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Leader (1850-1860), 7th August 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17

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    • IPtfiUMTrttriV JLllvlUHll v* #
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    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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      Go- ^37 , Attgust 7,Jl858.] _ __ T He Le...

      go- ^ 37 , ATTGUST 7 , JL 858 . ] _ __ T HE LEA DER . 777

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      fitmititre .

      » Critics Axe Not Tlie Legislators, But ...

      » Critics axe not tlie legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review . « .

      Actinologia Britannic A. Actinologia Bri...

      ACTINOLOGIA BRITANNIC A . Actinologia Britannica . A History of the British Sea-Anemones and . Madrepores ; with Coloured Figures of all tha Species . By Philip Henry Gosse , F . B . S . Parts I . —III . Van Yoorst . The Story of a Boulder ; or , the Gleanings from the Notebook of a Field Geologist . By Archibald Geikie , of the Geological Survey of Great Britain . Illustrated with Woodcuts . Edinburgh : T . Constable and Co .

      A "visit to the sea-shore is no longer a mere idler ' s holiday , without other pursuit or object than a stroll up one parade and down another , a rush to the news-room , or , at best , a sail out to sea , or a row in an opea boat to catch a breeze or an appetite for lunch . The morning need not now be wasted at an open window , with telescope in hand , in the vain endeavour to scan and criticise any lovely form that ventures into the deep within the radius of your view . The old , well-thumbed novels , too , are at a discount , and the circulating libraries themselves are deserted when , wind and weather

      permitting , Paterfamilias and the young members of his household are off across the sands on to some distant rock-pool to hunt up the ; wonders of the shore . And broadcast are these wonders about and around you at every step , under every piece of tangled sea-weed , attached to every piece of floating wood , or buried in the sand and shingles beneath your feet . What a revolution lias been brought about in a few years by a few scientific experiments ; for it was only in 1850 that Mr . Warington , of Apothecaries' Hall , succeeded in establishing tlie true

      balance of animal and vegetable life by the introduction of . the scavenger , in the shape of the watersnail , into the mimic rock-pool which he had set up in a narrow , dingy , back street of a crowded city , where to this day it still flourishes , the reward of untiring skill and perseverance . But that first attempt was not made with the denizens of the sea . Sea water could not then , be had with the facility we can now procure it in inland towns , and . this first ^ water-vivary ivas simply a large twelve-gallon receiverfilled to

      , about two-thirds with river water and some clean washed sand and gravel , with some fragments of rock-work so placed as to afford the fish shelter from the sun ' s ra \ s . A . plant of , valisneria spiralis and a couple of gold fish were then introduced , and all progressed well for a time , till the decayed leaves ot the valisneria and confervoid growth rendered the water turbid , and so the fish sickened . Recourse was had to the natural scavengers of ponds and ditches , and a few limnea stagnalis were added , and the decaying and confervoid growth being the natural food of all water-snails , the mischief was speedily overcome , and all again became prosperous .

      • Emboldened by his success with the fresh-water vivaiy , Mr . " Warhigton determined to ascertain tlie component parts of sea water , in the hope that chemistry might furnish as good a substitute for sea water as it had long since done in the shape of galenicals for the natural mineral waters ot tlie Continent . The result was , that to prepare ten gallons of artificial sea water there should be 7 £ oz . of sulphate of magnesia , 2 J oz . of lime , 43 ^ - oz . of

      chloride of sodium , 6 oz . of magnesium , l £ oz . of potassium , 21 grains of bromide of magnesium , and 21 grains of carbonate of lime . Artificial sea water prepared according to this formula cannot be tlistiuguished from pure sea water ; and , moreover , fish ana sea-anemones , Crustacea and molluscs breed and thrive in the one as well as { . he other . Any apothecary will make up these salts , and by these simple means marine animals and plants may be kept in perfect health , even where sea water itself W not obtainable .

