§595,596. THE BASIN AND BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 321 



bottom is covered with blue water, so long must the deep fur- 

 rows and strong contrasts in the solid crust below stand out bold, 

 ragged, and grandly. Nothing can fill up the hollows there ; no 

 agent now at work, that we know of, can descend into its depths, 

 and level off the floors of the sea. But it now seems that we for- 

 got the myriads of animalculee that make the surface of the. sea 

 sparkle and glow with life : they are secreting from its surface 

 solid matter for the very purpose of filling up those cavities be- 

 low. These little marine insects build their habitations at the 

 surface, and when they die, their remains, in vast multitudes, sink 

 down and settle upon the bottom. They are the atoms of which 

 mountains are formed — plains spread out. Our marl-beds, the 

 clay in our river-bottoms, large portions of many of the great 

 basins of the earth, are composed of the remains of just such lit- 

 tle creatures as these, which the ingenuity of Brooke has enabled 

 us to fish up from the depth of nearly four miles (twenty thou- 

 sand feet) below the sea-level. These Foraminifera^ therefore, 

 when living, may have been preparing the ingredients for the 

 fruitful soil of a land that some earthquake or upheaval, in ages 

 far away in the future, may be sent to cast up from the bottom of 

 the sea for man's use. 



595. The study of these "sunless treasures," recovered with so 

 The study of them ^uch ingcuuity from the rich bottom of the sea, 

 profitable. suggcsts ucw vicws conccming the physical econo- 

 my of the ocean. It not only leads us into the workshops of the 

 inhabitants of the sea — shows us through their nurseries and cem- 

 eteries, and enables us to study their economy — but it conducts 

 us into the very chambers of the deep. Our investigations go to 

 show that the roaring waves and the mightiest billows of the 

 ocean repose, not upon hard or troubled beds, but upon cushions 

 of still water ; that every where at the bottom of the deep sea 

 the solid ribs of the earth are protected, as with a garment, from 

 the abrading action of its currents, and the cradle of its restless 

 waves is lined by a stratum of water at rest, or so nearly at rest 

 that it can neither wear nor move the lightest bit of drift that 

 once lodges there. 



596. The tooth of running water is very sharp. See how the 

 The abrasion of cur- Hudsou has eat through the Highlands, and the 

 rents. Niagara cut its way through laver after layer of the 



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