540 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



acknowledge the eternal trntlis which the somewhat obscure, somewhat 

 graceful, myths of antiquity so often conceal. 



Fruitfulness is, according to universal experience as well as according 

 to the highest apprehensions of science, the chief attribute of water. 

 Without water the richest soil would remain absolutely barren, while 

 the water appears to be sufficient in itself alone to bring forth all kinds 

 of living beings. Wherever it collects and remains, even in small 

 quantity, life manifests itself in a thousand forms ; before the spring sun 

 has dried up the water in the ruts of our roads each of these has wit- 

 nessed generations of microscopic alg<T, rotatores, and lower Crustacea 

 to be born, grow, and die ; the smallest pond is a whole world wherein 

 representatives of the two organic realms and of the lour principal di- 

 visions of the animal kingdom contend together ; but what is this in 

 comparison with tlie jiicture which presents itself to our sight when 

 we direct it towards our brooks and rivers'? 



To see this organizing, life-producing energy which appears to be as- 

 signed to water in all its might, one must, however, turn his gaze toward 

 the sea; one will then not merely feel surprise but overpowering amaze- 

 ment. To produce the marvel, one need not go to the tropical zone, con- 

 cerning whose inconceivable fertilitv the sea-faring ones can narrate ; 

 our own coasts are sufficient for the iiupiirer. 



He will immediately be suri)rised by a striking fact. In the sea it is 

 not the loose bottom which corresponds to our arable land which proves 

 itself most fruitful, it is the rock. The harder and hrmer it is, the more 

 impenetrable it is to all that can be called roots, the more living beings 

 of both kingdoms it nourishes. From Belgium to Spain, Brittany's 

 rocky coast is incontestably the richest. It is on its unalterable, im- 

 penetrable granite that the uninterrupted belt of sea-weed extends 

 densest and broadest, Avhich gives the soda industry and agriculture an 

 importance sufficient to make up for all others ; it is here that all de- 

 presions, all little creeks with their bottoms covered with loose stones 

 transform themselves into shady valleys, where aigie of all kinds and 

 all sizes represent the mainland's moss, greensward, thicket, and 

 forest ; it is here also where the grass-eating animals, which lind 

 the most abundant nourishment in the most luxuriant vegetation, are 

 most numerous and most fruitful, and thereby themselves give the 

 richest nourishment to ilie greatest number of flesh-eating kinds. But 

 all takes place in the water, all is produced thereby and returns thereto. 

 The soil amounts to nothing, because the .starting point in the circle in 

 which life and death follow each other is always a simple lilant fastened 

 on the nalced rod: 



This evidence of Creative Power winch the water disi)lays in itself, 

 even to its smallest molecule, and which increases with the fluid masses, 

 must kindle the human soul. With this evidence stand in closest rela- 

 tion the cosmogenic speculations of different nations, likewise all the 

 theories of spontaneous generation which different men, of considerable 



