Philip Henry Gosse FRS* (6 de Abril de 1810 – 23 de Agosto de 1888), «known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology. Gosse created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and coined the term “aquarium” when he published the first manual, “The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea”, in 1854. His work was the catalyst for an aquarium craze in early Victorian England.», ver https://bit.ly/46KtDLS.

*Fellowship of the Royal Society

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The north breeze blows cheerily though coldly, and the sun, daily attaining a more elevated position at noon, while the pole-star nightly approaches the horizon, tells us of our rapid progress southward. By and by, the shout of “Land ho !” directs our attention to the horizon, where, with straining eyes, we dimly discern what appears to be a faint mass of cloud, of so evanescent a hue, that a landsman looks long in the direction of the seaman’s finger, and yet continues dubious whether anything is really visible or not. Now he says confidently, “Ha! I caught a glance of it then :” but presently it turns out that his eye has been direct to a point quite wide of the indicated locality; and again he slowly but vainly sweeps the horizon with his eye, in search of what the practised vision of the mariner detects and recognises at a glance. Meanwhile, the ship rushes on before the cheerful breeze; we go down to breakfast; and on again coming on deck, there no longer remains any doubt; there lies the land on the lee bow [proa sotavento], high and blue, and palpable. It is one of the Azores [Flores]; and as we draw nearer, we discern and admire the picturesque beauties by which they are distinguished. The lofty cliffs of varying hues rear their bold heads perpendicularly from the foaming waves, cut and seamed into dark chasms and ravines, through which rocky torrents find a noisy course, while here and there a little stream is poured over the very summit of the precipice, the cascade descending in a white narrow line, conspicuous against the dark rock behind, until the wind carries it away in feathery spray, long before it reaches the bottom. The sunlight throws the prominences and cavities of the cliffs into broad masses of light and shadow, which, ever changing as the ship rapidly alters her position, give a magic character to the scene. Here and there, on the sides of the hills farther inland, the lawns and fields of lively green, speckled with white villas and hamlets, and relieved by the rich verdure of the orange-groves, present a softer but not less pleasing prospect. Other islands of this interesting group gradually rise from the horizon, all of similar character but diverse in appearance from their various distance; some showing out in palpable distinctness and others seen only in shadowy outline. But there is one which, from the singularity of its shape, arrests the attention. A mountain, of a very regularly conical form, seems to rise abruptly from the sea with remarkable steepness, verdant almost to the summit; it is almost like a sugar-loaf, with a rounded top, crowned by a nipple-like prominence, which is often veiled by clouds. It is the Peak of Pico seven thousand feet in height, second in celebrity as in elevation, only to the Peak of Teneriffe.