San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-11-30
IN OCEANS DEPTHS.
STRANGE CREATURES OF THE DEEP
BROUGHT TO LIGHT.

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 precipitousmoun-
tains lifting toward the surface and pro-
found gorges sinking to unfathomable
depths. The ocean floor is far less di-
versiied than the land.
Here and there to be sure, islands in
midocean are the SUBMITS of enormous
mountains, rising more or less abruptly
from a generally level surface, and the
sea lying over narrow, depressed re-
gion in the northwestern Pacific reaches
its greatest depth. But this is excep-
tional. In its general character the
ocean bottom consists of vast fiat or
slightly undulating plains. An eXtraor-
binary circumstance that has been no
ticed with interest and that always Gre
ates surprise when first learned is the
entire absence of foreign 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 a
trace remains, but in their place water
from 1000 to $500 fathoms in depth
covers the uniform deposit Of thick, blu
ish, tenacious slime called globigerina
ooze \ bit of this under a powerful
lens is a revelation of beauty not readily
forgotten. The ooze is composed almost
entirely of tie Gsinticst, most delicatcly
beautiful shells imaginable.
At depths greater than $500 fathoms
the bottom of the sea consists mainly of
products arising from exposure, for al
most incalculable periods, to the chem
zeal action of sea water, of pumice and
other volcanic matters. This finally re-
suits in the formation of the red clay de-
posts that are considered characteristic
of the profoundest depths of the ocean.
Carbonate 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 a universal
solvent, and before any shell, large or
small, reaches the bottom Of these ire
mendOus abysmS l. is chemically eaten
up. literally dissOlved--a result which
the enormous pressure of the water must
materially hasten. At l 900 fathOms the
weight of the water pressingo on all sides
of an object Immersed to that depth is
very nearly one ton to the square inch,
or more than 100 times that sustained at
the sea level, and at the greatest depths
tile pressure is so increased thatit would
seem nothing could Withstand it. In
fact, heavy metal cylinders let down with
the sounding apparatus are sometimes,
being drawn up again to the surface,
found bent and collapsed; strongly made
glass vessels which the metal enclosed
are shattered into fragments.
In the profOundest abysms of the sea
are strange forms of life that never. save
when broughtup by the trawl. see the up
per light. The work carried on by means
of the United States fish commission yes
sci, the Albatross, has established the
fact that forms of sea life inhabiting up
per waters may descend to about POO
feet from the surface, but that below
this, to a depth of 800 or $50 fathOms, a
barren zone intervenes where marine
life seems absent But still deeper,
strange to say, has been discovered an
abundant and varied fauna, new to sci
ence, living under conditions of tremen-
dous pressure and paucity of the life
sustaining 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 organ
isms." Here indeed survive forms of
life the like of which no inhabitant of
the upper world, not even the sun him
self, has looked upon before the dredges
of the Challenger, the AlbatrOss, the
Blake and similarly equipped vessels
dragged up marine creatures from con
genial cold and dark.
! 1t might reasonably be supposed that
these denizens of great sea depths would
be built more firmly and strongly thar
surface animals to resist the pressure q
the element in which they live, but it il
just the contrary. The most universe
characteristic of these creatures is the
looseness and fabbiness of texture they
exhibit. Indeed they seem to need thu
excessive pressure of the water abou
them to keep their parts together, TO
when they are brought to the surface
they are ready TO fall to pieces. 1t is
problem, so strangely are some of then
formed, how they can move from plac
to place. Were they not entirely below
the disturbing element of wave action