Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/185

"Broadly awake but deliciously dreaming," we cast ourselves upon the dazzling sandy beach, and gaze upon "the deep, deep sea." The sky above, so beautifully blue, is unsullied by a single cloud; "a holy calm pervades us, all is peace within." Above, below—without, within—exists a harmony of repose, and as we adjust the welcome expanse of our broad-brimmed "felt" to shield our eyes and shelter our complexion, we sink into a reverie,—

There always seems to be a mysterious influence in the sea,—itself a mystery, covering three-fourths of the surface of the globe, and hiding the earth and its inhabitants from the gaze of the "lords of creation." How little do we know, compared with the unknown, of three-fourths of the world that is buried in the sea. "We tried," says Sir James Ross, "but did not obtain soundings with 4,600 fathoms of line, or 27,000 feet," upwards of five miles. And this in "the deep, deep sea."

From the bottom of this vast expanse the plummet brings to the surface evidence of the past existence of myriads of minute organisms. "The ocean," writes Lieutenant Maury, "especially within and near the tropics, swarms with life. The remains of its myriads of moving things are conveyed by currents, and scattered and lodged in the course of time all over its bottom. This process, continued for ages, has covered the depths of the ocean as with a mantle, consisting of organisms as delicate as the macled frost, and as light as the undrifted snowflake on the mountain." And that these fragile and delicate objects repose at peace in their ocean bed is now past a doubt. "My investigations," writes Professor Bailey, "show that the bottom is so free from currents and abrading agents that a rope of sand, if once laid there, would be stout enough to withstand the pulling of all the forces that are at play upon the bottom of the sea."

Not only the remains of past life, but also the living present, exist in countless numbers in the ocean. "In examining animalculæ in sea-water," says Capt. Foster, "I have heretofore used surface water. This afternoon, after pumping for some time from the stem pump seven feet below the surface, I examined the water, and was surprised to find that the fluid was literally alive with animated matter." And what shall we say of—

of the coral reefs reared by the combined efforts of myriads of diminutive artisans, and which Captain Flinders encountered for five hundred, and Captain King for seven hundred miles?

Some of the wonders of this vast storehouse of marvels have been transferred to the marine aquaria, public and private, which fashion called into existence in haste, and nearly abandoned at leisure. Sea-anemones, so like the flowers of earth as the deceive the insects of earth; jelly-fish, unlike anything in creation but themselves; and even the poor hermit crab doomed to forego his retirement and be gazed upon by every little "charity boy" that chooses to spend his holiday sixpence at the Zoological Gardens.

Leaving sea-serpents to assert their own identity, and prove their own existence in some remote future, by one of their family swallowing a cargo of hardware, and being stranded in a fit of indigestion, we should like to know, since the fauna of the land is continually being augmented by the knowledge of new genera and species, what can be predicated of our knowledge of the fauna of "the deep, deep sea." Surely half its wonders are yet entirely unknown.

Still we repose upon the beach and dream, as old Neptune chides our idleness by casting at our feet seaweeds, corallines, zoophytes, shells, starfish, and many such trinkets of his, each of which would employ us many an hour fully to comprehend.