Evening star., 1935-04-07
BY AUSTIN H. CLARK.

(Copyrisht. 1895, by the Associated Press.)
A timeless inf1nity; no days. no sea-
sons, no boundaries of any kind. no
heat, no cold. Such is the world to
many millions of living things.
These living things that know no
time or boundaries, heat or cold, are
strange fishes, shrimps, cuttle-fishes
and many other kinds of creatures
that live deep down In the open ocean,
far beneath the surface, though not
on the bottom.
Way down here there is no light,
for water is not nearly so transparent
as it seems, and the light of the sun
does not penetrate for very many
hundred feet beneath the surface.
Deeper down than the greatest depth
to which the sunlight penetrates
there is continuous darkness-per-
petual and unbroken night. So the
creatures living here know nothing of
night and day. They cannot know
that they are living in darkness. for
they have never seen the daylight.
No Seasonal Variations.
Because the water in which they
live is too deep to be affected by the
changing seasons it is always OF the
same temperature. At these depths
the water is what we would call cool,
or even cold. But that is because
we are familiar with warmer water
The creatures living here are not.
AS the water is always of the same
temperature. and their bodies prac-
tically of the same temperature as
the water, they know nothing of either
heat or cold, for they never have had
any experience with either. So in the
regions where they live, which Is all
the world to them. there is no Winter
and no Summer
Since they can know nothing of
days or nights, of Summer or of Win
ter. they cannot form any idea of
time In their little world time does
not exist. Neither do heat or cold
exist. And that is not all.
These creatures live suspended In
the water. never going to the bottom
and never coming up above their
proper depth They swim about in all
directions. For them the ocean has
no bottom and no surface. Nor has
1t any boundaries of any other kind.
To them the world is much the
same as the sky is to us on a dark
night, just boundless blackness with
points of light suspended in it and
occasionally bright trails of light
shooting through it. But to put our
selves really in the place Of one of
these creatures we must imagine our
selves star suspended in the heavens
instead of as standing on the firm
ground.
Have Light Organs.
Why should the world appear to
them as full of stars? Because in the
regions where they live very nearly
all the living things are provided with
light producing organs, like little
searchlights. or else as capable of pro-
ducing a bright light when alarmed
or otherwise excited. So the world
OF the deep sea is world Of blackness
punctuated with bright stars. novae
and variables, meteors, and suddenly
appearing slowly fading nebulae.
Why should all the creatures of the
deep sea either produce light them
selves, more or less like firef1ies, OF
else feed on other light producing ami
mails? Is the light that they produce
necessary for their well-being? If So
is the same sort of usually greenish
or blush light necessary for us? We
wish we knew. And we wish we knew
very many other things about these
strange creatures of the deep. As yet
We have only very imperfect idea OF
what they are. For every time this
region is investigated many new forms
OF animal life are brought to light.
It is a fascinating region. this time
less, changeless. infinite world of deep
sea animals. We can describe this
world in words, but we cannot say that
we really understand It.