A light network of marine plants, of that inexhaustible family of seaweeds of which more than two thousand kinds are known, grew on the surface of the water.
I noticed that the green plants kept nearer the top of the sea, whilst the red were at a greater depth, leaving to the black or brown the care of forming gardens and parterres in the remote beds of the ocean.
We had quitted the Nautilus about an hour and a half.

It was near noon; I knew by the perpendicularity of the sun's rays, which were no longer refracted.

The magical colours disappeared by degrees, and the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced.

We walked with a regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity; the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness to which the ear is unaccustomed on the earth; indeed, water is a better conductor of sound than air, in the ratio of four to one.

At this period the earth sloped downwards; the light took a uniform tint.