Sea (body of water)

“ Have you ever watched the sea when its surface is much ruffled, and noticed how, besides the big waves of the tide, there are numberless smaller ripples made by the wind blowing the surface of the water, or the oars of a boat dipping in it, or even rain- drops falling? ”

“ The sea is the common reservoir of the waters. Rivers, springs, fountains, every little brooklet, all come from and all return to it. The water of a dewdrop, the water that circulates in the sap of plants, the water that forms beads of perspiration on our foreheads, all come from the sea and are on their way back to it. However small the little drop, do not fear that it will lose its way. If the arid sand drinks it up, the sun will know how to draw it out again and send it to rejoin the vapor in the atmosphere and, sooner or later, to reënter the ocean-basin. ”

“ Sea-water differs from rain-water, well-water, river-water. True, it is made up of all these, since sooner or later and in one mode or another all water on Earth finds its way to the Ocean. Water may travel openly by river-routes ”

“ It is that all space is filled with what we may call an ocean of æther, which can be tossed into waves and ripples just as the air we breathe is traversed in all directions by aerial vibrations, and the restless sea by waves and ripples on the water-surface. ”

“ Every drop of water in the sea is as obedient to law and order as are the members of the heavenly host in the remotest regions of space; for when the morning stars sang together in the almighty anthem, we are told "the waves also lifted up their voice" in chorus; and doubtless, therefore, the harmony in the depths of the ocean is in tune with that which comes from the spheres above. ”

“ The slightest movement of the air communicates motion to the surface of such a great sheet of water as the sea, and this motion is gradually increased till one ripple meets another, and the power of both goes to form the next, so that they acquire a very considerable size; when a gale of wind blows, the rolling of the waves far out at sea becomes terrific, and they rise like mountains, chasing one another over the wide ocean. ”

“ She has the robustness, volume and vigor of the great high seas. She is deep-bosomed and broad of thigh and stands as though storms and monsters had no terrors, as one accustomed to breast and conquer the waves. Water creatures supplement her, but she seems made on too goddess-like a scale to disport herself with them. It is interesting to contrast this nymph of the fathomless trough of the sea with the arch and playful Water Sprites of the froth and ripple, on the columns within the Court of Ages. ”

“ I long ago learned that first lesson of a man of the world, "to be astonished at nothing," but the sea has overreached my philosophy—quite. I am changed to a mere child in my wonder. Be assured, no view of the ocean from land can give you a shadow of an idea of it. Within even the outermost Capes, the swell is broken, and the color of the water in soundings is essentially different—more dull and earthy. ”

“ When, therefore, we take into consideration the fact that, as a general rule, sea water is, with the exception above stated, everywhere and always the same, and that it can only be made so by being well shaken together, we find grounds on which to base the conjecture that the ocean has its system of circulation, which is well calculated to excite our admiration, for it is as wonderful as the circulation of the blood. ”

“ Or it is the summer night, with a flood of moonlight shivering the ripples, whilst on either hand the sea stretches away in solemn darkness touched faintly in places by the lustre of the glorious planets unpaled by the moonshine. A soft breeze murmurs over the water, and keeps the spectral canvas on high sleeping, and a narrow wake goes away astern into the darkness, with fitful flashes of phosphorus in the circling eddies, in the run of the ripples as they break near the silent hull.
Small wonder, indeed, that the sea should court men as it does, and fascinate them too. ”

“ The clear, heavy water-edge of ocean rising and falling close to their bows, in that unaccountable way which the sea has always in calm weather, turning the pebbles over and over as if with a rake, to look for something, and then stopping a moment down at the bottom of the bank, and coming up again with a little run and clash, throwing a foot's depth of salt crystal in an instant between you and the round stone you were going to take in your hand ”

“ Who is able to number the different species of animals which people the seas? or who can determine their form, structure, size, and [Pg 476] properties? How infinitely great is that God who has created the sea! will be the conclusion of all who investigate the subject, and it is not without the wisest reasons that the Creator has made the ocean and the seas to occupy two-thirds of the whole globe. The seas were designed not only to form great reservoirs of water, but by means of their evaporation to be the sources of rain, snow, and various meteors. ”

“ Uniform character of sea water.—As a general rule, the constituents of sea water are as constant in their proportions as are the components of the atmosphere. It is true that we sometimes come across arms of the sea, or places in the ocean, where we find the water more salt or less salt than sea water is generally ”

“ The great, vast ocean is something so much beyond anything I ever imagined,—the same vast expanse of dark-blue rolling waves as far as the eye can reach,—day after day, day after day,—the great ship a mere speck, an atom in the vast circle of water,—water everywhere. The very wind sounds differently than on land; a cheerful breeze is like the breath of a giant, and a playful wave will send a dozen hogsheads of water over the lofty bulwarks. ”

“ Every drop of water which flows from the earth to the sea carries something with it. Generally, there is so little of any substance in the water that we cannot taste it, and we call it pure water; but the purest of spring or river-water has always some solid matter dissolved in it, and all this goes to the sea. ”

“ Berzelius assures us that four-fifths of our living frames are water; just as four-fifths of our globe are covered by Oceans, Seas, Lakes, and Rivers. For our arid Earth the Sea is a constant Hydropathist, curing it of its otherwise deadly dryness, and nourishing and beautifying its fruits and flowers. ”

“ This element of water is supplied entirely by the sea. The sea is the great inexhaustible fountain which is continually pouring up into the sky precisely as many streams, and as large, as all the rivers of the world are pouring into the sea. ”

“ The operations of water.—There are processes no less interesting going on in other parts of this magnificent field of research. Water is nature's carrier. With its currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone and ice from the frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicles of its vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it, by unknown paths, to the most distant parts of the earth. The materials of which the coral builds the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys in all latitudes. ”

