The Abdominal Brain

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Gross & Delbridge, 1885 - 45 pages

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Page 26 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Page 2 - I find this conclusion more impressed upon me, — that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.
Page 27 - Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: — 13 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!
Page 27 - Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn ! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul...
Page 23 - ... having a short neck and a single large orifice. Another picks up the finest grains, and puts them together with the same cement into perfectly spherical " tests" of the most extraordinary finish, perforated with numerous small pores, disposed at pretty regular intervals.
Page 23 - ... ichthyosaurus, etc. ; 4. That, as builders, they have produced immense structures, which far surpass in size all the colossal works of man. The evidence of these statements will be presently given; but meantime it may be remarked that such grand results redeem the study of microscopical objects from that pettiness which is often imputed to it.
Page 23 - Yet this is exactly what these jellyspecks do on a most minute scale; the tests they construct when highly magnified, bearing comparison with the most skilful masonry of man. From the same sandy bottom one species picks up the coarser quartz grains, cements them together with phosphate of iron secreted from its own substance, and thus constructs a flask-shaped test having a short neck and a single large orifice.
Page 30 - It has no specialized head, no brain, no skull, no jaws, no limbs.

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