. The bird . though stilldefective. I have seen a part of a new collection of engravings, muchmore carefully executed. Page 14. Gelatinous and nourishing seas.—Humboldt, in oneof his early works ( Scenes in the Tropics ), was the first, I think,to authenticate this fact. He attributes it to the prodigious quantityof medusEB, and other analogous creatures, in a decomposed state inthese waters. If, however, such a cadaverous dissolution really pre-vailed there, would it not render the waters fatal to tlie fish, insteadof nourishing them ? Perhaps this phenomenon should be attributedrather to nas
. The bird . though stilldefective. I have seen a part of a new collection of engravings, muchmore carefully executed. Page 14. Gelatinous and nourishing seas.—Humboldt, in oneof his early works ( Scenes in the Tropics ), was the first, I think,to authenticate this fact. He attributes it to the prodigious quantityof medusEB, and other analogous creatures, in a decomposed state inthese waters. If, however, such a cadaverous dissolution really pre-vailed there, would it not render the waters fatal to tlie fish, insteadof nourishing them ? Perhaps this phenomenon should be attributedrather to nascent Ufe than to life extinct, to that first living fermen-tation in which the lowest microscopic organizations develop them-selves. It is especially in the Polar Seas, whose aspect is so wild anddesolate, that this characteristic is observed. Life there abounds insuch excess that the colour of the w^aters is completely changed byit. They are of an intense olive-green, thick with living matter Page 91. Our Museum.—In speaking of its collections, I maynot forget its valuable library, which now includes that of Cuvier, andhas been enriched by donations from all the physicists of Europe. I
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