The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-09-21
CREATURES OF OCEAN DEPTHS.
They Fall to Pieces When the Pressure of
Water No Longer Holds Them Together.


plored and mapped out presents a very
different picture from that painted for
us by the poets. But a short time has
elapsed since the bottom of the ocean
| was supposed to be the counterpart of
the face of the earth above water-with
hills and valleys, with precipitous
mountains lifting toward the surface
and profound gorges sinking to, I'M
fathomable depths. The ocean floor is
far less diversified than the land.
Here and there, to be sure, islands
in mid-ocean are the SUBMITS of
enormous mountains, rising more
or less abruptly, from gener-
| ally level surface, and the sea
lying over narrow, depressed
| region in the northwestern Pacific
reaches it's greatest depth. But
this is exceptional; in its general char
acter the ocean bottom consists of vast
fiat or slightly undulating plains. An
| extraordinary circumstance that has
been noticed with interest, and that
always creates surprise when first
learned, is the entire absence of for
eign matter in the deeper part of the
oceans floor.
Of all the vessels lost in midocean;
of all the human beings that have been
drowned; of all the marine animals
that have persisted, of all the clay,
sand and gravel let fall by dissolving
icebergs; of all the various substances
drifted from every shore by shifting
currents, not trace remains: but in
their place water from one thousand
to twenty-five hundred fathoms in
depth covers the uniform deposit of
thick, blush, tenacious slime, called
globigerina ooze. A bit of this under
a powerful lens is revelation of beau
ty not readily forgotten. The ooze is
composed almost entirely of the dain-
test, most delicately beautiful shells
imaginable.
At depths greater than two thousand
five hundred fathoms the bottom of the
sea consists mainly of products arising
from exposure, for almost incalculable
periods, to the chemical action of sea
water, of pumice and other volcanic
matters. This finally results in the
formation of the red clay deposits that
are considered characteristic of the
profoundest depths of the ocean. Car
Donate of lime, which in the form of
the shells of foraminifera, makes up so
large part of the globigerina ooze, is
here almost entirely absent.
Sea water is very nearly universal
solvent, and before any shell, large or
| small, reaches the bottom of these ire
mendous abysms it is chemically eaten
| up, literally dissolved-a result which
the enormous pressure of the water
must materially hasten. At one thou
sand fathoms the weight of the water
pressing on all sides of an object i'm
| mersed to that depth isvery nearly one
| ton to the square inch, or more than one
| hundred times that sustained at the
sea level, and at the greatest depths the
| pressure is SO increased that it would
seem nothing could withstand tin
| fact, heavy metal cylinders let down
with the sounding apparatus are some
times, on being drawn up again to the
surface, found bent and collapsed;
strongly made glass vessels which the
| metal inclosed are shattered into frag-
| ments.
In the profoundest abysms of the sea
| are strange forms of life, that never.
save when brought up by the trawl
see the upper light. The work carried
on by means of the United States fish
commission vessel, the Albatross, has
| established the fact that forms of sea
| life inhabiting upper waters may de-
| scend to about twelve hundred feet
| from the surface, but that below this,
| to depth of three hundred or three
hundred and sixty fathoms, barren
zone intervenes where marine life
| seems absent. But still deeper,
strange to say, has been discov-
cred an abundant and varied
| fauna, new to science, living
| under conditions of tremendous
pressure, and paucity of the life-sus-
tanning element of oxygen, that in
duced an eminent zoologist to say quite
recently: "What we know of the great
est ocean depths forbids us to expect
to find them inhabited by living
organisms" Here, indeed, survive
| forms of life the like of which no in
habitant of the upper world, not even
the sun himself, has looked upon be-
fore the dredges of the Challenger, the
Albatross, the Blake, and similarly
equipped vessels dragged up marine
creatures from congenial cold and
dark.
1t might reasonably be supposed
that the denizens of great sea depths
would be built more firmly and strong
ly than surface animals to resist the
pressure of the element in which thev
live, but it is just the contrary. The
most universal characteristic of these
creatures is the looseness and fiabbi-
ness of texture they exhibit. Indeed.
they seem to need the excess
sive pressure of the water about
them to keep their parts together, for
when they are brought to the surface
they are ready to fall to pieces. 1t is a
problem, SO strangely are some of them
formed, how they can move from place
to place; were they not entirely below
the disturbing element of wave action
they would, to all appearance, be help
less.