The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1876-08-10
From the Scotsman.

| From the Scotsman. t.t- sts.t.
On July Z, Prof. Sir WyviIle Thorn
son and other members Of the Chal-
lenger exploring party were enter
tained at a public dinner i'm Edinburgh.
Among the speakers was Prof. Huxley
which have been made by the Chal-
lcnger are undoubtedly such as to
make us all form new ideas of the op-
Grafton of natural causes In the sea-
Take, for example, the very remarka-
BILE fact that at great depths the tenn
perature of the sea always sinks down
pretty much TO that of freezing fresh
water. That is very strange fact in
itself, a fact which certainly could not
have been anticipated. Take again
the marvellous discovery that over
large areas of the sea the bottom is
covered with kind of chalk, q sub
staHce made up entirely of the shells
of minute creatures-a sort of geologi-
cal shoddy made of the cast-off clothes
of those animals. The fact had been
known for long time, and we were
greatly puzzled to know how those
things got to be there. But the re-
searches Of the Challenger have
proved beyond question that the re-
mains In question are the shells of Or
ganisms that live at the surface and
not at the bottom, and that this depos-
it, which is the same nature
as the ancient chalk, differing
in some minor respects. but es-
sentialH the same, is absolutely
| formed by a rain of skeletons. These
creatures all live within 100 fathoms
of the surface; and when they die
their skeletons are raincd down in one
continual shower, falling through a
mile or Il couple OF miles of sea-water.
How long they take about it imagina-
ton fails one in supposing, but at last
they get to. the bottom, and there,
piled up, they form great stratum of
a substance which, If uphcaycd, would
be exactly like chalk. But this is by
When they got to the depth of 5000
to LOCO fathons, or about five miles,
which was the greatest depth at which
the Challenger fished up anything
from the bottom, they found that
while Ihe surfuce of the water might
be full Of those calcareous organisms,
the bottom was not. There they found
red clay. This red clay is a great
puzzle-a great mystery how it
comes there, what it arises from,
whether il is the ash of foraminifer9 !:
whether it is dccomposed pumlce
stone vomited out by volcanoes, and
scattered over the surface, or whether,
lastly, it has something to do with the
meteoric dust which is being continu-
ally raincd upon us from the spaces of
the universe" ..s.s4ls-
Prof. Sir Wyvillc Thompson said ::
SAT depth of about four miles we
were always able 10 dredge and trawl
with considerable certainty. Instead
of using small Balls dredgc about
lS lItilCs " tlaWi Win q
20 feet across was dragged across the
bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans; and, in this way we covered
a considerable amount of ground. and
obtained far better idea of the larger
organisms of those regions. No doubt
we missed great many of the smaller
things. Little hard aud heavy bodies
fell through the net but we got, new
ertheless, very good idea of the
.fauna of The bottom OF the sea-. A
number of the forms from these ex-
trcme depths were comparatively
large and spiny, and these stuck in the
large dredge net. The depth of the
Atlantic apparently averages some
thing about two thousand fathoms and
that of the Pacific about twenty five
, hundred fathoms. There did not seem