324 



AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



the foundations of the sea beyond the depth of two or three 

 thousand feet. Should future deep-sea soundings establish this 

 as a fact in other seas also, it will prove of the greatest value to 

 submarine telegraphy. What may bo the thickness of this 

 cushion of still water that covers the bottom of the deep sea is a 

 question of high interest, but we must leave it for future inves- 

 tigation. 



603. The conservators of the sea. — In Chapter X. (The Salts of the 

 Sea), I have endeavoured to show how sea-shells and marine 

 insects, may, by reason of the offices which they perform, be 

 regarded as compensations in that exquisite system of physical 

 machinery by which the harmonies of nature are preserved. 

 But the treasures of the lead and revelations of the microscope 

 present the insects of the sea in a new and still more striking- 

 light. AVe behold them now, serving not only as compensations 

 by which the motions of the water in its channels of circulation 

 are regulated and climates softened, but acting also as checks 

 and balances by which the equipoise between the solid and the 

 fluid matter of the earth is preserved. Should it be established 

 that these microscopic creatures live at the surface, and are only 

 buried at the bottom of the sea, we may then view them as 

 conservators of the ocean ; for, in the offices which they perform, 

 they assist to preserve its status by maintaining the purity of its 

 waters. 



604. TJie anti-hiotic view the most natural. — Does any portion of 

 the shells which Brooke's sounding-rod brings up from the bottom 

 of the deep sea live there ; or are they all the remains of those 

 that lived near the surface in the light and heat of sun, and were 

 buried at the bottom of the deep after death? Philosophers are 

 divided in opinion upon this subject. The facts, as far as they go, 

 «eom at first to favour the one conjecture nearly as well as the 

 other. Under these circumstances, I incline to the anti-biotic 

 liypothesis, and chiefly because it would seem to conform better 

 with the Mosaic account of creation. The sun and moon were 

 set in the firmament before the waters were commanded to bring 

 forth the living creature ; and hence we infer that light and heat 

 are necessary to the creation and preservation of marine life ; 

 and since the light and heat of the sun cannot reach to the 

 bottom of the deep sea, my own conclusion, in the absence of 

 positive evidence upon the subject, has been, that the habitat of 

 those mites of things hauled up from the bottom of the great 



