San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-11-08
DEEP-SEA DESOLATION.
The Ocean Bed a Desert of Ooze
and Slime After the First
Mile in Depth,

The Ocean Bed a Desert of Ooze
and Slime After the First
Mile in Depth.
From the Catholic Magazine.
Despite the fanciful pictures which
some writer's have drawn of the ocean
bed, it's desolation, lat least in its deep
est parts, must be extreme. Beyond
the first mile it is vast desert of
slime and ooze, upon which is con-
stantly dripping a rain of dead car
casses from the surface, which car
casses supply the nourishment for the
scanty fauna inhabiting the abyssal
regions-in some places more than five
miles Srom the sunshine-and the mi
croscope reveals that the Shiny mat
ter covering this deepest ocean bed is
very similar In composition to the
ancient chalk of the cretaceous
period, while mixed with it here and
there are minute metallic and mag
netic bodies, which have been proved
to be dust from meteorites. At long
intervals a phosphOrescent light
CLEANS from the head of some passing
fish which has strayed hither from
higher and happier zone. But it is
not until we have mounted a good
deal nearer the surface that the
scene changes for the better. We
now meet with forests of brilliantly col
ored sponges, while the phosphores-
cent animals swimming about are
much more numerous; and the nearer
we get to the littoral zone, more and
more phosphorescent lights appear,
till at length the scene becomes
truly animated. When only 1900 feet
separate us from the sunshine, we
come upon the first seaweed and
kelp 120O feet is the deepest limit of
plant life in water; but we must raise
still another 1000 feet and more, and
get as near the top as 120 feet before
we find any reef building corals. AS
plants do not live in deep sea, the
deep sea animals either prey
on one another or get their food from
dead organism and plants which
sink down to them. Thus Maury
says: "The sea, like the snow cloud
with it's flakes in calm, is always
letting fall upon its bed showers of
microscopic shells" And expert
ment proves that tiny shell would
take about week to fall from the sur
face to the deepest depths. Since
sunlight does not penetrate much far
ther than the littoral zone, there
would be perpetual darkness except
for phosphorescence. Many of the
animals inhabiting the continental
and abyssal zones have merely rudi-
mentary eyes; but these blind crea-
lures have very long feelers,
which help them to grope their
way along the bottom. Other deep
sea animals, on the contrary, have
enormous eyes, and these very likely
congregate around such of their num-
Der as are phOsphorescent, and may
perhaps follow the moving lamp-posts
about wherever they go. And so
bright is this light on many of the
fish brought up by the dredge that
during the brief space the ANIMALS
survive it is not difficult to read by it.
The reason why fishes and mollusks
living more than three miles under
water are able to bear pressure of
several tons is that they have exceed
ingly loose tissues, which allow the
water to flow through every interstice
and thus to equalize the weight.
When the pressure is removed they
perish. In the Challenger expedition
sent out by the British government,
all the sharks brought up from a
depth of little less than three-quar-
tiers of mile were dead when they
got to the surface.
"Those Thompsons are a bad lot.
Three out of the four ought to be in
the penitentiary." "What of the
fourth?" He's there. Thine.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
Col. w. X, Nelson, of Brooklyn,
came home one evening, feeling pc
culiar tightness in the chest. Before