Amphora

“ The form of the handles is copied from metal technique.
Amphora with high, finely curving handles and black figures on a white body.
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Black-figured amphora; slender neck and egg-shaped body. A rather unusual form. Owned by Albert Gallatin.
Nolan amphora with elongated neck and egg-shaped body. Form characteristic of the red-figured technique of the early fifth century.
7
Red-figured amphora with twisted handles, of the first half of the fifth century. ”

“ On the left of the picture a seated man seems to be examining an amphora, which has just been finished (it is painted black) and is brought up for his approval. Next is seen an amphora on the potter’s wheel, painted white to indicate its imperfect state; one man places his arm inside to shape the interior, while another turns the wheel for him. On their right another white amphora is being carried out, just fresh from the wheel, but without handles or mouth, to be dried in the open or at the furnace ”

“ Already on the François vase, an amphora signed by Clitias and Ergotimus and belonging to about 600-550 B.C., there are representations of three ithyphallic creatures with equine ears, hoofs, and tails (Fig. 3) . [59] An inscription ΣΙΛΕΝΟΙ leaves no doubt as to the identity of the figures. ”

“ From fossil forms we cannot say much in regard to soft parts; but if we consider the living representatives of the class, we may credit amphibians with such important acquisitions as fingers and toes, a three-chambered heart, true ventral lungs, a drum to the ear, a mobile tongue, and vocal cords. ”

“ The Amphibia have soft skins, which appear to serve as lungs or gills when they are under the water, extracting the air from it, and enabling them to remain a long time there without coming up to breathe; they are partly aquatic, and feed upon insects and other small creatures, which they capture by darting out the tongue, which is covered with a glutinous secretion, and drawing it in again instantly with the insect adhering to it, which [Pg 272] they swallow whole. ”

“ The Amœba and Actinophrys are fresh water animals, and are destitute of any shell or covering. But in the sea there exist swarms of similar creatures, equally simple in organization, but gifted with the power of secreting around their soft bodies beautiful little shells or crusts of carbonate of lime, having one orifice, and often in addition multitudes of microscopic pores through which the soft gelatinous matter can ooze, and form outside finger-like or thread-like extensions for collecting food. ”

“ The surfaces of the rocks are studded between tide-levels with that curious plant Rivularia nitida; which is sure to attract attention, with its little shining balls of vivid green colour, like school-boys' marbles, lying on little beds of vegetation that adhere to the naked rock. ”

“ MOLLUSCOUS SHELL DEPOSITS. The forms of marine life of importance in rock making thrive best in clear water, where little sediment is being laid, and where at the same time the depth is not so great as to deprive them of needed light, heat, and of sufficient oxygen absorbed by sea water from the air. In such clear and comparatively shallow water there often grow countless myriads of animals, such as mollusks and corals, whose shells and skeletons of carbonate of lime gradually accumulate in beds of limestone. ”

“ It seems to me, that, when the animalcules which form the corals at the bottom of the ocean, cease to live, their structures adhere to each other, by virtue either of the glutinous remains within, or of some property in salt water; and the interstices being gradually filled up with sand and broken pieces of coral washed by the sea, which also adhere, a mass of rock is at length formed. 468Future races of these animalcules erect their habitations upon the rising bank, and die in their turn, to increase, but principally to elevate, this monument of their wonderful labors. ”

“ These are the Amphibia. The branchiæ here developed from the skin, are covered with cellular epidermis, not much thinner than that covering the rest of the body. Like it they have their surfaces speckled with pigment-cells; and are not even conspicuous by their extra vascularity—where they are temporary at least. They facilitate the exchange of gases in scarcely any other way than by affording a larger area of contact with the water, and interposing a rather thinner layer of tissue between the water and the blood-vessels. ”

“ Our worm has certainly spun a rope of sand, and one which holds together with surprising tenacity.
The instrument which our little architect wrought with are the long tentacles, which, like a tangled tuft of yellow sewing-cotton, twist and twine over the floors of sandy pools. Nothing at first sight seems less adequate for the purpose than those very slender, soft, and flexible threads. ”

