DAVEY JONES' GOBLINS 343 



the inhabitants of this vertical column of water. 

 My success was far beyond my expectations, and 

 comparable only to the results of intensive work 

 in the quarter of a square mile of jungle in British 

 Guiana. 



Within the ten days from May 25th to June 3rd 

 I captured one hundred and thirty-six species of 

 fish in this one spot, and at least fifty species of 

 crustaceans. 



The thought of conveying in a single chapter any 

 clear conception of the life at varying depths which 

 I discovered even at this single Station, is like 

 trying to reduce the sights and activities of a 

 twenty-ring circus to a single paragraph. That 

 must be left to another entire volume. Here only 

 one thing is possible, — to present a few individual 

 vignettes, each of which will give some dominant 

 idea of deep sea life. 



The surface fauna is visible to us from the air and 

 therefore intelligible. Here is warmth and sun- 

 light, and even we ourselves can dive a little way 

 into the water and live. Here are plants and ani- 

 mals, courtships and deaths. The plants grow in 

 the sunlight and the animals feed on the plants, and 

 in course of time die and their bodies begin slowly 

 to sink downward. We can follow them only in 

 imagination, using the knowledge gained by nets 

 and trawls, thermometers and photographic plates. 

 The sunlight gradually loses its power as we sink, 

 the red rays going first — and soon we are in the 

 violet blueness of moonlight. It is cooler, and there 

 is a weight of water which at the surface we never 



