Shells and pebbles: A story for children

LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

SHELLS AND PEBBLES.

Children who were born, and have lived all their lives, in an inland county, scarcely know what is meant by “the sea.”

Henry Miller was one of these; he was eight years old, and though he had been taken, when quite a baby, to the sea-shore, he could not recollect anything about it.

Now, if you live near the sea, I dare say you may think: “Well, I should not like to live in an inland county, so far away from the sea as never to be able to walk on the beach, or to climb the rocks, or to pick up curious things on the shore. I would not be Henry Miller for the world.”

You will laugh, perhaps, at the way that Henry found out that the sea was salt; but, after all, he may now know some things about it which you do not; and, though he was not many hours on the shore, he may have picked up some curious things which you never saw in your life. Some other things he saw, which, I doubt not, you have seen, but he may have learnt something even about these which you do not know, so that what was told to him may be new to you also.

But if you too, like Henry Miller, live inland, you will be pleased to hear what he saw, though nothing happened to him different from what any little boy may meet with when visiting the sea-side. I am not going to tell you an amusing story, but only to write about things which any one who has eyes, and knows how to use them, may see for himself, and which any one who wishes to learn may read of in useful books, or find out by asking those who know better than himself.

Henry Miller and his father, then, went last winter to spend two or three days in a town on the south coast of England. The day after they arrived, they walked to some high ground, from which they could see the water. Henry had seen rivers and ponds large enough for ships to sail on, but what now lay before him was very different. A broad sheet of water, shut in on both sides by high land, stretched out so far that nothing could be seen beyond it. Whether the water rose till it met the sky, or the sky came down till it met the water, or whether they met each other half way, he could not make out. This sheet of water, his father told him, was called a bay. There were many ships in it, most of them lying quite still, riding at anchor, that is, each fastened by strong chains to an iron anchor, which the sailors had thrown over into the water, and which lay fixed by one of its flukes, or large teeth, to the bottom. Some of them had their masts broken, for there had been a dreadful storm a few days before, and they had sailed into this bay for shelter.

In the distance they could see the sails of a tall ship, which was coming in, but, strange to say, not a bit of the ship itself was in sight—it seemed to be quite sunk beneath the surface. Mr. Miller reminded Henry that the earth was round, like the globe in the school-room at home, and that the reason why the hull of the vessel could not be seen was that the round surface of the globe came between it and his eye; but that if he could see through the water between, he would find that the hull of the ship was floating just like the vessels riding at anchor.

A little way from the land was an island, on which some houses were built. The land on which Henry stood was so much higher than the island, that he could see quite over it, and make out, quite well, that it really was a piece of land surrounded by water.

After standing here a short time, and watching the boats, which were sailing to and fro, some with sails, and some moved onwards by oars, they walked down from the high ground by a broad road, and then by some stone steps which had been cut in the rock, until they stood upon the beach.

Though in the middle of winter, it was not very cold. A fresh breeze was blowing towards the shore, which ruffled the surface of the water, making it rise in little waves. A little way out, the waves rose and fell without breaking, but, as they came near the shore, they curled over in long white lines of foam, and chased one another up the beach, making a dashing noise, which never ceased. Here and there, where rough rocks jutted out into the sea, the waves rose much higher, and dashed over them with such violence, that no one could stand with safety at their edges. Sea-gulls, some nearly white, and others dark grey, were flying about, sometimes dipping into the water, and rising again as if they had stooped to pick up something. Mr. Miller said he supposed they were feeding on bits of meat or fish, which had been thrown over from the ships. In summer, they often fly about in large flocks, darting down in the same way; but then they are generally employed in real fishing, and a large flock marks the place where a shoal of pilchards, or herrings, or sprats, is swimming near the surface. Then, too, they are of great use to the fisherman, who is taught by them where to throw over his nets with the best chance of a catch. In winter, these fish keep in deep water, so that the gulls, who cannot dive, are obliged to find some other kind of food. There are several different kinds of gulls, but all that were seen to-day were of the same sort, the only difference being that the young birds had darker plumage than the others.

At some distance from shore, Mr. Miller pointed out to Henry something black in the water, but, before he had time to look, it was gone. In about a minute’s time, the head and long neck of a bird suddenly showed themselves, turned from side to side with a quick jerk, and disappeared again. “That is a cormorant,” said Mr. Miller; “a bird who, at this season, has a much better chance of catching fish than a gull, for he can not only swim but dive, and stay under water for a very long time. A little does not satisfy him, but when he has had enough, he flies along close to the water, until he has found a safe rock, where he spreads his wings to dry in the sun or wind, and then goes a fishing again.”

