New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-03-25
WONDERS UNDER WAVES.
CURIOUS AND MARVELLOUS FORMS OF
DEEP SEA LIFE.

BY Professor Charles F. Holder. author OF Along
Florida Reef etc.
To the layman the reader who has not followed
the Investigations of students OF the deep it is
difficult to realize how life can exist where the
pressure is so great that 1t is compared to train
Of cars loaded with pig iron bearing down upon
mans shoulders, many tons to the square inch.
Neither are the conditions of life readily understood
at a depth where a 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 brokensthe
quiet of ages.
Such region. finding It's extreme depth in five
or six miles, does not appear to offer many induce
ments TO the investigator; yet It has been most
fruitful field, and the discoveries which have been
made during the last few years have entirely
changed public sentiment regarding 1t.
The deep sea- while forbidding and unnviting,
has its inhabitants that are we'll adapted 10 the
strange conditions within its borders where eterhal
darkness supposed to reign we nave every
reason to believe that there is at times WONDERFUL
assembage of light gvers. who iumine the DARK
unfathomed caves of the ocean and change It's
a5ysmal regions into scenes of weird splendor.
II the ocean bed, which is popularity supposed TO
occupy three-fourths Of the worlds surface should
suddenly be laid bare should In the main mo
duplicate OF terrestrial conditions. The bed OF the
present ocean has at some time been dry iano mas
been cut by wind and weather, washed into river
beds by streams. thrown up by volcanic acuoh INTO
lions the crust 1t has undergone all the changes
of the land with which we familiar, and In
measure resembles 1t.
BEYOND THE LIGHT OF DAY.
To make the ocean bed a reality Will ASK the
reader to imagine that he is equipped with d
divers armor capable of resisting pressure anu
accompany me into the deep sea. AS we descend
into the blue depths realize that we nave
entered aotber world where to all intents and pur-
poses water is the atmosphere. II we entered the
ocean on the Pacific Coast from the peach we
would gradually walk down an easy descent FOR
MANY miles: and the is true of the Atlantic
Almost Immediately the light fades, so that when
at q depth OF five hundred feet it is comparatively
Ozark and intensely cold. Deeper we descend the
sunlight gradually fading. until at depth OF
quarter of mile the darkness is intense SO lai DIS
the Is concerned.
In shallow water we have passed through the
region of abundant life. Along the shore are
schools OF porpoises, immense whales that occa-
sonally venture far below the surface and num-
Der of air breathing fshlike animals that are kept
near the surface by their structure and require
ments Here are schools Of fsh-salmon and sar-
dimes; and passing is a migrating herd OF seals.
Deeper pass and leave them behind descending
to depth of 1900 feet in darkness profound An
electric light would show singular change. Many
OF the fish of gay colors, and could we whisk
one 10 the surface it's eyes would be popping from
it's head when 1t arrived, from the sudden change
Strange animals nhabit this region, and the
deeper we go the remarkable they appear,
and finally a mile they fairly compel our
admiration. Here scarlet shTimps; crabs on
stIltlike legs; others that blind; more that
carry their own lights for long ago we saw living
stars moons and in this abysmal region
that variety of purposes in the economy of
nature Everywhere there is life. Every drop of
water is alive and standing in this strange region,
at a depth Of a mile so find ourselves in
rainstorm beneath the sea. All about are count
less objects dropping upon invisible to the eye.
but result producing in the aggregate that the
raindrops pile and heap up in such masses that
with those that die the bottom they round eff
the tops of submarine hills and mountains fill up
the valleys and the thick gelatinous through
which we have walked with much difficulty is
the visible result of the rain. In brief We are In
the region OF the globgerina condition
found in great depths, but not always in the great
est. 1t has been estimated that II lime secreting
organisms are as numerous down a depth of six
hundred feet as they the surface there
would be than sixteen tons of calcareous
shells or carbonate of lime in the uppermost one
hundred fathoms of every square mile of ocean
The rainstorm is the falling of these countless
shells to the bottom. They ever dying; the
animal is destroyed and the little shell sinks pill
ing up at the bottom and forming the well known
globigerina ooze. The increasing weight grinds I'D
the lower stratum into an impalpabe powder and
slowly piles up the bottom forming a mass which
IL elevated above the surface would resemble the
chalk cliffs of Dover, which were formed at the
BRILLIANT ANIMAL LIGHT.
Descending into deeper depths we still find life
Many of the fish Blind nearly all have phos-
phorescent lights, and their shapes and forms are
strange and uncenny. Sunlight does not reach
below one thousand fathoms: beyond this no plant
life exists and the various forms of life prev upon
one another. Among the deep fish especially
there is constant warfare.
Assuming that we are walking on the ocean hot
tom at the depth of over a mile move cautious
~ along In water Icy cold, and suddenly
fronted with blaze of light and find ourselves in
field of light givers. Imagine cornfeld with
cleaning with light and waving gently to and fro
Such an appearance the fields of umbeluara pre-
sent. on st. Vincent the Challenger dredged in a
field f of light dn giving ing g0rs9nas with stems about
one emitting a vivid lilac coored light
weird fish are passing which we recognize ans as
forms that have been dredged from great depths
the chas modon dashes by emitting light ef from o its
own body, and wonder of wonders! We see it
it like a glove. It's jaws by a special ar
rangement separate, and the mouth is cavern of
poses we see upon its head two large lights. One
green rays which have some hidden meaning in the
economy OF nature Some of the fish seem to be
literal mouths. Such is the eurypharnyx, pe-
can fish. The mouth is enormous, the bones of the
so e bs TO the 5y joints
A GURUS black fish, called echiostoma has its
low the eyes While there are several others at
various portions of the head. At depth OF two
we shall find others more remarkable. hdeous
snakeke creature is stomias, with pointed teeth
the lights that are in dark night in the
car window as the train dashes along This fish
Bsnsath our feet are are, forms equally weird. the
phosphorescent crabs, and sea fans that emit golden