64 



Miscellaneous. 



may perhaps be worth consideration. At all events the usual 

 theory, that all animals ultimately depend for their nourishment on 

 vegetable life, seems not to be applicable to the main ocean, and 

 consequently not to one-half of the earth's surface. 



" J. GwYN Jeffreys." 



It is quite unnecessary for me to criticise the remarkable opinions 

 here offered regarding the Sargasso tract, the chemistry of decom- 

 posing animal matter in the ocean, and the relative proportions of 

 land and water on the globe. It will be seen that they are uniqiie. 

 But as Mr. Jeffreys has entered the lists as an authority on deep-sea 

 lore, and now claims as his own the discovery that plant-life is 

 absent in the deeper regions of the ocean, and the refutation of the 

 theory (as applied to the inhabitants of the sea) that " all animals 

 ultimately depend for their nourishment on vegetable life,'' I must 

 be excused if I endeavour to show that he has either forgotten what, 

 at a not very remote period, he professed to have read of my wri- 

 tings on these subjects, or that, not having forgotten them, he has 

 nevertheless found it expedient, for some unaccountable reason, to 

 repudiate them, and with them his own published estimate regard- 

 ing their accuracy. 



The absence of all living vegetation, even of the lowest types, in 

 the deeper abysses of the ocean, and the vital process whereby the 

 nutrition of the lowest animal forms is secured in failure of any- 

 thing Uke a rudimentary digestive apparatus, such as is to be found 

 in the higher orders of llhizopods, was dwelt on by me in my ' Notes 

 on the presence of Animal Life at great depths in the Ocean,' pub- 

 lished in Nov. 1860, p. 27, — in my ' North-Atlantic Sea-bed,' pub- 

 lished in 1862, pp. 130-132, — in a note which appeared in the ' An- 

 nals & Mag. Nat. Hist.' for Aug. 1863, p. 166,— and in two papers 

 contributed by me to the ' Monthly Journal of Microscopical Science,' 

 for Jan. 1869, pp. 39-40, and April of the same year, pp. 231-233. 

 Reference to these pubhcations will therefore show that Mr. Jef- 

 freys's statements are, to say the least of them, somewhat behind 

 the times. 



But to prove that Mr. Jeffreys cannot justly plead ignorance as 

 to what had been previously published by me on the subject, I invite 

 attention to two extracts from his " Reports on Dredgings," con- 

 tained in the ' Annals ' of the respective dates given below. 



' Annals,' Nov. 1866, p. 387. 



" Dr. Wallich, in his admirable and 

 ' philosophical treatise with whicli all 

 ' marine zoologists and geologists are, 

 ' or ought to be, familiar, believed tliat 

 'certain starfishes" &c. &c. "^.s to 

 ' the accuracy ofhia statements, no rea- 

 ' so7iable doubt can be entertained.'" 



' Annals,' Oct. 1868, p. .305. 



" Coccospheres and free Foramini- 

 " fera cover tlie bed of the Atlantic at 

 " enormous depths. The occurrence, 

 " therefore, of such organisms on the 

 " floor of the ocean at great deptlis 

 " does not prove that they ever lived 

 " there. / should rather be inclined to 

 '' helievc that they drojyped to the 

 " bottom when dead or after having 

 "passed through the stomachs of other 

 "animals which had fed 07i them." 



