§ 589-591. THE BASIN AND BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 319 



589. The first noticeable thing the microscope gives of these 

 They belong to the spccimcns is, that all of them are of the animal, not 

 v?grabie°SmL*mi o^e of thc mineral or vegetable kingdom. The 

 kingdom. 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 

 occupied on the surface of our planet by the different families of 

 animals and their remains is inversely as the size of the individu- 

 al. The smaller the animal, the greater the space occupied by his 

 remains. Though not invariably the case, yet this rule, to a cer- 

 tain extent, is true, and will, therefore, answer our present pur- 

 poses, which are simply those of illustration. Take the elephant 

 and his remains, 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. 



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

 Quiet reigns in the ^^al facts that Brookc's apparatus fished up from 

 depths oAhe Bea. ^-^^ bottom of the dccp sca. Bailey, with his mi- 

 croscope (§ 587), could not detect a single particle of sand or 

 gravel among these little mites of shells. They were from the 

 great telegraphic plateau (§ 585), and the inference is that there, if 

 any where, the waters of the sea are at rest. There was not mo- 

 tion enough to abrade these very delicate organisms, nor current 

 enough to sweep them about and mix up with them a grain of 

 the finest sand, nor the smallest particle of gravel torn from the 

 loose beds of debris that here and there strew the bottom of the sea. 

 This plateau is not too deep for the wire to sink down and rest 

 upon, yet it is not so shallow that currents, or icebergs, or any 

 abrading force can derange the wir^e after it is once lodged there. 



591. As Professor Bailey remarks (§ 587), the animalculse, whose 

 I3 there life in them? rcmaius Brookc's lead has brought up from the 

 bottom of the deep sea, probably did not. live or die there. They 

 would have had no light there, and, had they lived there, their 

 frail little texture would have been subjected, in its growth, to 

 the pressure of a column of water twelve thousand feet high, 

 equal to the weight of four hundred atmospheres. They prob- 

 ably lived and died near the surface, where they could feel the 