“ WHETHER WATER RISES FROM THE SEA TO THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS. The water of the ocean cannot make its way from the bases to the tops of the mountains which bound it, but only so much rises as the dryness of the mountain attracts. ”

“ By such an one, the wind and rain, the vapor and the cloud, the tide, the current, the saltiness, and depth, and warmth, and color of the sea, the shade of the sky, the temperature of the air, the tint and shape of the clouds, the height of the tree on the shore, the size of its leaves, the brilliancy of its flowers — each and all may be regarded as the exponent of certain physical combinations, and therefore as the expression in which Nature chooses to announce her own doings, or, if we please, as the language in which she writes down or chooses to make known her own laws. ”

“ Putting these facts together, we see that the ocean, nothwithstanding the ceaseless and often violent undulations of its surface, must be as a whole a vast body of still water; and to the reflecting mind the almost perfect tranquillity of the ocean is one of its most impressive features. ”

“ The little fleet will soon appear yonder betwixt the ocean and God’s sky with its white or brown sails. To-day the sky is unclouded, the sea calm; the flood tide floats the fishers gently to the shore. But the Ocean is a capricious old fellow, who takes all shapes and sings in many voices. ”

“ This system of circulation commenced on the third day of creation, with the “gathering together of the waters,” which were “called seas,” and doubtless will continue as long as sea water shall possess the properties of saltiness and fluidity. ”

“ They are two seas which eternally attract and oppose each other, two tides which eternally advance to repel each other, which foam upon one another, as the ocean foams on the land, and the land rushes down into the sea. ”

“ Above the sea, the air is clearer or slightly clouded; above the land, it is thick, dark, and swollen. To the feelings, this stillness is pleasant. The sea breeze, the driving brine, that has made a salt-pan of the face, the short, restless sea, the dampness—all have grown wearisome, and welcome is the calm. ”

“ The leaping waves with their white-capped crest
The plunge and lunge on the ocean's breast
Like wild, white horses racing free,
With the swing of the rolling, surging sea!
The white sea cloud that drifts like a dream;
The sea-gulls that skim o'er the waves, and scream;
The dolphin's plunge and the petrel's nest,
That is borne to land on the tide-race crest:
And all that goes, from mid-ocean to lea,
To make up the rolling, the surging sea! ”

“ Heav’n, air, and sea, tho’ all their stores combine,
Shake not its base, nor break the law Divine.
At thy almighty voice, old ocean raves.
Wakes all his force, and gathers all his waves;
Nature lies mantled in a watry robe,
And shoreless ocean rolls around the globe;
O’er highest hills, the higher surges rise,
Mix with the clouds, and leave the vaulted skies. ”

“ Opposite to its extremity the sea begins to foam, and the water is then seen gently moving round in a circle, increasing to a rapid whirling motion, rising upwards, an hundred paces in circumference at the bottom, but lessening gradually upwards to the size of a spout, through which the sea-water appears to be conveyed into the cloud, as is manifest by its blackness and increase of bulk. ”

“ We might enlarge endlessly on this great ocean current, but enough, we think, has been said to show that the sea, instead of being an ocean of unchanging drops, driven about at random by the power of stormy winds, is a mighty flood flowing in an appointed course—steady, regular, and systematic in its motions, varied and wonderful in its actions, benign and sweet in its influences, as it sweeps round and round the world, fulfilling the will of its great Creator. ”

“ But everywhere the ocean is bordered by the land; and its waters, in the circle of their tides, wash over a hundred shores, and fill a thousand bays and creeks and little rocky pools. Even as the deep sea sends its shallower waters over the sands, and then withdraws them into its eternal and unfathomable fulness, so the waters of God flow into every soul. ”

“ As for the sea, we know that its one object ever since it came into existence has been, day by day, and at each returning tide, to encroach upon, and devour more and more of the heritage of its brother the earth. ”

“ The sea is so transparent that many feet below the surface the eye may follow the movements of marine life housed about by coral formations of strange devices. The colors of the sea are as changeable as the opal. ”

“ Thus, instead of considering the ocean as the barren waste of desolation it appeared to the ancients, to the modern thinker the ocean has, layer by layer, deposited the land from its bosom, and now by its vapors provides the rains which support its vegetable life, upon which all other life depends, and creates the rivers and the springs, which play such an important part in the modification of the interior of continents, at the greatest distance from the sea. ”

“ Penny Cyclopædia, Article Sea.
“The people are under a great mistake who believe that the substance of the water moves to any considerable depth in a storm at sea. It is only the form or shadow which hurries along like a spirit, or like a thought over the countenance of the ‘great deep,’ at the rate of some forty miles an hour. Even when the ‘Flying Dutchman’ is abroad the great mass of water continues undisturbed and nearly motionless a few feet below the surface.” ”

“ But the exploration of that other and almost boundless ocean of air which envelopes the whole earth and whose winds sweep its surface, swaying the waters of the sea and affecting every form of terrestrial life, has progressed but slowly. ”

“ At the flow of the tide, the fresh water is raised, as it were, in a single mass by the salt water which flows in, and which ascends the bed of the river, while the fresh water continues to flow towards the sea.—Mr. ”

“ In the sea many and very various effects may be produced upon objects moving through the water when passing between the eye and the surface, by light, by the reflecting powers of the bottom of the water, and by the relative clearness of the water, all of which factors of the effect produced vary to an almost incalculable extent. ”

“ It is the object of the following papers to illustrate the natural history of the ocean, and to introduce to the reader a few of the forms of life which the naturalist meets with in the deep sea. The sea that bathes the globe contains as countless multitudes of living beings as does the land we tread, and each possesses an organization as interesting and as peculiar to itself, as any of the higher forms of the animal creation. ”