262 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



to find tliat the fluid was literally alive with animated matter, em- 

 bracing beautiful varieties." Of some he says, " Numerous heads, 

 purple, red, and variegated." There is wonderful meaning in 

 that word abundantly, as it stands recorded in that Book, and 

 as it is even at this day repeated by the great waters, a striking 

 instance of which has been furnished by Piazzi Smyth, the Astron- 

 omer Eoyal of Edinburgh, during his voyage in 1856 on an 

 astronomical expedition to Teneriffe. On that occasion he fell in 

 with the annual harvest of medusas (§ 160) that are sent by the 

 Gulf Stream to feed the whales. They were in the form of hol- 

 low gelatinous lobes, arranged in groups of five or nine, with an 

 orange vein down the centre of each lobe. Thus each animal 

 consisted of an aggregation of lobes, with an orange-colored vein 

 or stomach in each lobe. "Examining," says he, "in the micro- 

 scope, a portion of one of the orange veins, apparently the stom- 

 ach of the creature, it was found to be extraordinarily rich in 

 diatomes, and of the most bizarre forms, as stars, Maltese crosses, 

 embossed circles, semicircles, and spirals. The whole stomach 

 could hardly have contained less than seven hundred thousand ; 

 and when we multiply these by the number of lobes, and then by 

 the number of groups, we shall have some idea of the countless 

 millions of diatomes that go to make a feast for the medusse ; 

 some of the softest things in the world thus confounding and de- 

 vouring the hardest, the flinty -shelled diatomaceoe." Each one 

 of these sea-nettles, as they are sometimes called, had in his stom- 

 achs not less than five or six millions of these flinty shells, the 

 materials for which their builders had collected from the silicious 

 matter which the rains washed out from the mountains, and which 

 the rivers bring down to the sea. The medusae have the power 

 of sucking in the sea water slowly, drop by drop, at one end, and 

 of ejecting it at the other. From this they derive both food and 

 locomotion ; for in the passage of the water, they strain it and 

 collect the little diatomes. Imagine, then, how many drops of 

 water in the sea, which, though loaded with diatomes, never pass 

 through the stomach of the medus£e. Imagine how many the 

 whale must gulp down with every mouthful of medusas. Imag- 

 ine how deep and thickly the bottom of the sea must, during the 

 process of ages, have become covered with the flinty shells of these 

 little creatures. And then recollect the command which was 



