1861.] Dr. Walliph on the Deep- Sea Bed. 299 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 25, 1861. 

 The Rev. John Barlow, M.A. F.R.S. Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Dr. G. C. Wallich, 



On the Nature of the Deep-sea Ded, and the Presence of Animal Life 

 at vast Depths in the Ocean. 



Our first clear glance at the floor of the ocean may be said to date 

 from the period at which submarine telegraphy was first undertaken. 

 For although the depth of the sea has been approximatively ascertained 

 over widely extended areas, in the course of the various surveys con- 

 ducted under the auspices of the British; the United States, and the 

 Dutch Governments, hardly any previous attempts have been made 

 systematically to investigate the characters and composition of its bed. 

 In the absence of any special object, such attempts would have been 

 far too costly and difficult to be practicable. It has been ascertained, 

 however, that the floor of the ocean is but the reflex, as it were, of the 

 dry land ; that it is in no place unfathomable ; that along its deeper 

 portions certain muddy deposits are to be met with, in many cases 

 made up, more or less entirely, of minute calcareous shells belonging 

 to one of thfi most simple order of beings with which we are acquainted ; 

 and that together with these are also to be found, but in comparatively 

 speaking small quantity, the minute flinty skeletons of other organisms 

 derived both from the animal and vegetable kingdoms. But no con- 

 clusive evidence has been produced to show whether any or all of 

 these organisms normally lived and perished, at the profound depths 

 from whence they were obtained by the sounding lead ; or whether, 

 having inhabited distant, and perhaps shallower seas, their dead remains 

 alone, after being transported by currents or other agencies, had 

 gradually subsided into the deep hollows of the ocean. Taking into 

 consideration the very important part played by these organisms in the 

 structure of the earth's crust, that vast strata have in ages gone by been 

 built up of them, and that similar strata are at the present time being 

 deposited along the beds of existing seas, the investigation of these 

 questions becomes of the highest consequence, as bearing on the suc- 

 cessful establishment of ocean telegraphy. 



The distribution of animal life in the upper waters of the sea is 

 determined by climate, by the composition of its waters, the nature of 



