Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-11-13
IN THE DEEP SEA.
Vegetation Can Not Maintain Existence at
the Oceans Bottom.
ITO BE CONTINUED. !

| Vegetation Can Not Maintain Existence at
the Oceans Bottom.
Animal life is ultimately dependent
upon the vegetable kingdom, and that
kingdom in turn is dependent upon the
! light of the sun. Miles below the
ocean surface the sun can not penetrate.
or at all events vegetation, with all its
powers of bottling up the solar rays,
can not there, so far as at present
| known, maintain an existence. The
water at very great depths is in most
| parts of the world near the freezing
point Further, the pressure upon every
| square inch of the surface of body
under three miles of sea water, instead
of being Is pounds, as in atmospheric
air, is three tohs, or, in other words, 6, =
720 pounds. 1t was not, perhaps, ira
| tional to suppose that a sponge or a
| delicate fish would be crushed into
nothingness if every square inch of its
| surface were subjected to such a weight
| as a score of the strongest coal-heavers
in the world would stagger under. 1t
rather humbles ones pride in the Prov
ess of human reason to see how some
times its apparently most cogent and
most readily accepted arguments sud-
denly lose all their force when unex-
pectedly confronted with facts.
The skilled ornithologist, after point
ing out that the owl in the BARRIERS shop
was so badly stuffed that it could not be
taken to represent either an owl or any
possible member of the bird creation,
might we'll be disconnected when the i'm
possibility stepped down from its perch
and proved to be not a stuffed owl, but
live one. / en- lawyers and law Civ
ers, theologians and political econo-
mists, have occasionally made mis-
takes, and the votaries of natural
science are also human. Now that
we know that animal life can
be and is supported under enor-
nous pressure in the cold, dark depths,
where even kelp and sea moss take no
foothold, reason is equal to the task of
explaining how the difficulties of the
position may be encountered. Though
plants can not grow without sunlight,
yet when their life in the upper region
of the sea is over they may sink, as dia-
toms undoubtedly do, through all
depths to the bottom. Even II the
deepest living animals had no access to
vegetation they might derive the bene-
fit of it through a chain of consumers,
ending with themselves, but beginning
with the vegetable feeders
Many of the jewellers in the deep sea
have no eyes, and are, therefore COM
paratively unaffected by the absence of
light; for others that have eyes the
gloom is relieved by the luminous Or
gans which they or their neighbors pos
sess. The temperature, we may be as
sured, is gell-suited to the permanent
inhabitants of each region, so that
those surrounded by water nearly at the
freezing point would not thank US for
warming it for them any more than the
Eskimo is pleased when rise in tenn
perature sets every thing adrift in his pa
vilion of ice. The pressure, too, however
stupendous to our imagination, Is evil
IDENTIFY borne without concern by Great
ures which are themselves permeated
by fluids Of the same density as the
surrounding medium. Though also to
our taste the chemistry of sea water is
unpalatable, we know that most marine
animals can not live without it, and
while terrestrial life is limited in its
distribution, and often put to sore
straits by the scanty supply of fresh
water, to the denizens of the sea the
resources for the quenching of thirst
are always at hand, never failing, and
practically infinite. Re
view.