Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's Note

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

All oe ligatures were converted to oe.

THE SEA.

_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_,

And by the same Author.

_LOVE_ (L'AMOUR.) (_Twenty-seventh edition._) Price, $1,00
_WOMAN_ (LA FEMME.) (_Thirteenth edition._) 1,00
_THE CHILD_ (L'ENFANT.) (_In press._)
_THE INSECT_ (L'INSÈCTE) Its Life, Loves and Labors. (_In press._)
_THE BIRD_ (L'OISEAU.) Its Life, Loves, and Labors. (_In press._)
_WOMEN OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION._ (_In press._)

THE SEA

(La Mer.)

From the French of

M. J. MICHELET,

_Of the Faculty of Letters, Author of "A History of France," "Love," "Woman," "The Child," "The Insect," "The Bird," "Women of the French Revolution," etc., etc., etc._

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST PARIS EDITION.

NEW YORK:

RUDD & CARLETON, 180 GRAND STREET

PARIS: L. HACHETTE ET Cie.

MDCCCLXI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by

RUDD & CARLETON,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the
Southern District of New York.

EXTRACT FROM THE LONDON ATHENÆUM, Feb. 9. 1861.

'The Sea' is another of M. Michelet's dreamy volumes,--half science, half fancy, with a blending in both of sensuous suggestion. M. Michelet takes the seas of the world in his hands, manipulates them, invokes their monsters, assembles all their finny droves, gossips with the sirens, sails among the Hyperborean waters with Behemoth, and is on intimate terms with Tennyson's little shell-king, who lives in a palace with doors of diamond, and wears a rainbow frill, for the admiration of the nations that dwell in his dim, sunken wildernesses. * * * * * He discourses upon marine terrors and beauties, and tells the reader, as a sublime Peter Parley might, that the salt of all the seas, if piled upon America, would spread over the continent a solid, cliff-edged mass, 4,500 feet high. There are chapters on Sands, Cliffs and Beaches; on Waves; on the anatomy of the Sea itself, which resembles "a gigantic animal arrested in the earliest stage of its organization;" on Tempests; on the sympathy between Air and Water; on the Fecundity of the Sea, which, were it not self-devouring, would putrefy, according to M. Michelet into one solid mass of herring; on Fish of every species, and especially on Pearls. The Queens of the East, he says, dislike the gleams of the diamond. They will allow nothing to touch their skins except pearls. A necklace and two bracelets of pearls constitute the perfection of ornament. The pearls silently say to the woman, "Love us! hush!" In the North, too, dainty Countesses love their pearls,--wearing them beneath their clothes by night and by day, concealing them, caressing them, only now and then exposing them. So do the Odalisques of Asia prize the soft linen vestment that just covers their limbs, never taking it off until worn out, which says little for Oriental baths.

* * * * *

The book is pleasant reading, like all else that M. Michelet writes.

CONTENTS.

Page

Extract from The London Atheneum, 5

BOOK FIRST.

A GLANCE UPON THE SEAS.

I. The Sea as seen from the Shore, 11
II. The Beach, the Sands, and the Iron Bound Coast, 19
III. The Same, (_Continued_) 24
IV. The Same, (_Continued_) 81
V. The Fiery and the Watery Circle. The Currents of the Sea, 40
VI. Tempests, 58
VII. Tempests (_Continued_) 63
VIII. The Storm of October, 1859, 72
IX. The Beacons, 91

BOOK SECOND.

THE GENESIS OF THE SEA.

I. Fecundity, 105
II. The Milky Sea, 114
III. The Atom, 128
IV. Blood-Flower, 139
V. The World Makers, 149
VI. Daughter of the Seas, 160

VII. The Stone Picker, 173
VIII. Shells, Mother of Pearl, and Pearl, 182
IX. The Sea Rovers (Poulpe, &c.) 194
X. Crustaceæ. Battle and Intrigue, 202
XI. The Fish, 212
XII. The Whale, 225
XIII. The Syrens, 236

BOOK THIRD.

CONQUEST OF THE SEA.

I. The Harpoon, 251
II. Discovery of the Three Oceans, 260
III. The Law of Storms, 275
IV. The Polar Seas, 289
V. Man's War upon the Races of the Sea, 306
VI. The Law of the Ocean, 319

BOOK FOURTH.

THE RESTORATION OF THE SEA.

I. Origin of Sea Bathing, 329
II. Choice of Coast, 340
III. The House, 349
IV. First Aspiration of the Sea, 360
V. Baths. Restoration of Beauty, 369
VI. The Restoration of Heart and Brotherhood, 377
VII. The New Life of the Nations, 388

Notes. 401

BOOK FIRST.

A GLANCE UPON THE SEAS.