The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1871-06-08

and to this condition, also, the struc-
ture of the inhabitants of the lower
deep is found to be adapted. Of
course they must be small in size. A
whale could not long live in the low
est depths, because of density of the
water, if there were no other reasons.
| Accordingly we find that the speci-
mems of lower ocean life which are
brought up by the improved appara-
tus of the deep sea plummet are
mostly microscopic in character. But
some are longer. Strange creatures,
of surprising forms, in the lower
| depths move more slowly in an ele-
ment which may be called gross, when
compared with our atmosphere. Be-
low the water zones inhabited by such
submarine monsters as the pOlypi,
with their family relatives the devil
fish, the cuttle-fsh, and other strange
creatures, seemingly as nearly related
to the giant branching sea-weeds as
Caliban was to human kind, there is
still lower world of animals grad
ually diminishing in size, but vast in
numbers 1t would seem as if Nature
had sought to compensate her crea-
lures by endowing them with an in
credible fecundity to make up for the
causes of destruction by which they
are surrounded. It is so on land,
with the rabbit, and with other ami
mails exposed to a multitude of de-
vouring enemies. The fecundity of
the rabbit makes amends for the con-
slant wholesale destruction of his
tribe by owls, foxes. wildcats and 9TH
er foes. Some fish of large size have
only two or three young, like the
majority of terrestrial animals; but
what shall we say of the fertility of
the herring, the mackerel, the cod,
and other inhabitants of the seas p
It has been calculated that if her.
ring could multiply during 20 years,
without losing any of its spawn or
fry, its offspring would form a mass
ten times greater than the globe =
This sounds too large; but remember
that the increase in such a case would
proceed in geometrical ratio. And
if such is the fecundity of these fish,
| it is obvious that the smaller crea-
lures which are destined to serve as
food for these enormous hosts must
be more prolific still On the mack
erel fishing grounds, off the coast of
Maine, we have seen the sea colored
by minute, ruddy-looking forms, sup
posed by the sailors to be OF a vege-
table nature, and to rise at certain
seasons from the bottom. 1t comes
from the bottom but it is doubtless
animal, not vegetable, in its nature :;
and it is known to form the macker-
el's food.
1t is in the temperate, and even
more northern zones, that the greatest
variety of submarine plants and won
drous vegetation in the sea depths is
found. AS we advance toward the
equator, vegetation becomes less
abundant and less varied. The wa
ter is too warm to be agreeable to the
greater number of the alge; and if in
any part of the equatorial seas the
submarine vegetation attains the scale
of grandeur, it is still wanting in the
delicacy and elegance which mark the
submarine vegetation of the temper
ate zones. From our Connecticut
coast to the Bermudas, there is an un-
ceasing abundance and amazing va
riety of sea-yegetation, only small
part of which is ever cast ashore up
on the rocks. But how beautiful are
some of thesei What lovely and
etherially delicate sea-fiowers can be
picked off the outer rocks of our
coastI
Of the alg@, the principal family of
the marine flora, at least 1000 species
are known to exist. The varieties
are almost limitless: Some of these
under sea-plants assume the most
strangely grotesque forms. In Eng
lish waters, where investigations have
been most extensive, los genera and
270 species of alg@ may be counted.
The law of natnre which gives nu-
merous animal life to the polar re-
gions, as the white bear, Arctic fox,
reindeer, musk-oX, &C., while it de-
nies to those inhospitable regions all
vegetable life, extends, also, into the
sea. The whales, seals, walrus, &C.,
and a multitude of fish proper, abound
in the Arctic seas but not so with
the beautiful luxuriance of submarine
vegetation which exists at all points
of our Connecticut and Rhode Island
shores. The vegetation of the sea,
as of the land, disappears before the
ice and the unending cold. 1t is so
in descending into the ocean depths !;
in the deeper, darker depths there are
fish and various forms of submarine
animal life Chiefly infusoria) long
after vegetable life disappears. 1t is
the finer forms of the so-called sea-
weed upon the upper waters that pre-
sent US with the most beautiful speci-
mems of sea-fowers.
Dark, brown and Shiny in their ap-
pearance they sre gathered, these lit
tie marine plants often develop, when
properly cared for in the pressing
book, delicate fneness and beauty
SURPRISING anything except the mira
cles wrought in Winter by the artist
Frost, upon the crystal spangled sur
face of the window-pane.
The bottom of the sea is an en-
chanted country. Its animal inhabi-
tants are self-luminous they thunder
upon their enemies from distance !;
they harden themselves into stone
The old classic fable of Daphne trans
formed into a laurel is realized, eve
ry year, every day, in the ocean
There is no region, with a favorable
climate and an agreeable site, where
animals are not found in myriads,
aiding, day by day, by their petrifica-
ton. in building up rocks and reefs
of an immense extent. Thus is the
coast of Florida made. Thus have its
dangerous "keys" been formed
} nay, vast part of that great peninsu-
la itself is a coral formation. And
, it is still forming-the work is all the
time going on. So of the countless
coral islands and reefs of the meas
/ ureless Pacific. An island ten miles
wide and only twenty miles long on
J ly half reveals its real extent; its
broadest part is it's, Understanding
, base beneath the sea. The substance
/ of which the ancient city of ST. Au-
: gustine, in Florida, was built, called
} by the Spanish settlers, coquina, is a
curious accretion of marine Shells
They are mostly small; and all are
} nicely clean. What holds them to.
gether, so that the builder can go to
r the quarry at the edge of the sea and
with an axe cut them out in blocks fol
t building, does not appear. But what
: countless billions of these little shell
: fish must have died to produce these
r deposits.
= It is a wonderful work. IF we di.