832 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



ocean's bed has been found every where, wherever Brooke's 

 sounding-rod has touched, to be soft, consisting almost entire- 

 ly of the remains of infusoria. The Gulf Stream has literally 

 strewed the bottom of the Atlantic with these microscopic shells ; 

 for the Coast Survey has caught up th6 same infusoria in the 

 Gulf of Mexico and at the bottom of the Gulf Stream off the 

 shores of the Carolinas, that Brooke's apparatus brought up from 

 the bottom of the Atlantic off the Irish coast. 



617. The unabraded appearance of these shells, and the almost 

 Their suggestions, total abscucc amoug thcm of any detritus from the 



sea or foreign matter, suggest most forcibly the idea of perfect re- 

 pose at the bottom of the deep sea. Some of the specimens are 

 as pure and as free from the sand of the sea as the snow-flake 

 that falls, when it is calm, upon the lea, is from the dust of the 

 earth. Indeed, these soundings suggest the idea that the sea, like 

 the snow-cloud with its flakes in a calm, is always letting fall upon 

 its bed showers of these microscopic shells ; and we may readily 

 imagine that the " sunless wrecks," which strew its bottom, are, 

 in the process of ages, hid under this fleecy covering, presenting 

 the rounded appearance which is seen over the body of the trav- 

 eler who has perished in the snow-storm. The ocean, especially 

 within and near the tropics, swarms with life. The remains of 

 its myriads of moving things are conveyed by currents, and scat- 

 tered and lodged in the course of time all over its bottom. This 

 process, continued for ages, has covered the depths of the ocean as 

 with a mantle, consisting of organisms as delicate as the macled 

 frost, and as light in the water as is down in air. 



618. The waters of the Mississippi and the Amazon, together 

 The work of readap- with all thc strcams and rivers of the world, both 



ta tion, how carried , -, niii- i i' ^ j-j- p 



on. great and small, hold m solution large quantities oi 



lime, soda, iron, and other matter. They discharge annually into 

 the sea an amount of this soluble matter, which, if precipitated and 

 collected into one solid mass, would no doubt surprise and aston-. 

 ish the boldest speculator with its magnitude. This soluble mat- 



*' The above is only a preliminary notice of the soundings referred to. I shall pro- 

 ceed without delay to describe and figure the highly interesting and novel forms 

 which I have detected, and I hope soon to have them ready for publication. 



"Yours, very respectfully, J. W. Bailey. 



" Lieutenant M. F. Mauey, National Observatory, Washington City, D. C." 



