THE DEEP SEA 



the miles of water like snowflakes falling on a very 

 still day. While big corpses like those of fishes are 

 doubtless all to the good if they reach the bottom 

 undevoured, what counts most for the Deep-Sea 

 food-supply is the rain of microscopic atomies. 



No Bacteria. There are abundant bacteria in the 

 sea, in the economy of which they play a very 

 important role, but there seem to be none in the 

 great abysses. It is interesting to know of one 

 place in the wide world where there are no microbes. 

 From their absence it follows that there is no 

 rottenness ; everything is devoured in the great 

 clearing-house. The whale's carcass is picked bare, 

 by crustaceans in particular ; the skeleton is dis- 

 solved away till only the stone-like ear-bones are 

 left. Of the great shark everything soon disappears 

 save the teeth. 



Many different kinds of Animals. The animal 

 population of the Deep -Sea floor includes repre- 

 sentatives of most of the classes of animals from 

 Protozoa to Fishes. Let us run through the list. 

 There are many kinds of Foraminifera and a few 

 Radiolarians (not including, of course, the sunk shells 

 of surface forms of both) ; there are many flinty 

 sponges, but no limy ones ; there are sea-anemones 

 and some related corals ; many worms burrow in 

 the ooze ; there are numerous star-fishes, brittle- 

 stars, sea-urchins, sea-cucumbers, and very graceful 

 sea-lilies swaying on their stalks like daffodils by the 

 lake-side ; crustaceans of high and low degree 

 abound ; and there are quaint sea-spiders which 

 are neither spiders nor crustaceans ; most of the 



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