THE BASIN AND BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 325 



deep is at and near the surface. On the contrary, others main- 

 tain, and perhaps with equal reason, the biotic side of the 

 question. Professor Ehrenberg, of Berlin, is of this latter class. 



(305. The question stated. — This is an interesting question. It is 

 a new one ; and it belongs to that class of questions which mere 

 discussion helps to settle. It is therefore desirable to state both 

 sides — present all the known facts; and then, provided with 

 such lights as they afford, we may draw conclusions. 



606. Tlie arguments of the hiotics. — As soon as the deep-sea 

 specimens were mounted on the slides of the microscope, the two 

 great masters of that instrument in Europe and America — Bailey 

 of West Point, and Ehrenberg of Berlin — discovered the greater 

 part of the small calcareous carapaces to be filled with a soft 

 pulp, which both admitted to be fleshy matter. From this fact 

 the German argued that there is life at the bottom of the deep 

 sea ; the American (§ 587), that there is only death and repose 

 there. 



607. Ehrenherg's statement of them. — " The other argument," 

 says Ehrenberg, " for life in the deep which I have established 

 is the surprising quantity of new forms which are wanting in 

 other parts of the sea. If the bottom were nothing but the 

 sediment of the troubled sea, like the fall of snow in the air, and 

 if the biolithic curves of the bottom were nothing 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 peculiar 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 perceived. The great quantity of peculiar forms 

 and of soft bodies existing in the innumerable carapaces, accom- 

 panied by the observation of the number of unknowns, increasing 

 2oith the depths — 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. llie anti-hiotic view. — The anti-biotics, on the other hand, 

 quoted the observations of Professor Forbes, who has shown that, 

 the deeper you go in the littoral waters of the Mediterranean, 

 the fewer are the living forms. 



600. Their arguments hosed on the tides. — As for the number of 

 unknowns increasing with the depth (§ 607), they contend that 

 the tides, the currents, and the agitation of the waves all reach to 



