The liquid mass appeared vividly lit up by the electric gleam.

Two crystal plates separated us from the sea.

At first I trembled at the thought that this frail partition might break, but strong bands of copper bound them, giving an almost infinite power of resistance.
The sea was distinctly visible for a mile all round the Nautilus.

What a spectacle! What pen can describe it?
Who could paint the effects of the light through those transparent sheets of water, and the softness of the successive gradations from the lower to the superior strata of the ocean?
We know the transparency of the sea and that its clearness is far beyond that of rock-water.

The mineral and organic substances which it holds in suspension heightens its transparency.