“ Other equally subtle organisms have the form of little glass torpedoes. The sum of all the albuminous materials floating on the sea are condensed in these nutrient clouds to which are added the secretions of living animals, the remnants of cadavers, the bodies brought down by the rivers, and the nourishing fragments from the meadows of algae. ”

“ Before discussing our knowledge, or rather lack of knowledge, of fossil algae at greater length, it will be well to briefly consider the manner of occurrence and botanical nature of existing forms. In the sea and in fresh water, as well as in damp places and even in situations subject to periods of drought, algae occur in abundance in all parts of the world. ”

“ Extinct, terrestrial, aquatic, or semi-aquatic amphibians; skull pitted and grooved by lateral-line canals and by sculpturing marks, or the skull may be smooth; teeth present on most of the palate bones; exoccipitals cartilaginous or calcified, never completely osseous; sclerotic plates sometimes present; skull of various shapes. Vertebræ with notochord largely persistent, hour-glass-shaped; neural spines low or high, or absent; ribs intercentral and single-headed, with an incipient tubercle in some forms; vertebral column differentiated into dorsal and caudal series ”

“ THE AQUARIUM. The successful treatment of aquatic plants and animals, in the confined space of a glass Aquarium, depends entirely upon the discovery that there exists in Nature a self-adjusting balance between the supply of oxygen created in water, with the quantity consumed by aquatic animals. ”

“ The beautiful fungia lie with innumerable shells upon the bottom. The feathery and fan corals grow in clusters, and, amid their delicate plumes, fishes, which rival them in gayety, glide through the transparent water. ”

“ Proteus and Siren the mud-eel, always retain their gills; while not a few frogs undergo their metamorphosis within the egg, and never breathe by gills. If we add the tropical limbless, burrowing Coecilians, and last, not least, the Labyrinthodonts and other fossil forms, the proper definition of the class Amphibia,–in other words, the reasons for grouping them together into one class, separated from the other backboned animals,–requires the examination of many other characters.
{4} So far as numbers of living species are concerned, the Amphibia are the least numerous of the Vertebrata. ”

“ The successive ascendancies of the Worm, the Mollusk, the Crustacean, the Fish, the Reptile, and the Mammal, are followed triumphantly by the ascendancy of the Children of the Ape.
A large part of the life of the earth has remained steadfastly where it was cradled, beneath the waves. But more restless portions have left the sea and crept forth upon the land, or swarmed into the air. One migration, the most numerous, is represented by the insects. Another, the most enterprising, was the amphibian. After ages of evolution the amphibian branch divided. ”

“ If we glance back to the far-off time when the ancient fishes were wandering round the shores and in the streams of the coal-forests, we find that the amphibia were not then the small, scattered groups they are now, but huge and powerful creatures, which sported in the water or wandered over the land with sprawling limbs, long tails, and bones on which gills grew, while their heads were covered with hard, bony plates, and their teeth were large, with folds of hard enamel on the surface. ”

“ All this mass of coral is formed by living things,—polyps they are called. They are like tiny sea anemones, only they grow attached to one another, forming a compound animal, like a tree with stem and branches, and little sea anemones for flowers. ”

“ Numerous tentacles, too, of exceeding length and tenuity, and throwing off branches, spring from the stem throughout its length, all the extremities of each forming tiny oval knobs of spiral coils, the whole capable of being thrown into the most beautiful and graceful convolutions, now bent at right angles, and again thrown out in a series of light airy-looking arches. ”

“ The exact mechanism of the movement in the stem itself is too complex for discussion here; but I may sum up the matter by saying that the disappearance of the water at the surfaces of the leaves starts a series of flows in directions of least resistance towards the mesophyll, and as long as the evaporation goes on more water flows into the cells, to replace that lost, from the vessels of the stem, when the water-columns are supported and moved partly by capillarity and by the air-bubbles in the cavities, and partly by a peculiar co-operation of the living cells of the medullary rays. ”

