THE BASIN AND BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 313 



argued that there is hfe at the bottom of the deep sea; the 

 American (§ 587), that there is only death and repose there. 



607. " The other argmnent," says Ehrenberg, "for hfe in the 

 i^hrenberg's state- deep which I havo cstabhshod is the sm-prising 

 inentofthem. quantity of new forms which are wanting in other 

 parts of the sea. If the bottom were nothmg but the sedmient 

 of the troubled sea, like the fall of snow in the air, and if the bio- 

 hthic curves of the bottom were nothmg else than the product 

 of the currents of the sea which heap up the flakes, similarly to 

 the glaciers, there would necessarily be much less of unknown and 

 pecuhar forms in the depths. The surface and the borders of the 

 sea are much more productive and much more extended than the 

 depths ; hence the forms peculiar to the depths should not be per- 

 ceived. The great quantity of peculiar forms and of soft bodies 

 existing in the innumerable carapaces, accompanied by the observa- 

 tion of the number of unknowns, increasing with the dejjths — these 

 are the arguments which seem to me to hold firmly to the opinion 

 of stationary life at the bottom of the deep sea." 



608. The anti-biotics, on the other hand, quoted the observa- 

 The anti-biotic view, tious of Profossor Forbcs, who has shoA^Ti that, the 

 deeper you go m the littoral waters of the Mediterranean, the fewer 

 are the living forms. 



609. As for the number of unkno^vns increasing with the depth 

 Their arguments (§ 607), they couteud that the tides, the currents, and 

 based on the tides, ^j^g agitatiou of the wavos all reach to the bottom iii 

 shallow water ; that they sweep and scour from it the feculences 

 of the sea, as these insects remams may be called, and bear them off 

 mto deep water. After reaching a certaui depth, then this sedi- 

 ment passes into the stratum of quiet waters that underlie the 

 roaring waves and tossing currents of the surface, and through 

 this stratum these organic remains slowly find their way to the 

 final place of repose as ooze at the bottom of the deep sea. Through 

 such agencies the ooze of the deep sea ought, said the anti-biotics, 

 to be richer than that of shallow water with infusorial remains ; 

 mud and all the light sedimentary matter of river waters are de- 

 posited in the deep pools, and not in the shoals and rapids of our 

 fresh-water streams; so we ought, reasoned they of this school, 

 to have the most abundant deposits at the bottom of the deep sea. 



610. The anti-biotics referred to the antiseptic properties of sea 

 oji^tj^e^^nuseptic water, and told how it is customary ^dth mariners, 

 vater. ^ ' especially with the masters of the saihng packets be- 



