The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1877-12-14

Challenger exploring party were en-
tertained at a public dinner 10 Edin>
burgh. Among the speakers was
Prof. Huxley, who said: "Some of
the discoveries which have been
made by the Challenger are uudoubt-
eddy such as to make us all form new
ideas of the operation of natural
causes in the sea- Take, for exam
pie, the very remarkable fact that at
great depths the temperature of the
sea always sinks down pretty much
to that of freezing fresh water. -
That is very strange fact ia 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 a kind of chalk, substance
made up entirely of the shells
of minute creatures-a sort of geo.
logical shoddy made of the cast-otf
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 researches of the Challenger have
proved beyond question that the re
mains in question are the shells of
organism which live st the surface
and not at the bottom, and that this
deposit, which is of the same nature
as the ancient chalk, differing in
some minor respects, but essentially
the same, is absolutely formed by a
rain of skeletons. These creatures
all live within 100 fathoms of the SUR
face; and when they die their skel,
etons are rained down 10 one contiu,
ual shower, falling through mile or
couple of miles of sea water. How
long they take about it imagination
fails one in supposing, but at last
they get to the bottom, and there,
piled up, they form great stratum
of substance which, if upheaved,
would be exactly like chalk. But
this is by no means the most wonder
full thing. When they got to the
depth of 5000 and 1000 fathoms,
and to l,4O0 fathoms, or about FIVE
y. ..ssss,, = ) ;aich was7she greatest depth
at which the Challenger fshed any,
thing from the bottom, they found
that while the surface of the water
might be full of those calcareous or
ganisms, the bottom was not. There
they found red clay. This red clay
is great puzzle-a great mystery
how it comes there, what it arises
from, whether it is the ashes of fora
minifera; whether it is decomposed
pumice stone vomited out by volca-
noes, and scattered over the surface,
or whether, lastly, it has something
to do with that meteoric dust which
is being continually raiued upon US
from the spaces of the universe"
Prof. Sir WyviIIe Thomson said:
CAT depth of about four miles we
were always able to dredge and
trawl with considerable certainty.
Instead of using email Balls dredge
about Is inches long, trawl with a
beam 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 and heavy bodies fell through
the fauna of the bottom of the sea.
A number of the forms from these
extreme depths were comparatively
large and spiny, and these stuck in
the large dredge net. The depth of
the Atlantic apparently averages
something about two thousand fa>
thoms. There did not seem to be
any great difference between the At
lantic and Pacific Oceans-a gener-
al characteristic being that the bot-
tom of each was a tolerably level ex
panse, with slight undulations. In
the temperature of these great
depths we took a great interest for
we expected that by determining the
temperature at the bottom we would
be able to trace the direction in
which the water was moving in any
particular way because water is an
extremely bad conductor and it
maintains for great length of time,
unless there is some special reason
for its mixing with other water, the
temperature of its source. We u.s.
uaIly, at most of the stations meas
ured correctly the bottom temper
ature, and then that of the various
strata from the bottom up to the sur
face, and we were inclined to core
to the conclusion that the great mass
of the water we found in the troughs
of the Atlantic and Pacific is derived
from the southern sea. OF course
the idea was prevalent that there
we're no animals at these great depths,
but the conclusion we have ar
rived at now is, that there are ami
mails at all depths, though undoubt-
eddy they decrease in number as the
depth increases. In regard to what
these animals are, large proportion
of them is yet indescribable. The