For the various names of the Sea refer to Ad. Pictet-Origines Indo-Europeennes. On the water, consult the Introduction to Deville's Annual of the Waters of France; Aime's Annale's de Chimie II., V., XII., XIII., and XV. Morren, the same, I, and Acad de Bruxelles, XIV., &c. On the saltness of the Sea Chapman quoted by Tricaut Ann. de Hydrographie XIII., 1857, and Thomassy's Bulletin de la Société Geographique, 4 June, 1860.
I did not thoroughly comprehend the Shore of Saint Michel en Greve and the questions concerning it, until I read in the Revue des Deux Mondes the two very fine articles of M. Baude, full alike of facts and ideas. I speak elsewhere of his excellent views on the Fisheries.
In speaking ([Chap. III.]) of Brittany, I must acknowledge my obligation to the book of Cambry which formerly gave me my first ideas upon that subject. It should be read in the edition which Émile Souvestre enriched, and we may say doubled, with his excellent notes and notices which thenceforth made us thoroughly acquainted with the Derniers Bretons. In several admirable little tales of graphic and striking truthfulness, Souvestre has given the best existing pictures of our western coasts, especially of Finisterre and the neighboring shores of the Loire. I should be glad to quote something from a writer so agreeable, and a friend so sincerely lamented, but the limits of this little book prevent me from quoting any literary matter.
The remarkable observation made by Elie de Beaumont, quoted by me in [Chapter 4] of Book I., stands at the head of his article—which, in itself, is a great book—Terrains in the Dictionary of M. d'Orbigny.
What I have said about St. George's, in [Chapter 7], is much better said in Pelletan's books on Royan and in his Pasteur du Desert. That Pastor, as is generally known, was the grandfather of Pelletan, the reverend minister Jarousseau, so admirably heroic in saving his enemies. His small house, still standing, is a veritable Temple of Humanity.
Notes to Book 2. [Chapter I], Fecundity. On the Herring, see Vol. I of De Reste's translation of an anonymous Dutch work; Noël de la Moriniere in his excellent works printed and unpublished; Valenciences' Poissons, &c.
[Chapter II.] Milky Sea. Bory de Saint Vincent, Diet. Classique, Articles Mer et Matieres; Zimmerman, the World before Man, a beautiful and popular work which is in every one's hands. I am indebted also to the work of M. Bronn, crowned by the Academy of the Sciences. On the universal innocuousness of the vegetation of the Sea, consult Pouchet's Botanique a work of the highest order. For the plants which become animals; see Vaucher's Conferves, 1803; Decaisne and Thuret Annales de Sc. Nat., 1845; Volumes III., XIV. and XVI., and Comptes de l'Acad., 1853, Vol. XXXVI.; also, articles of Montagne Dict d'Orb. On the Volcanoes, see part 4, of Humboldt's Cosmos, and Ritter, translated by Elisee Reclus, Revue Germ., 30th November, 1859.
[Chapter III.] The Atom. In the text I have quoted the great masters, Ehrenberg, Dujardin, Pouchet, Heterogenie. In the end spontaneous generation will conquer.
Chapters [IV.], [V.], [VI.], &c. Throughout this book, in ascending from inferior to superior life, I have taken for my guiding thread in the great labyrinth, the hypothesis of Metamorphosis but without serious intention of constructing a chain of beings. The idea of ascending Metamorphosis is natural to the mind, and is, in some sort, irresistibly imposed upon us. Cuvier himself, at the close of his Introduction to his Poissons, confesses that if that theory has no Historical value it has a logical value. On the Sponge, see Paul Gervais Dict. d'Orb. V. 375; Grant in Chenn, 307, &c. On Polypes, Corals, and Madrepores (Chapters [4] and [5]) besides Forster, Peron and Dawin consult Quoy and Gaimard; Lamouroux, Polypes Flexibles; Milne Edwards, Polypes and Ascidies of the Channel, &c. On the Calcaire, see the two Geologies of Lyell.
[Chapter VI.] Medusæ, Polypes, &c. See Ehrenberg, Lession, Dujardin, &c. Forbes shows by vegetable analogies that these animal metamorphoses are very simple phenomena. Annals of Nat. History, December, 1844. See also his excellent dissertations, Medusæ, in quarto, 1849.