The ocean teems with life, we know. Of the four elements of the old
philosophers,--fire, earth, air, and water,--perhaps the sea most of
all abounds with living creatures. The space occupied on the surface
of our planet by the different families of animals and their remains
is inversely as the size of the individual; the smaller the animal,
generally speaking, the greater the space occupied by his remains.
Take the elephant and his remains, and a microscopic animal and his,
and compare them; the contrast as to space occupied is as striking as
that of the coral reef or island with the dimensions of the whale. The
graveyard that would hold the corallines, is larger than the graveyard
that would hold the elephants.