The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1878-05-30
THE OCEANS MYSTERIES.
4 voyage of Dtep-sea ExriOra len
Among the BoIfeEhIes-Deep-sess Life.

II voyage OF DEPH-sea Exi1OrA Ion
Among the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Life.
Sir c. Wyville Thompson has just
published an account of the cruise of the
ship Challenger, of England, Captain
Mares, sent out from Portsmouth in
December, 1872, for series of deep-sea
explorations. The course of the vessel
was successfully to Gibraltar, Canary
islands, the West Indies, the Bermudas,
Halifax, the Bermudas again, the Azores,
Cape Verde, Bania and the Cape of Good
Hope. From this point the vessel passed
into the Indian and Pacific oceans.
After her temperance in the Atlantic
ocean through the Straits of Magellan,
the Challenger visited the Falkland
islands, Montevideo. Ascension, and so
back to England. She arrived at Ports
mouth, completing the cruise, after an
absence Of three and half years on
May 26, 1876. From the narrative o.
Professor Thompson, the director OF the
civilian scientific staff, we quote these
interesting extracts:
The absence of eyes in many deep sea
animals, and their full development in
others, Is very remarkable. In deep
water, say 10 to $40 fathoms, eye-stalks
are present, but the animal is apparently
blind, the eyes being replaced by rounded
calcaFeous Examinations TO t E eve stalks.
In examples taken from 500 to 700
fathOms, in other localities the eye-stalks
have lost their special character, have
become fixed, and the examinations
combine into strong pointed rOstrum.
In this case we have SO gradual modifi-
cation, depending apparently upon q
gradual diminution and final disappear
anee of solar light. On the other hand
some animals from equal depths have
their eyes unusually developed and
apparently of great delicacy. It is
possible that in certain cases, as the
suns light diminishes, the power of
vision becomes more acute, until st
length the eye becomes susceptible of
the stimulus of the fainter light of phos-
phorescence.
In the course of the Challenger from
the Canary Islands to the West Indies,
it was found that the depth went on in
creasiDg to q distance of l $50 miles from
| Tenerife, reaching, finally 5, 80 fathoms,
or about three and a half miles. There
the clay is pure and smooth, with scarce.
! ly a trace of lime. From this great
depth the bottom gradually rises, and
| with decreasing depth the gray color and
/ the calcareous composition OF the Ooze
! return. Passing from the middle plateau
/ of the Atlantic to the western trou IA,
| with depths little over 3 600 fathOms,
| the red clay returns in all its purity.
! The general concurrence of many observe
! tions would go far to prove, what seems
now, indeed, to stand in the position oil
an unascertaiued fact, that wherever the
| depth increased from about 1920 to
$500 fathOms, the modern chalk forma.
tion of the Atlantic passes into clay.
Of the Brazilian coast the ship en-
J csuntered an immense swarm of butter
| flies, which fluttered over the sea rs Jar
as the eye could reach, quivering III the
| air like withered leaves. Such showers
] OF these insects are not uncommon in
4 this locality. Sometimes the country is
/ absolutely devastated by the caterpillar.
The moths or butterflies, when caught
/ by the land breeze, are waited out to sea,
where myriads are drowned, remnant,
| perhaps, floating back again by the usual
shifting of the wind in the evening.
The most prominent and remarkable
! biographical result OF the recent investi-
/ cations is the final establishment of the
fact that the distribution OF living beings
mas no depth limit; but that AMI
mails of all the marine invertebTate
! glassss, and probably fishes also, exist
over the whole floor of the ocean, and
some of the most interesting of the prob
! lens which are now before US have ref
erence to the nature and distribution OF
the deep sea fauna and to its relations
with the fauna of q shallower water;
! and with the fauna of past periods IN the
earth's history. The fauna at great
depths was found to be remarkably uni
form. Species of many familiar genera,
and neatly allied TO those found in shallow
water, We're taken in the deepest hauls,
| so that il would seem that the enormous
pressure, the utter darkness, and the
! difference in the chemical and physical
conditions OF the water and in the pro-
| portions Of the contained gases, depend
ing upon such extreme conditions, do not
influence animal life to any great extent.