The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-03-30
WONDERS UNDER WAVES.
Curious and Marvellous Forms of Deep
Sea Life.

| Curious and Marvellous Forms of Deep
| Sea Life.
TO the layman, the reader who has
not followed the Investigations OF stu
dents of the deep sea, it Is difficult to
realize how life can exist where the
| pressure is so great that it is compared
to a train of cars loaded with pig iron
bearing down upon mans shoulders,
or many tons to the square inch.
Neither are the conditions Of life readily
understood at a depth where ray OF
| sunlight never has reached, where the
| eternal night apparently reisns where
| the temperature is nearly at the freez-
ing point, and where, in all probability
a Silence so profound exists that sound
has never broken the quiet of ages.
Such a region, finding ito extreme
depth in five or six miles, does not APP
pear to offer many inducements to the
investigator; yet 1t has been most
| fruitful field and the discoveries which
have been made during the last few
years have entirely changed public SEN
timent regarding it.
| The deep sea, while forbidding and
uninvitng, has its inhabitants that are
| well adapted to the strange conditions
within its borders, where eternal dark
ness was supposed to reign, We have
every reason to believe that there Is at
times a wonderful assemblage of light
givrs, who illuinine 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
bare we should in the main find a du-
plieate of terrestrial conditions. The
bed of the present ocean has ae' some
time been dry land, has been cut by
wind and weather, washed into river
beds by streams, thrown up by volcanic
action into mountains, or elevated and
depressed by oscillations of the crust.
1t has undergone all the changes Of the
land with which we are familiar, and in
q measure resembles it,
To make the ocean bed a reality, I
will ask the reader to imagine that he
Is equipped with a divers armor capa-
BILE of resisting pressure and accompany
me into the deep sea. AS we descend
into the blue depths we ralize that we
have entered another world. where to
all intents and purposes water is the
atmosphere. 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 mmedi-
ately the light fades, so that when at
depth Of five hundred feet it is compar-
atively dark and intensely cold. Deeper
we descend, the sunlight gradually
fading, until at a depth of quarter of
a mile the darkness is intense, so for 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
structure and requirements. Here are
schools of fish-ealmon and sardlnes;
and passing is "a migrating herd Of
seals. Deeper we pass and leave them
behind, descending to depth of fifteen
hundred feet in darkness profound. An
electric light would show singular
CibdHSe' hdIy Dl tllG uSil are VI say
colors, and could we whisk one to the
surface it's eyes would be popping from
it's head when it arrived, from the sud-
den change
Strange animals inhabit this region,
and the deeper we go the more remark
able they appear, and finally at a mile
or so they fairly compel our admiration.
Here are scarlet shrimps; crabs on stilt-
like legs; others that are blind; more
that carry their own lights, for long
age we saw living stars, moons and
comets in this abysmal region that serve
a variety of purposes in the economy of
nature. Everywhere there in life.
Every drop of water IS alive, and
standing in this strange region, at a
depth of mile or so, we find ourselves
ill rainstorm beneath the sea. All
about are countless objects dropping
upon us, invisible to the eye but so re-
suit producing in the aggregate that the
raindrops pile and heap up in such
masses that with those that die on the
bottom they round off the tops Of sub
marine hills and mountains, 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. If 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 organisms are as