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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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NAUTILUS, n. [L.,Gr. A ship] A genus of marine animals, whose shell consists of one spiral valve divided into several apartments by partitions. There are many species. This animal, when it sails, extends two of its arms, and between these supports a membrane that serves as a sail. With two other arms it rows or steers.
The only
existing genus of tetrabranchiate cephalopods. About four species are
found living in the tropical Pacific, but many other species are
found fossil. The shell is spiral, symmetrical, and chambered, or
divided into several cavities by simple curved partitions, which are
traversed and connected together by a continuous and nearly central
tube or siphuncle. See Tetrabranchiata.
* The head of the animal bears numerous simple tapered arms, or tentacles, arranged in groups, but not furnished with suckers. The siphon, unlike, that of ordinary cephalopods, is not a closed tube, and is not used as a locomotive organ, but merely serves to conduct water to and from the gill cavity, which contains two pairs of gills. The animal occupies only the outer chamber of the shell; the others are filled with gas. It creeps over the bottom of the sea, not coming to the surface to swim or sail, as was formerly imagined. The argonaut; -- also called paper
nautilus. See Argonauta, and Paper nautilus, under
Paper.
A variety of diving bell, the lateral as
well as vertical motions of which are controlled, by the
occupants.
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