Some objects in the distance now attracted our attention. I recognised magnificent first formations of rocks covered with zoophytes of the most beautiful species, and I was struck with the peculiar effect of the sea at this depth.
It was ten o’clock. The sun’s rays struck the water at a somewhat acute angle, and the light, decomposed by the contact as in a prism, flowers, rocks, plants, shells, polypes, were variegated with all the colours of the solar spectrum. It was wondefrul, a perfect feast for the eyes. The mixture of colours and tones of colour formed a regular kaleidoscope of green, orange, yellow, violet, indigo, and blue; in a word, all the colours of the palette of an artist gone mad. How I longed to exchange with Conseil the sensations and ideas which possessed me! and I did not know even how to converse by signs as Captain Nemo and his companion did. So, as a last resource I talked to myself, and in so doing very likely used more air than was altogether desirable.
Conseil was equally delighted. He was evidently classing all these specimens of zoophytes and molluscs as hard as he could. Polypes and echinodermes abounded. The variegated “isis,” the “cornulaires” which live by themselves, the clumps of virgin “ocularis” or white coral, the mushroom-like fungi, the anemones fixed by their muscular discs, formed quite a parterre of flowers, enamelled by the porpites dressed out in their necklaces of blue tentacles; the starfish, which shone upon the sand, and the “asterophytons,” like beautiful lace, worked by naiads, moved in gentle undulations as our footsteps pressed upon the sand. It was a real sorrow to me to crush beneath my feet such splendid
