The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.

Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
1.3M words
Chapters
130

Tags

English Originals Natural Sciences Natural HistoryBiologyScience EnlightenmentNature ObservationCuriosityIllustrated Guide19th CenturyEclectic ReadingOcean World

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.Author: Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Dec 11, 2014

Editor's review

This is Louis Figuier's English-language descriptive work on the sea and its living inhabitants, a public-domain popular science text in the zoology category. Its value lies not in cutting-edge research but in showing what nineteenth-century natural history writing looked like: the author describes the marine environment and marine life in descriptive prose, with clear language and strong chapter structure, making it a useful reading sample for the history of science and the natural history tradition. For today's readers, its classifications and knowledge framework are outdated, but precisely for that reason it can be used to compare how scientific understanding has evolved and to see how early popular science organized material and explained nature to general readers. While reading, one need not try to memorize specific conclusions; instead, focus on the descriptive approach and observational perspective, and treat places that diverge from contemporary knowledge as material for the history of science. As a Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to search and excerpt, making it suitable for thematic reading or writing reference.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and choose chapters by marine environment and biological group; there is no need to read from beginning to end.
  2. While reading, mark classifications and statements that differ from contemporary knowledge and keep them as notes for the history of science.
  3. Read alongside modern marine biology materials to distinguish historical description from current consensus.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
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  15. 15
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  18. 18
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  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
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  37. 37
  38. 38
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
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  44. 44
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  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
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  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104
  105. 105
  106. 106
  107. 107
  108. 108
  109. 109
  110. 110
  111. 111
  112. 112
  113. 113
  114. 114
  115. 115
  116. 116
  117. 117
  118. 118
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  120. 120
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  122. 122
  123. 123
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  125. 125
  126. 126
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  128. 128
  129. 129
  130. 130

FAQ

Does this book's scientific content still have reference value today? As a source of contemporary marine biology knowledge, its classifications and conclusions are outdated. Its value lies mainly in the history of science and the tradition of natural history writing: it shows how nineteenth-century popular science described marine life and allows comparison with today's understanding.
Can someone without a biology background read this book? Yes, but expectations should be adjusted. It is descriptive writing and does not rely on formulas or a system of terminology, but there are many old classification names; consult a dictionary or modern materials and treat it as a history-of-science reading rather than a textbook.
What kind of reading approach suits the e-book edition? The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and excerpt, making it suitable for topic-based browsing, note-taking, or quotation. Because the layout is plain and modern illustrations are lacking, it is advisable to use a notebook or digital notes to organize key points by chapter.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894 Author

Louis Figuier (1819–1894) was a French popular science writer whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. Seven of his works are held here, spanning the sea, insects, reptiles and birds, human races and primitive humans, and the future life after death, showing that he excelled at presenting natural science to general readers. Representative works such as The Ocean World, The Insect World, Primitive Man and The Human Race are largely descriptive accounts of species and natural phenomena, combining information with readability; he also wrote a historical play, Gutenberg. Overall, his writing joined popular science with literary narrative and had a certain influence on the spread of natural knowledge to the public in the nineteenth century.