The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-10-02

Several hundred kinds of deep-sea fishes had
been collected-some of them dredged from
depth of more than a mile-and it required
huge quarto to describe and picture them. From
this volume dates real knowledge of the
fishes of the abyssal deep The challenger
expedition was, inded, Columbus voyage" in
ichthyOogy; it opened new chapter in the his
tory of the science.
Since that time many deepsea exploring ex
petitions have been sent out by the various ma
lions. and hosts of other fishes have been
brought up from the oceans in all parts of the
world. More than a thousand species are now
known, and appreciate at it's full value
the richness and strangeness Of this fauna
Moreover, not only do we know the fishes them
selves, but, {, result of the scientific inVest
cations carried on by the various expeditions,
we now know a good deal of the physical con-
ditions under which they live, that can, in
a measure at least, explain the why and where
fore of their extraordinary characteristics
When think of life in the dee2-seas there
comes to mind. first of all, the enormous pres
which these creatures must withstand
This pressure becomes the greater the deeper we
go down. and in the profoundest depths it equals
thousands of pounds to the square inch The
result of this pressure is that the tissues OF these
fishes are tender and loosely knitted together.
When they brought up out of the dark
depths, and the great pressure under which they
live is removed the explosion of the gases with
in them buges out the eyes, and often blows out
the viscera through the mouth, while the mus
cles collapse, leaving them soft and habby like
also usually only a few inches in length and it
is probable that this reduction in size has come
about, to some extent at least from the great
pressure under which they live
Another important condition is the dmness of
light or even darkness in the profound depths
of the sea If we imagine ourselves descend
ing into the deep ocean, the light grow
DINNER and DINNER go down, until finally
a level is reached beyond which no light pene-
trates at all The entire vast depth below it, is
fha fish Twin in
this dim light, in total darkness, have been
profoundly modified by it. In some forms the
eyes have become very small and in some cases
have entirely disappeared. There fishes
in which the skin and scales of the body have
grown over the place where the eyes should
be- so that these fishes has been aptly
said "blind beyond redemption" Other forms,
on the other hand, have been affected in an
entirely different way. The eyes, instead of
growing smaller. have grown larger if in an
attempt to catch every feeting ray of light. In
some fishes this has been carried so far that the
eyes have become like enormous goggles
Most deep-sea fishes have luminous organs of
one kind another, so that they carry their
own light about with them In some the entire
body glimmers, the coating of slime which
exudes from the pores and lateral canals emit
ting a soft silvery glow In others rows OF mi
mute luminous organs run along the sides OF the
body or there are flashing light-spots the
head or face What wonderful sight would be
to US a small black fish fitting through the ST.
lence and darkness OF the deep with It's mead
2 lights and row of pores cleaning through the
darkness like some small ship passing through
the night with its portfolios all aglow! Some
deep-sea fishes have luminous organ at the
end of a feeler on the head.
pertinent question may be asked: How do
we know these fishes glow and glmmer, since
no human eye has beheld them in their
abyssal home? We know this partly from anal
ogy and partly from actual observation. When
one is in boat in the tropics. on one of those
ic I'm
and the black clouds hang so low that sky and
sea form one continuous blackness. then one
NAV see the glimmering fishes darting out of the
path of the boat. their forms, silvery and ghost
like outlined for one moment against the black
ness of the sea- This effect is chiefly due to
the oxidizing of the Shiny secretion covering
their bodies Why shall we not believe. then,
that in deep-sea fishes a similar phenomenon
takes place. particularly in many of them
o.at, - u1ANo lac MAI IIEl market as