RHYTHMS IN THE DEEP SEA i H) 



from the numerous animals which, hving in the middle waters, 

 die and fall to the bottom. Others, members of the middle 

 region fauna, again, may swim down there and be eaught. 

 There is a wonderful uniformity in the state of things at the 

 bottom of the deep blue sea. Climate plays no part in the 

 life of the depths; storms do not ruflle their inhabitants; these 

 recognize no alternation of day or night; seasons are unknown 

 to them; they experience no change of temperature. Although 

 the abysmal depths of the polar regions might be expected 

 to be far colder than those of the tropics, the difference only 

 amounts to a degree or so — a difference which would not be 

 perceptible to us without instruments of precision. 

 At the bottom of the sea there is no sound — 



There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, 



On the great grey level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep. 



The world down there is cold and still and noiseless. The 



numerous inhabitants of the depths are uninfluenced by the 



daily rise and setting of the sun, the monthly movement of 



the moon, the succession of the seasons. Each of them might 



exclaim with our great epic poet 



Thus with the Year 

 Seasons return, but not to me returns 

 Day. or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn, 

 Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's Rose. 



Nevertheless they also show a certain rhythm, and although 

 little is knowii about their habits it seems certain that they 

 spend part of their time building up their reproductive organs, 

 their eggs and their spermatozoa, and this is followed by the 

 shedding of the same, to be followed in its turn by another 

 period of what is termed vegetative growth. But what rhythm 

 they do show must be an internal one and not dependent on 

 outside factors. 



Although there appears to be a total absence of external 

 rhythms in the depths of the sea, such rhythms are extremely 

 pronounced at the surface, and, indeed, for some little distance 

 beneath the surface. There is the rhythm of the tide, a 

 rhythm which corresponds with its rise and fall about twice 

 every twenty-four hours, and with this is involved a still 

 bigger fortnightly rhythm corresponding with the full and 



