavens. Near the shore it becomes more of a green or glaucous tint, and more or less brilliant, according to circumstances. There are some days when the océan assumes a livid aspect, and others when it becomes a very pure green ; at other times, the green is sombre and sad. When the sea is agitated, the green takes a brownish hue. At sunset the surface of the sea is illumined with tints of every hue of purple and emerald. Placed in a vase, sea water appears perfectly transparent and colourless. According to Scoresby, the Polar seas are of brilliant ultramarine blue. Castaz says of the Mediterranean, that it is celestial blue, and Tuckey describes the equinoctial Atlantic as being of a vivid blue. Many local causes influence the colours of marine waters, and give them certain decided and constant shades. A bottom of white sand will communicate a greyish or apple-green colour to the water, if not very deep ; when the sand is yellow, the green appears more sombre ; the presence of rocks is often announced by the deep colour which the sea takes in their vicinity. In the Bay of Loango the waters appear of a deep red, because the bottom is there naturally red. It appears white in the Gulf of Guinea, yellow on the coast of Japan, green to the west of the Canaries, and black round the Maldive group of islands. The Mediterranean, towards the Grecian Archipelago, sometimes becomes more or less red. The White and Black Seas appear to be named after the ice of the one and the tempests to which the other is subject.