They were in the presence of a power which they could not
understand, and in terror they besought their general to lead them against
foes whom they could face, or to take them back to their own land!
By-and-by you will be interested in learning more about the tides, but I
will only tell you now that they are caused by the sun and moon. Two pair
of waves travel round the earth every day, the greater pair obedient to the
moon, which, because she is so much nearer to us, has a greater power of
drawing the water to herself than the sun has; the lesser pair obedient, in
like manner, to the attraction of the sun. This is all that I can tell you
now about a very difficult subject, and it is more than I told Chrissie or
Ernest when we were talking about the sea; but then you know we had not
much time for matters hard to be explained. One thing which I think we did
talk about was the depth of the sea, and I know there were some differences
of opinion about this as well as about its colour.
First of all, then, How deep is the "deep, deep sea"?
Actually, in some places, five miles deep, about the height of the loftiest
of mountain-peaks. I have heard that these far-away ocean-depths are very
quiet and still--no rolling waves ever break their stillness, and this is
proved in a very beautiful way. At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where
overhead great billows which seem mountain-high are in ceaseless motion,
there lie beds of delicate shells, so small that you need a microscope to
see their beauty, yet these shells are unbroken; no storm ever reaches
their quiet home; they are among the lovely things which the ocean hides in
its "treasure-caves," and they only come to light when the long line with a
clip at the end, which is used for deep-sea soundings, brings them to the
surface from those
"Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream.
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