666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



baster. ... If an immense city of ruined alabaster palaces can be 

 imagined, of every variety of shape and tint, and composed of huge 

 piles of buildings grouped together, with long lanes or streets winding 

 irregularly through them, some faint idea may be formed of the 

 beauty and grandeur of the spectacle." 



Dredging and trawling in the Antarctic Ocean have not been exten- 

 sive. The Challenger Expedition penetrated to 66 south latitude, and 

 dredged and sounded frequently. The temperature of the surface- 

 water ranged from 29*5 to 34*5, while at 200 fathoms it varied from 

 30 to 35'5. Wherever the dredge or trawl was used, quantities 

 of stones, rounded and polished, of basalt and other rocks, were 

 brought to the surface, dropped to the sea-bottom, presumably by ice- 

 bergs. Life is not abundant, but what exists seems related to that of 

 the northern ocean. Ross, in 1840, dredged in 1,620 feet in latitude 

 73, and found several forms of life, of which he says : " It was inter- 

 esting among these creatures to recognize several that I had been in 

 the habit of taking in equally high northern latitudes ; and, although 

 contrary to the general belief of naturalists " (quite modified in the 

 past ten years, however), " I have no doubt that, from however great a 

 depth we may be able to bring up the mud and stones of the bed of 

 the ocean, we shall find them teeming w r ith animal life ; the extreme 

 pressure at the greatest depths does not appear to affect these creat- 

 ures. Hitherto we have not been able to determine this point beyond 

 a thousand fathoms, but from that depth several shell-fish have been 

 brought up with the mud" (volume i, page 202). 







SOME ECONOMICS OF NATURE. 



By Dr. ANDEEW WILSON. 



A MONG the views of living Nature, and indeed of the inorganic 

 --*- universe as well, which receive tacit acceptance and sanction 

 from ordinary thinkers, there are certain phases deemed incontroverti- 

 ble in their plain, every-day demonstration. Before our eyes, for in- 

 stance, we see Madre Natura spending her wherewithal in apparent 

 thriftlessness and woful waste. The proverb, " Waste not, want not," 

 so thoroughly and repeatedly dinned into youthful ears, would seem to 

 have no application to the works and ways of the prodigal All-mother 

 that surrounds and encompasses us. The flower that "blooms unseen 

 and wastes its sweetness on the desert air " is a very mild illustration 

 of a nature-spirit which appeals in more forcible ways to the mind as 

 an example of needless contrivance, wasted effort, and useless prodi- 

 gality. We fly to Tennyson for that apt quotation concerning the 

 fifty seeds produced, and whereof only one comes to the full fruition 

 of its race. Every summer day shows us how true apparently the 