“ In the Linton cannel are buried fragments or entire individuals of all the inhabitants of this body of water which had hard parts, bones, scales, spines, or teeth, capable of preservation. Hence we get a locally complete picture of the life of the Carboniferous age, and we find it to be unexpectedly rich and varied. In that age fishes and amphibians were the highest forms of animal life, and the amphibians were comparatively newcomers on the earth's surface. ”

“ The mollusc in its burrow in the depths of a block of coral, white as marble, with its own light and its self-constructed independent wall, appeals to my mind as evidence of the care of Nature for the preservation of types, while from such retiring yet virile creatures man learns earth-shifting lessons. ”

“ By coming out of the water and living on the land, or, rather, being able to live partly on land and partly in the water, by the acquisition of air-breathing respiratory organs or lungs in addition to, and instead of, water-breathing organs or gills, the amphibian not only arose from the fish, but made an entirely new departure in the sequence of progressive forms. ”

“ AMPHIBIA, a zoological term originally employed by Linnaeus to denote a class of the Animal Kingdom comprising crocodiles, lizards and salamanders, snakes and Caeciliae, tortoises and turtles and frogs ”

“ How can we doubt the existence of mermaids, when we find animals assuming the forms of umbrellas, goblets, and bells! Look! here comes a living umbrella, moving through the water by opening and shutting itself. Now, reader, it flaps itself under your very nose, and you may inspect it narrowly. You will perceive, that it is rather an uncommon sort of umbrella, as it has four sticks instead of one, and is furnished with a number of tendril-like appendages. ”

“ The Amphibia, though widely distributed, are not very numerous, nor do any of them attain a large size. Destitute for the most part of the attractions of form and colouring, they are not generally considered interesting, except to the philosophical observer of the works of God ”

“ I wish to recall to the inquirer that here on our own globe the spores of the algae and other plants of that order have the power of swimming freely in the sea. Still, they are plants—plants just as mobile as fishes. They become stationary only at a later stage of their development. ”

“ The rays or tentacles readily fold inward over and into the animal's mouth, and upon a slight jar of a mass of coral the waving tentacles close, and all motion or evidence of life disappears from its surface.
The number of polype-cells upon some species of coral is immense. A dome of astræa, twelve feet in diameter, with a cell to each half-inch of its surface, would contain 100,000 individuals. ”

“ Doubtless, this structure is intended to augment the sensitive powers of these curious organs, which are understood to be the tentacles.
Then, in the middle line of the back, but placed a little nearer the tail than the head, there is an orifice, which is the vent; remarkable because the breathing organs are arranged partly around it. There are three [Pg 40] tiny leaves cut like the fronds of a fern, which stand up over the orifice, and are endowed with the power of absorbing for the purposes of respiration the oxygen of the air commingled in the water. ”

“ The Amphibia are the oldest and the lowest group of vertebrates that are able to lead an active existence on land, and the characters which distinguish them most definitely from the fishes are all to be interpreted as adaptions to the new mode of life. One of the most obvious external differences between the two groups is in the structure of the extremities, the fish having fins, while the amphibian has limbs constructed on the same general lines as our own arms and legs. ”

“ Certain forms may remain for long periods of time attached by the dorsal organ to plants, or to the sides of an aquarium, the only movement being a slow vibration of the feet, by which a current of water, sufficiently rapid for respiratory purposes, is established round it. ”

“ Thousands of graceful radiolaria and thalamophora, of pretty medusæ and corals, of extraordinary molluscs, and crabs, suddenly introduced us to a wealth of hidden organisms beyond all anticipation, the peculiar beauty and diversity of which far transcend all the creations of the human imagination. ”

“ In almost every stream, lake, ditch, or any collection of standing or moving water, we observe a green, slimy matter, forming a scum on the surface, or floating in long filaments in the depths. On almost every fallen leaf and decayed branch, fleshy, gelatinous bodies of different forms and sizes meet our eye. Sometimes all these different objects appear growing on the same substance. ”