1903.] on Some Problems and Methods of Oceanic Besearch. 365 



surface layer. If the mud be shaken with weak spirit of wine, fine 

 flakes separate like coagulated mucus ; and if a little of the mud in 

 which this viscid condition is most marked be placed in a drop of sea- 

 water under the microscope, we can usually see, after a time, an 

 irregular network of matter resembling white of egg, distinguishable 

 by its maintaining its outline and not mixing with the water. This 

 network may be seen gradually altering in form, and entangled 

 granules and foreign bodies change their relative positions. The 

 gelatinous matter is therefore capable of a certain amount of move- 

 ment, and there can be no doubt that it manifests the phenomena of 

 a very simple form of life. 



" To this organism, if a being can be so called which shows no 

 trace of differentiation of organs, consisting apparently of an amor- 

 phous sheet of a protein compound, irritable to a low degree and 

 capable of assimilating food. Professor Huxley has given the name 

 of Bathyhius haechelii. If this has a claim to be recognised as a 

 distinct living entity, exhibiting its mature and final form, it must 

 be referred to the simplest division of the shell-less rhizopoda, or if 

 we adopt the class proposed by Professor Haeckel, to the monera. 

 The circumstance which gives its special interest to Bathyhius is its 

 enormous extent; whether it be continuous in one vast sheet, or 

 broken up into circumscribed individual particles, it appears to 

 extend over a large part of the bed of the ocean ; and as no living 

 thing, however slowly it may live, is ever perfectly at rest, but is 

 continually acting and reacting with its surroundings, the bottom of 

 the sea becomes like the surface of the sea and of the land, — a 

 theatre of change, performing its part in maintaining the " balance 

 of organic nature." 



Although Bathyhius was discovered by Huxley it was Haeckel 

 who popularised it. His paper on ' Bathyhius uud das freie Proto- 

 plasma der Meerestiefen,'* is one of the most fascinating memoirs 

 that has ever been written. 



In reviewing Huxley's article, he says that the most important 

 fact brought out by Huxley's investigations is that the bottom of the 

 open ocean, even in the greatest depths, is covered with enormous 

 masses of free-living protoplasm which exists there in the simplest 

 and most original form, that is, it has no definite shape and is hardly 

 individualised. The fact that these enormous masses of living pro- 

 toplasm cover the great depths of the ocean in preponderating 

 quantity and under quite peculiar conditions, suggests so many re- 

 liections that a book could be written on them. Haeckel asks, " What 

 is this Bathyhius for an organism ? How did it come into being ? 

 What becomes of it ? What place are we to accord to it in the 

 economy of nature in these abysses ? " 



Haeckel recognised clearly the far-reaching importance of the 

 discovery. He concludes with the inquiry, " Have we not here the 



* Haeckel, ' Zeitschrift fiir biologische studien.' 



