Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1890-06-04
IN The DEEP SEA.
Curiosities of Animal Life at the Bottor
of the Ocean.

Curiosities of Animal Life at the Bottom
of the Ocean.
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 sunlight can not penetrate,
or In 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 about fifteen pounds as in at
mospheric air, is three tons, or in other
words, six thousand seven hundred and
twenty pounds. 1t was not perhaps ir-
rational to suppose that sponge or
delicate fish would be crushed into
nothingness II each square inch of its
surface were subjected to such weight
as score Of the strongest coal beavers.
in the world would staggcr under. II
rather humbles ones pride in the proves
Of human reason to see how sometimes
its apparently most cogent and most
readily-accepted arguments suddenly
lose all their force when unexpectedly
confronted with facts.
The skilled ornithologist, after point
ing out that the owl in the BARRIERS
shop was so badly stuffed that II could
not be taken to represent either an owl
or any possible member OF the bird crea.
ton, might we'll be disconnected when
the impossibility stepped down from it's
perch and proved to be not a stuffed
owl, but live one Even lawyers and
law-givers, theologians and political
economists have occasionally made mis.
takes, and the votaries OF natural sci.
ence are also human. Now that we
know that animal life can be and is su'
ported under enormous pressure in t.
cold, dark depths, where oven kelp and
sea moss take no foothold reason is
equal to the task Of explaining how tho
difficulties OF the position may be en-
countered. Though plants can not grow
without sunlight, yet when their life
In the upper regions Of the sea is over,
they may sink, as diatoms undoubtedly
do. through all depths TO the bottom.
Even IL the deepest-living animals had
no access to vegetation they might de-
rive the benefit Of IL through chain OF
consumers, ending with themselves, but
beginning with vegetable feeders.
Many Of the jewellers in the deep sea
have no eyes, and are therefore compar.
stively 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
possess. The temperature, we may be
assured, Is well 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 1t for them, any more than the
Esquimau Is pleased when a rise Of
temperature sets every thing adrip in
his pavilion OF ice. The pressure, too,
however stupendous to our Imagination,
Is evidently borne without concern by
creatures which are themselves perme.
ated by fluids Of the same density as the
surrounding Medium. Though also to
our taste the chemistry of sea water il
unpalatable, we know that most marine
animals can not live without IL, 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 re.
sources for the quenching OF thirst ara
always at hand, never-failing and prac
tically infinite. Edinburgh Review.