THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 253 



constitute in their myriads of multitudes one of the " wonders of the 

 deep." 



492. It is the custom of Captain Foster, of the American ship 

 Insects of the sea— Grarrick, "who is one of my most patient of ob- 

 their abundance. gervcrs, to amuse himscK by making drawings in 

 his abstract log of the curious animalculse which, with the micro- 

 scope, he finds in the surface water alongside ; and though he has 

 been following the sea for many years, he never fails to express 

 his wonder and amazement at the immense numbers of li\'ing 

 creatures that the microscope reveals to him in sea water. Hitherto 

 his examinations related only to the surface waters, but in the log 

 now before me he went into the depths, and he was more amazed 

 than ever to see how abmidantly the waters even there bring forth. 

 '' January 28th, 1855. In examining animalculae in sea water, I 

 have," says he, " heretofore used surface water. This afternoon, 

 after pumping for some time from the stern pump seven feet below 

 the surface, I examined the water, and was sm-prised to find that 

 the fluid was literaUy alive with animated matter, embracing beau- 

 tiful varieties." Of some he says, "Numerous heads, pm-ple, red, 

 and variegated." There is wonderful meaning in that word abun- 

 dantly, 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 fmnished by Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Eoyal of 

 Edinbm-gh, dm-ing his voyage in 1856 on an astronomical expedi- 

 tion to TeneriSe. On that occasion he fell in with the annual 

 harvest of medusae (§ 160) that are sent by the Gulf Stream to 

 feed the whales. His description of them (§ 161) has already 

 been quoted. According to the computation made by him, it ap- 

 pears that each one of these sea-nettles, as they are sometimes 

 called, had in his stomachs not less than five or six millions of 

 flinty shells, the materials for v/hich their builders had collected 

 from the silicious matter which the rains washed out from the 

 moimtains, and which the rivers bring down to the sea. The 

 medusae have the power of sucking in the sea water slowly, di'op 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 vrater, 

 they strain it, and collect the httle diatomes. Imagine, then, how 

 many drops of water in the sea, which, though loaded with diatomes, 

 never pass through the stomach of the medusae. Imagine how 

 many the whale must gulp down with every mouthful of medusa?. 

 Imagine hov/ deep and thickly the bottom of the sea must, during 