Henry recollected having been once told not to eat like a cormorant; and though he did not then know what a cormorant was, he now began to suspect that boys got that name when they ate so much bread-and-butter that they were fit for nothing afterwards, but to lie basking in the sun.

He had heard that sea-water was salt, but had never had an opportunity of knowing it for himself; so when his papa told him to put into his mouth a wet pebble, which he had just picked up, he soon spat it out, making a very wry face.

“Where does all the salt come from which gives a taste to so much water?” was a natural question, but not a very easy one to answer.

Mr. Miller, however, said that a great quantity of salt was washed into the sea by rivers, and that though the water was drawn up by the sun, in the form of vapour, the salt was not. Besides this, it is supposed that there are, in the bottom of the sea, large rocks of salt, which are constantly being dissolved by the water, and give it its bitter taste.

Not many days after, when Henry wanted to know how salt was made, Mr. Miller reminded him of sea-water, and told him that, in some parts of England, during summer, salt-water was allowed to flow into shallow pits, from which the heat of the sun drew up the water in vapour, leaving the salt behind. This, he said, was scraped up and purified. In some inland countries, such as Poland, salt is dug out of mines. A great deal of the salt which we use is got from salt springs, a long way from the sea, which, it is supposed, flow through or over rocks of salt under ground.

A man now passed by, having something in his hand, which he showed to Mr. Miller, and asked him if it was coral.

“No,” said Mr. Miller, “it is not coral, but a kind of sponge, which has been torn by the late storm from the rock on which it grew.”

Henry looked about very carefully, in the hope of finding a piece which he might wash himself with, when he went home; but though he was told that it was not likely that he would find the right sort, which is brought from the Mediterranean Sea, he did not give over his search.

He did not succeed, but presently came to his papa bringing something, which, he had made up his mind, must be a sea-beetle.

It was about as large as his hand, nearly square; black, shining, and leathery, and from each corner stuck out a long, black horn. Two of these horns were hooked at the end, and two were straight. When he pressed it, he found that it was hollow; but as soon as he took off his fingers it recovered its shape again, being as elastic as an india-rubber ball.

“This,” said Mr. Miller, “is not a beetle, but an egg.”

Henry had seen thrushes’ eggs, and eaten hens’ eggs, but they were so unlike this black leather bag that he thought his papa must be joking.

“Not the egg of a bird, but of a fish. As we came through the market to-day, I showed you some flat and very ugly fishes, with eyes and mouth something like those of a human being, and with a long tail like that of a quadruped.”

Henry remembered to have seen them, and that they were called skates. “And is this the egg of a skate?”

Not exactly the egg, but the egg-shell. There was once a yelk in it, something like that in a hen’s egg. Out of this yelk a young skate grew, and when it was large enough it forced its way out through this end.

Mr. Miller pinched one end of the egg-shell, or purse, as it is called, between his finger and thumb, holding it as one would a letter which one wanted to read without breaking the seal, and the end of the purse opened.

“And did it float about in the water while the young fish was growing, or was it laid on the beach?”

“Neither: if it had been left to float about in the water, it would soon have been eaten by gulls, or driven ashore; and how can fishes lay their eggs on the land? No, it was left by the fish among the weed which grows at the bottom of the sea, and the hooked horns held on by the stem of one of them, until the fish had escaped. The late storm, I suppose, tore it away from the weeds and washed it ashore. I have found them with a yelk in them, but this rarely happens.”

“But, papa, you said that there were weeds in the sea; are they like the weeds in gardens?”

Mr. Miller pointed to the rocks, some of which were covered with long bunches of tangled stems of a dark-brown or green colour, which he said were sea-weeds. Some stout stems were also lying about the shore, like horse-whips, with a bunch of roots at one end, and a tuft of leathery straps at the other. This, too, was a sea-weed. He reminded him, too, of a book which he had seen at home, filled with crimson, purple, green, and brown leaves, which he said were also sea-weeds. They do not send their roots into the ground like garden weeds, but cling to the rocks or to each other, and are nourished by the water in which they grow.

The purse of the skate was secured, to be carried home as a prize, and a stem of a large sea-weed was soon made into a whip.

The next curious thing picked up was a piece of stone, so full of holes as to resemble a piece of honeycomb, except that the holes were round and not regularly placed.