      About the same period that Mr . Warington was engaged with these experiments , Mr . Gosso vas pursuing others of a similar kind with no less success , and his pleasant book , A Naturalists Rambles on the Devonshire Coast , led the van to the host of publications , some good , some bad , some indifferent , which have since appeared on tho sub * jeet . Then came Mr . Mitchell ' s vivarium , in the fardens of tho Zoological Society in the llcgcnt ' s Wk , and tho ant-catcr and tho hippopotamus were both forgotten for a season . Mr . Gosso was the

      purveyor , and during his management , certainly , it must be admitted , that that exhibition reached its zenith , though even now , in its decadency , it is well worthy of a visit . Mr . Gosse seized upon the water vlvarv as his empire , as Albert Smith had done on Mont Blanc , and from his rapid pen appeared , in quick succession , The Aquarium : an Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea ; A Manual of Marine Zoology for the British Isles ; Tenby : a

      Sea-side-Holiday , and several works of less pretension . To these we have now to add that which we announce at the head of this article , which is issued on the first of each alternate month , each number consisting of thirty-two pages of letter-press , and an accurately coloured group of sea-anemones and madrepores . The book is beautifully got up , as indeed are all the works on natural history which issue from the same establishment .

      Prior to Mr . Warington / s and Mr . Gosse's experiments , which resulted in the introduction of the marine vivary into our drawing-rooms and studies , Dr . Johnson ' s History of British Zoophytes was the great authority on the subject . Indeed , not withstanding the more popular works by Mr . Gosse , Mr . Lewes , Mr . Kingsley , Mr . Landsborough , Mr . Tugwell , Mr . Sowerby , Mr . Woods , and others , if we wish to go scientifically into the history of British zoophytes , Dr . Johnson ' s book is still indispensable .

      In liis second edition ( says Mr . Gosse ) he has enumerated thirty-six species of sea-anemones and corals as belonging to our fauna , of which six are pretty certainly either false species or falsely attributed to our snores . The last ten years have raised the number of described British , species to about seventy ; and though it is more than probable that an equal proportion of these must be cancelled by careful criticism , yet a larger number will still remain , whose characters have to be searched up from the pages of periodicals or other works not specially devoted to the subject . Moreover , those who have most studied these animals will justify me in asserting that , even of those species which have long been known , there is not one which does not require to be recharacterisednot from books , but from personal examination—and whose history does not need to be entirely rewritten .

      Such being our author ' s views , he has been collecting his materials for several years , which furnish him at the present moment with an amount of matter , both pictorial and literary , not only derived from his own individual efforts , but from those of scientific friends and correspondents , in so great an abundance , that he feels that the time is come when they should be eommunicated to the world . The volume ^ will probably not exceed three hundred and eighty-four pages , or twelve parts , illustrated by carefully-finished drawings of every species , taken , for the most part , from living specimens which have become denizens of the marine vivary .

      1856 , I found that these caves and almost every accessible part of the neighbouring coast were pretty well denuded of the lovely animal-flowers which , in 1854 , had blossomed there as in a parterre . I fear that the hammers and chisels of amateur naturalists have been the desolating agents ; and my friends tell me , not without a semi-earnest reproacbfulness , that 1 am myself not guiltless of bringing about the consummation . If the visitors were gainers to the same amount as the rocks were loseTs , there would be less cause for regret ; but owing to difficulty and unskilfulness combined , probablyhalf a dozen anemones are destroyed for one that goes into the aquarium . But there are other wonders of the deep besides sea-anemones and sea-plants ; the hitter of

      themselves a new p leasure to the horticulturist , when , attached specimens are introduced into tanks filled with real or artificial sea water , and instructions for the growth of "which are to be met with in various works which treat of the management of the marine vivary . There are boulders and sea-pebbles , which are not less interesting to those who delight in contemplating the wonders of the shore , or in investigating the revolutiou 3 which mark the periods of the natural transformations of the beautiful " greenearth" which we inhabit . Mr . Geikie has added to our stores a little , beautifully got-up volume upon Field Geology , which is not less pleasant reading in its way , on the still life of the coast , than Mr . Kingsley s delightful Glaucus , with its vivid pictures , on . the living wonders of the sea-sliore . We quite agree in the remark

      that—It cannot be too widely known , or too often pressed on the attention , especially of the young , that a true acquaintance with , science , so delightful to its possessors , is not to be acquired at second-hand . Text-books and manuals are valuable only so far as they supplement and direct our own observations . A man whose knowledge of Nature is derived solely from these sources , differs as much from one who betakes himself to Nature herself as a dusty , desiccated mummy does from a living man . You have the same bones and sinews in "both j but in the one they are hard and dry , wholly incapable of action , in the other are instinct with freshness and life . He who would know what physical science really is , must go out into the fields and learn it for himself ; and whatever branch he may choose , he -will not be long

