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The '''nautilus''' or ''chambered nautilus'' is a sea animal. It is a cephalopod, like the squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. It grows a large, beautiful spiral shell. The shell is lined with glistening [[mother-of-pearl]]. As it grows, it builds partitions which divide the shell into chambers; it lives in the outermost partition. These shells were common decorations in Victorian England and the United States.
[[Oliver Wendell Holmes]] wrote a famous poem entitled ''The Chambered Nautilus." He admires the "ship of pearl" and the "silent toil/That spread his lustrous coil/Still, as the spiral grew/He left the past year's dwelling for the new." He concludes:
:Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul.
Many ships, particularly submarines, have been named "the Nautilus." Three famous ones are:
*Robert Fulton's ''Nautilus,'' the first submarine that actually worked;
*Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in the Jules Verne novel ''Vingt Mille Lieues sous les Mers'' ("Twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea")
*The first nuclear submarine, [[U. S. S. Nautilus]]
[[Oliver Wendell Holmes]] wrote a famous poem entitled ''The Chambered Nautilus." He admires the "ship of pearl" and the "silent toil/That spread his lustrous coil/Still, as the spiral grew/He left the past year's dwelling for the new." He concludes:
:Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul.
Many ships, particularly submarines, have been named "the Nautilus." Three famous ones are:
*Robert Fulton's ''Nautilus,'' the first submarine that actually worked;
*Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in the Jules Verne novel ''Vingt Mille Lieues sous les Mers'' ("Twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea")
*The first nuclear submarine, [[U. S. S. Nautilus]]