Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-11-02
DEEP-sEA DEsOLATION.


From the Catholic Magazine
Despite the fanciful pictures which some
writers have drawn Of the ocean bed. its DESC
lation, at least in its deepest parts must be ex-
treme. Beyond the first mile it is vast desert
OF slime and ooze, upon which is constantly
dripping a rain Of dead carcasses from the
surface, which carcasses supply the nourish-
ment for the scanty fauna inhabiting the
abyssal region-in some places more than FIVE
miles from the sunshine-and the microscope
reveals that the Shiny matter covering this
deepest ocean bed is very similar in compo-
sition to the ancient chalk of the cretaceous
period, while mixed with it here and there
are minute metallic and magnetic bodies,
which have been proved to be dust from me-
teorites. At long intervals phosphorescent
light CLEANS from the head of some passing
fish which has strayed hither from a higher
and happier zone. But it is not until we have
mounted good deal nearer the surface that
the scene changes for the better We now meet
with forests of brilliantly colored sponges
while the phosphorescent 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
LOO feet separate us from the sunshine we
come upon the first seaweed and kelp q, 200
feet is the deepest limit of plant life in water);
but we must rise still another thousand feet
anu more anu Set as near the top as one nun
dred and twenty 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 its
flakes in a calm, is always letting fall upon its
bed showers of microscopic Shells" And ex-
pertinent proves that tiny shell would take
about week to fall from the surface to the
deepest depths. Since sunlight does not pene-
trate much farther than the Ittoral zone,
there would be beyond this perpetual darkness
except for phosphOrescence. Many of the ami
mails inhabiting the continental and abyssal
zones have merely rudimentary eyes; but these
blind creatures have very long feelers, which
help them to grope their way along the bot
tom. Other deep-sea animals, on the contrary,
have enormous eyes, and these very likely con-
gregate around such of their number 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 exceedingly 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 ex-
petition sent out by the British government,
all the sharks brought up from depth of lit
tie less than three-quarters of a mile were dead
when they got to the surface.