The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-01-22
The Bottom of the Sea.

Until very recently it has been supposed
that the bed of the deep ocean is as fal
beyond the reach Of direct examination by
scientific men as the substance of the solid
earth at the same debths. Geological be
| lief as to the position and order of the
strata which form the crust Of our planet,
has been founded almost entirely on the
revelations made at or very near the sur face
where upheavel and fracture have displayed
what was buried far below. Mines and
other excavations have furnished valuable
aid in the inquiry, but the depth reached
by them is at most significant in proper
! ton to the extent of the formation studied
and it is in but few places, and those of Q
! peculiar class, that they have been made
at all; so that they have always been bui
subordinate aids. But explorers have been
we'll aware that if the bed of the sea could
| be reached and carefully examined NEST
important facts would come to light as to
| the formation of all those strata which
have been deposited by water in earlier
| ages.
| Nor is the exploration of these regions
less attractive to those whose special inter
| est is in the laws and conditions of life
All the organized beings we have known,
both animals and vegetables, live under
conditions not widely different from those
which surround ourselves. The presence
Of heat. moisture and certain kinds of
| nourishmcnt. has been thought essential;
| and these circumstances, too, have been
! supposed to be limited narrowly in degree.
| FOR example. as compared with the Whole
| range of heat and cold in nature, the range
within which human life can be sustained
is but a point If the temperature of the
blood varies but Il few degrees on either
side of the precise warmth we call "blood-
heat any Of the higher animals will die
vt the freezing point of water or the boil
ing point, all the life familiar to US ceases
| at once. Yet it is easy to show that heat
| thousands of tunes as great as any we can
produce exists but a few miles below us in
the EARTH as well as in the sun above us,
while the cold of space, or the higher
regions of the air, is far beyond all that
the most biting blasts of our polar zones
can make conceivable. AS there is no rea-
son to believe that any other planet or star
than the earth possesses at its surface the
precise degree and balance of heat found on
the earth, it has been pausibiy argued that
cth II fla Of
and that on no other, therefore, is life
itself TO be supposed.
All these questions are put in something
of new light by the success of some bold
English investigators in directly exploring
the depths of the sea. Professor Thomp-
son and DR.. Carpenter, with the aid of a
new contrivance for dredging, have sue
ceeded in bringing up at different times
loads of nearly half a ton of deposits, from
depth Of fourteen thousand feet. or two
miles and two thirds, below the surface
There are but three or four peaks in Europe
which are higher above the sea level than
the sea level is above the depths thus exam
ined. The results of this examination have
not yet been finally embodied in the sciences
on which they bear; but enough has been
published of them to show that some of
the common doctrines of biologists and
psychologists, at least, need revision.
For example, at depths where the pressure
of water is more than four hundred tons
to each square foot, where the cold is always
below the freezing point of water at the
surface, and where not one particle of light
from the sun or air can penetrate, there
are beings animals of much completely
Of organization, and with eyes as perfect,
in every respect, as those of the fishes and
reptiles best known to us. Sir Charles
Lyell concludes that their eyes must he
made useful by phesphorescent light diff
fused over the bed of the sea; and this is
doubtless true; but what limits are there
to the conditions of life, if it is abundant
in Il cold like this, and under the weight of
three miles of water.
Again. these creatures, found in the
lime stone mud of to-day, are in all impor-
tant respects like those found by biologists
in the lime stone beds of Europe, referred
by them to an epoch of the earth's forma-
tive history, millions of ages ago. But
removing their dredges a few miles, the
explorers find the sea deposting sand
stone debris. and in it are other crca-
lures corresponding in all points to the
sandstone fossils which biologists have
always referred to another epoch, remote
from us, indeed, but also divided by un-
measured eras from the former. Here they
are building side by side these two widely
land the discovery that they may actually
co-exist upon the adjacent surfaces says
DR.. Carpenter, "has done 20 less than
strike at the very root of the customary as
sumptions with regard to geological time. :"
1t will he seen at once that this discovery
affords the strongest support to Sir Charles
Lyell;s theory, that the past changes of the
earth are to be studied rs the results of forces
now in action upon it that the whole sci
encc of geology is one vast expression of the
uniformity of law that its final lesson, in
short. is that which it was not the first to
utter: The thing which has been, that is
that which shall be. and there is nothing
new under the SUM- Yet there is one
thing new; the enterprise of the scientific
mind, which, in such achievements as those
of Kirchoff and Bunsen in spectrum ana
lysis, of Darwin in tho examination of
specific changes in animals, and now of
Thompson and Carpenter in the depths of
the sea, has set at defiance all the limits
which the boldest of thinkers few years
ago were disposed to set to the most san
guine hopes of science. Goethe used to
say, ''the workshop of nature is forever in
accessible but, if this be true, at least the
way to her workshops seems to be one
which is forever open, though endless; and
in which progress has no bounds.
n. 7. Post.
Interpretation of Dreams.