1861.] on Animal Life at vast Depths in the Ocean. 303 



the broad glare of day ; and this is, no doubt, the reason why vege* 

 table life in the ocean attains its final lirait in depth so much sooner 

 than animal life. And yet, considering how very unexpectedly animal 

 life has been proved to exist deep down in the ocean — as I shall imme- 

 diately show, far removed beyond those conditions which had hitherto 

 been considered indispensable — we ought perhaps to pause before we 

 assert that the same plastic skill which has so constituted certain 

 creatures as to admit of their inhabiting the deep abysses of the ocean, 

 may not, in like manner, have so constituted some of the vegetable 

 organisms as to be capable of living under similar conditions. 



The Foraminifera are the organisms to which reference has been 

 made as performing so very important a part in the formation of certain 

 strata on the earth's crust. They occur abundantly in all existing seas. 

 They are to be met with in a fossil state, not only in chalk, but in 

 almost all marine sedimentary strata ; as, for instance, in the hard 

 limestones and marbles. The recent Foraminifera may therefore be 

 looked upon as the oldest liviug representatives of any known class of 

 organisms. 



In the mud, or " ooze " as it has been termed, which is brought up 

 from great depths in many parts of the open sea, immense assemblages 

 of Foraminifera are to be met with, chiefly belonging to one species 

 however. In the absence of examinations conducted immediately on 

 their being brought up to the surface by the sounding machine, it is not 

 surprising that the question as to their occurrence in a living, or only in 

 a dead state, should have remained undecided : most of the authorities 

 who have written on the subject being of opinion that they do not live 

 at great depths, but that their shells and remains have drifted to the 

 positions in which they were found from shallower waters, or have sub- 

 sided from the upper strata of the ocean. Professor Huxley was one 

 of the very few who leant to the more correct opinion ; he having 

 declared, that although far from regarding it as proved that the Globi- 

 gerina (the species referred to) live at these depths, the balance of 

 probabilities seemed to him to incline in that direction. Other writers 

 have offered surmises on the subject ; but these, in the absence of any- 

 thing like substantial proofs, were, of course, only estimated at what 

 they were worth. 



The difficulty is how to determine the point conclusively. For it 

 seems legitimate to infer, that if these organisms are specially adapted 

 to exist under conditions differing so widely from those present at or 

 near the surface, the very circumstance of removing them from one set 

 of conditions to the other, would inevitably destroy their vitality, and 

 perhaps their normal structure, before it could become practicable to 

 subject them to microscopic analysis. Nor is the difficulty an imagi- 

 nary one. For, taking into consideration the entirely altered circum- 

 stances in which these creatures must find themselves placed when 

 brought to the surface, locomotion, or even the protrusion of their 

 filamentary appendages, could hardly be expected. The mere existence 

 of the fleshy parts within their shells, and that too in an apparently 