      in discovering that a forenoon intelligently spent there must be deemed of far more worth than days and weeks passed among books . He sees the objects of his study with his own eyes , and not through "thespectacles of books ; ' facts come home to him with a vividness and reality they never can possess in the closet : the free , buoyant air brightens his spirits and invigorates his ; mind , and he returns again to his desk with a store of new health , and pleasure , and knowledge . Now that everybody is running down to the coast , led on as by a kind of natural instinct , and doctors are sending invalids to the sea for the sake of imbibing ozone of Nature ' s own manipulation , it is pleasant to provide oneself with the means of outdoor rational recreation and enjoyment , and it is to writers like Mr . Geikie , whose works

      The author ' s style is too well known to need further remark than that in the present publication the more scientific descriptions arc relieved by pleasant arid agreeable anecdotes illustrative of the manners and customs of these wonderful animalflowers of the ocean , which cannot fail to render it as welcome a guest in the drawing-room as in the study of the more scientific observer . Mr . Gosse separates our sea-anemones into two great families , the Matridiada , with variously branched and fringed tentacles , and the Sagartiada :, with broad base , simple smooth tentacles , and the power of emitting missile cords , which they use for the' purpose of disabling their prey . Our author gives the following reason for adopting this name : —

      Breathe a soul into the silent walls of rocks and downs which form the boundary of the sea , that we would call the attention of convalescents particularly . A geologist requires but few implements : — He need not burden himself with accoutrements . A hammer , pretty stout in its dimensions , with a round , blunt face , and a flat , sharp tail , a note-book , and a good pocket-lens , are all he needs to begin with . Mr . Gcikie ' s is a nice , easy-flowing style , and in his hands even a dry boulder is invested with interest : —

      The genus Sayurtia was published by me in a memoir read before the Linnean Society , March 20 th , 1855 . I then included in it Diantfius , as -well as the species to which I now confine it . The character on which I mainly relied in constituting it , appears to me , on maturcr consideration , to mark a group of higher value than , that of a genus , and I have accordingly used it to characterise a family . Hence it became necessary to make a fresh diagnosis of the genus , which , though large , appears a very natural one . The name I have chosen alludes to tho peculiar mode of disabling their prey by means of missile cords , which is possessed preeminently by the species of this group , recalling to my

      W « can easily believe , merely from looking at it as it lies on its clayey bed , that a long time must have elapsed between the time of its formation as part of a sandstone bed and the periods of its transportion and striation by an iceberg . The sand of which it is formr " . must have been washed down by currents , and other sediment would settle down over it . It would take some time to acquire its present hardness and solidity , while in long , subsequent times , after being broken up and

      well rounded by breaker or current action , it may have lain on some old coast-line for centuries before it was finully frozen into an ice-floe , and bo freighted to a distance . Dut the stone , with all its stories of the olden time , can tell us nothing of this Intervening period . It leads us from a dreary , frozen sea at on « e into a land of tropical luxuriance , and so , if we desire to know anything of the missing portion of the chronology , tv « must seek it elsewhere .

      mind a graphic passage in tho -writings of the Father of History . " In tho army of Xerxes , " he says , " there was a certain race called Sngurtians . The mode of fighting practised by these men was this : —When they engaged an cnemj-, they threw out a rope with a noose at the end . Whatever any one caught , whether horse or man , he dragged towards himself , and those that were entangled in tho coils were speedily put to death . " Ono of the most beautiful of this lasso-throwing family is the Stiff art in Fenurta , the orange-disked anemone , once so plentiful at Ijidstep , St . Margaret ' s Island , and under Tcnby Head ; but , Alas I it is so no more . Whoa I revisited Tonby in

      It is just this inductive study of natural history which is so delightful . In Nature ' s page there are neither hard names to scare us away , nor dry and dull descriptions to send us to sleep . If she interests us , she places the object itself in our hands , and then wo shall soon learn to find even pleasure in , mustering these hard names and pcruaiug theso

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07081858/page/17/