A Cruise in the Pacific: From the Log of a Naval Officer, Volume 1Fenton Aylmer Hurst and Blackett, 1860 |
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Common terms and phrases
animal appear armed beauty began believe blue called carried clear close coming continued course covered dark dress English eyes face fact fair fall feel feet fellow flowers getting give given going green half hand head heard hills horses hour hundred imagine inhabitants island known ladies land laugh leave letters light look lovely means miles mountains natives natural never night officers once party passed poor present pretty reached ready riding rising rocks round rush sail sailors scarcely scene seemed seen ship shore short side sight soon sort story tell thing thought tiger told took town trees turned valley walk watch whole wild wind wonder
Popular passages
Page 53 - The groves of Eden, vanish'd now so long, Live in description, and look green in song ; These, -were my breast inspired with equal flame, Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.
Page 18 - And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along. With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled.
Page 122 - The startled waves leap over it ; the storm Smites it with all the scourges of the rain, And steadily against its solid form Press the great shoulders of the hurricane.
Page 72 - Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters, Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction. Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in midair Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
Page 86 - ... a sable tuft, consisting of nine feathers edged also with blue. This bird seems to suppose that its beauty can be increased by trimming the tail, which undergoes the same operation as our hair in a barber's shop, only with this difference, that...
Page 222 - ... into the hollow of which the animal can retire. The solid thus formed is called a coral, which represents exactly the animal itself. " These stony cells are sometimes single and cupped ; sometimes ramifying like a tree, and sometimes grouped like a cauliflower, or imitating the human brain. The calcareous cells which they build remain fixed to the rock in which they began their labours, after the animals themselves are dead.
Page 86 - This bird seems to suppose that its beauty can be increased by trimming the tail, which undergoes the same operation as our hair in a barber's shop, only with this difference, that it uses its own beak, which is serrated, in lieu of a pair of scissors : as soon as his tail is full grown, he begins about an inch from the extremity of the two longest feathers in it, and cuts away the -web on both sides of the shaft, making a gap about an inch long : both male and female Adonise their tails in this...
Page 221 - Our readers, no doubt, are aware that the coral rocks, which form islands and reefs hundreds of miles in extent, are built by small animals, called polypus, that secrete, from the lower portion of their body, a large quantity of carbonate of lime ; which, when diffused around the body, and deposited between the folds of its abdominal coats, constitute a cell, or polypidom, or polypary, into the hollow of which the animal can retire. The solid thus formed is called a coral, which represents exactly...
Page 222 - These industrious laborers act as scavengers of the lowest class ; perpetually employed in cleansing the waters of the sea from impurities which escape even the smallest Crustacea ; in the same manner as the insect tribes, in their various stages, are destined to find their food by devouring impurities caused by dead animals and vegetable matter in the land.
Page 223 - Were we to unite into one mass the immense coral reefs, three hundred miles long, and the numberless coral islands, some of which are forty and fifty miles in diameter ; and if we add to this all the coralline limestone, and the other formations, whether calcareous or silicious, that are the works of insect...