The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-11-10
Our Special Contributors===IS04.
THE DEEPEST OCEAN.
Wonders and Mysteries of Life Beneath the Waves
DESCRIBED BY PROF. cHAs. F. HOLDER.

| IHE ocean which mas long Deen nys-
terry even to those who live on its bor-
ders, is gradually giving up its secrets,
and the seemingly inexplicable contra
dictions are becoming more and more
understood.
To the layman, the reader who has not
followed the investigations OF students
of the deep sea, it is difficult to realize
how life can exist where the pressure is
so great that it is compared to train of
cars loaded with pigiron bearing down
upon a mans shoulders, or many tons
to the square inch. Neither are the con-
ditions of life readily understood at a
depth where ray of sunlight never has
reached, where eternal night apparently
reigns; where the temperature is nearly
at the freezing point, and where in all
probability silence SO profound exists
that sound has never broken the quiet
of ages.
Such a region, finding its extreme
depth in five or six miles, does not ap-
pear to offer many inducements to the
Investigator; yet it has been most
have been made during the last few
years have entirely changed public SEN
timent regarding it.
The deep sea, while forbidding and
uninviting, has its inhabitants that are
we'll adapted to the strange conditions
within it's borders, where eternal dark
ness was supposed to reign. We have
every reason to believe that there is at
times wonderful assemblage of light
givers, who illumine the dark unfath-
omed caves of the ocean and change its
abysmal regions into scenes Of weird
splendor
If the ocean bed, which is popularity
supposed to occupy three fourths of the
worlds surface, should suddenly be laid
cate of terrestrial conditions. The bed
of the present ocean has at some time
been dry land; has been cut by wind and
weather, washed into river beds by
| otiOuibot thlOWh up ny folCdniC dOtiOb
into mountains, or elevated and de-
pressed by oscillations of the crust. 1t
has undergone all the changes of the
land with which we are familiar, and in
measure resembles it.
To make the ocean bed a reality l will
ask the reader to imagine that he is
equipped with divers armor capable of
resisting pressure, and accompany me
into the deep sea. AS we descend into
the blue depths. we realize that we have
entered another world, where to all in
tents and purposes water is the atmos
pAere. If we entered the ocean on the
Pacific coast from the beach, we would
gradually walk down an easy descent for
many miles, and the same is true of the
Atlantic. Almost Immediately the light
fades, so that when at a depth of five
hundred feet it is comparatively dark
and intensely cold. Deeper we descend
the sunlight gradually fading, until at a
depth of quarter of mile the darkness
is intense so far as the sun is concerned.
In shallow water we have passed
through the region of abundant life.
Along the shore are schools of porpoises,
immense whales that occasionally ven-
ture far below the surface, and num-
Der of air breathing fishlike animals that
are kept near the surface by their struc-
ture and requirements. Here are schools
of fsh-salmon and sardines; and pass
ing is a migrating herd of seals. Deeper
we pass and leave them behind, descend
ing to depth of 1900 feet in darkness
! profound. An electric light would show
singular change. Many of the fish are
of gay colors, and could we whisk one to
the surface it's eyes would be popping
from it's head when it arrived, from the
sudden change.
Strange animals inhabit this region,
and the deeper we go the more remark
able they appear, and finally at mile or
SO they fairly compel our admiration.
Here are scarlet scrimps; crabs on silt,
like legs; others that are blind; more
that carry their own lights, for long ago
we saw living stare, moons and comets
in this abysmal region that serve vari-
ETY. of purposes in the.economy of nat.
ure. Everywhere there is life. Every
drop of water is alive; and standing in
this strange region, at depth of mile
or so we find ourselves in rainstorm be-
meath the sea. All about are countless
objects dropping upon us, invisible to
the eye. but so result-producing in the
aggregate that the raindrops pile and
heap up in such masses that with these
that die on the bottom, they round off
the tops of submarine hills and mouns
tains, fill up the valleys, and the thick
gelatinous ooze through which we have
walked with so much difficulty is the
visible result of the rain. In brief. we
are in the region of the globigerina ooze
"a condition found in great depths. but
not always in the greatest. 1t has been
estimated that if lime -secreting organ
isms are as numerous down to depth
of six hundred feet as they are near the
surface, there would be more than six
teen tons of calcareous shells or carbon
ate of lime in the uppermost one hun
81 - nile Off he