THE BASIN OF THE ATLANTIC. 255 



The results already obtained are of very great interest, and have 



many important bearings on geology and zoology 



" I hope you will induce as many as possible to collect sound- 

 ings with Brooke's lead in all parts of the world, so that we can 

 map out the animalcula^ as you have the whales. Get your whal- 

 ers also to collect mud from pancake ice, etc., in the Polar re- 

 gions : this is always full of interesting microscopic forms." 



718. These little mites of shells seem to form but a slender 

 clew indeed by which the chambers of the deep are to be thread- 

 ed, and mysteries of the ocean revealed ; yet the results are sug- 

 gestive ; in right hands and to right minds, they are guides to both 

 light and knowledge. 



719. The first noticeable thing the microscope gives of these 

 specimens is, that all of them are of the animal, not one of the 

 mineral kingdom. 



720. The ocean teems with life. We know. Of the four ele- 

 ments of the old philosophers — fire, earth, air, and water — perhaps 

 the sea most of all abounds with living creatures. The space oc- 

 cupied on the surface of our planet by the different families of an- 

 imals and their remains is inversely as the size of the individual. 

 The smaller the animal, the greater the space occupied by his re- 

 mains. Though not invariably the case, yet this rule, to a certain 

 extent, is true, and will, therefore, answer our present purposes, 

 which are simply those of illustration : Take the elephant and 

 his reraaiiis, or a microscopic animal and his, and compare them. 

 The contrast, as to space occupied, is as striking as that of the 

 coral reef or island with the dimensions of the whale. The grave- 

 yard that would hold the corallines is larger than the grave-yard 

 that would hold the elephants. 



721. We notice another practical bearing in this group of phys- 

 ical facts that Brooke's apparatus fished up from the bottom of the 

 deep sea. Bailey, with his microscope (§ 717), could not detect 

 a single particle of sand or gravel among these little mites of 

 shells. They were from the great telegraphic plateau (§ 714), and 

 the inference is that there, if any where, the waters of the sea are 

 at rest. There was not motion enough there to abrade these very 

 delicate organisms, nor current enough to sweep them about and 



