THE TEEMING LIFE OF THE WATERS 



it as it really is, a vast, untiring womb from which 

 existences issue unceasingly. 



The atmosphere contains beings that are able to 

 live and move in it, varying according to place and 

 time. These beings are forced, constrained by the 

 force of gravity, to rest occasionally before they set 

 off again. Its giants are great birds like the eagle, 

 the condor, the albatross. The dust carried about by 

 the winds is mainly composed of the sterile debris 

 from rocks and stones. How very different is the 

 realm of the waters. Throughout its length and 



Fig. 9. — Sail-bearing Jelly-fish, showing the keel-shaped float with 

 little cylindrical polyps underneath. Natural size. 



breadth it is packed with a host of creatures which 

 dwell in it permanently, float in it continually. Its 

 giants are great monsters: cachalots and other whales, 

 sharks, greater in size than the hugest of land animals. 

 Its dust, the dust borne by the currents, is a dust 

 composed of living beings which reproduce them- 

 selves, whose multiple and successive generations take 

 from the surrounding water only the materials of 

 which they are constructed. Its wealth, its might, 

 are in striking contrast to the niggardliness, we might 

 almost say the meanness, of its rival, the atmosphere. 

 Both maintain life, but by means and with results very 

 different. 



The animal and floating population of the waters, 

 16 



