Among the minute shells which have been fished up from the great
telegraphic plateau at the bottom of the sea between Newfoundland and
Ireland, the microscope has failed to detect a single particle of sand
or gravel; and the inference is, that there, if any where, the waters
of the sea are at rest. There is not motion enough there to abrade
these very delicate organisms, nor current enough to sweep them about
and mix them up with a grain of the finest sand, nor the smallest
particle of gravel from the loose beds of _débris_ that here and there
strew the bottom of the sea. The animalculæ probably do not live or die
there. They would have had no light there; and, if they lived there,
their frail textures would be subjected in their growth to a pressure
upon them of a column of water 12,000 feet high, equal to the weight of
400 atmospheres. They probably live and sport near the surface, where
they can feel the genial influence of both light and heat, and are
buried in the lichen caves below after death.
It is now suggested, that henceforward we should view the surface of
the sea as a nursery teeming with nascent organisms, and its depths as
the cemetery for families of living creatures that outnumber the sands
on the sea-shore for multitude.
Where there is a nursery, hard by there will be found also a
graveyard,--such is the condition of the animal world. But it never
occurred to us before to consider the surface of the sea as one
wide nursery, its every ripple as a cradle, and its bottom one vast
burial-place.--_Lieut. Maury._