DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 151 



enables them to live under a weight, the one hundredth part of 

 which would be fatal to any terrestrial animal. 



For some years Forbes's theory was very generally accepted, 

 and the results of Darwin's and Dana's investigations, showing that 

 corals could not live beyond a depth of fifteen fathoms, eemed to 

 confirm it. But, quite recently, facts derived from new and 

 unlocked for sources of information have given a check to this 

 theory. Practical objects, the interests of commerce have come 

 to the aid of science (rewarding her for the gift first received at 

 her hands), and the telegraph cables, alive with the secrets of sea 

 and land, have brought us tidings from the deep. In the Medi- 

 terranean and in the Red Sea, from depths of eighteen hundred 

 to two thousand fathoms, living animals have been brought up on 

 the telegraph wires, not of doubtful infusorial character, hovering 

 on the border-land between animal and vegetable life, but of con- 

 siderable size, as for instance, one or two kinds of Crustacea, 

 Cockles, stocks of Bryozoa and tubes of Annelids. When t^e 

 cable between France and Algiers was taken up from a depth of 

 eighteen hundred fathoms, there came with it an .Oyster, Cockle- 

 shells, Annelid tubes, Bryozoa and Sea-fans. As these animals 

 were growing upon it, there could be no doubt that they had 

 their normal life and development at this depth, and since they 

 are carnivorous, they tell also of the existence of other animals 

 with them on which they feed. This discovery alone shows how 

 much yet remains to be done before we shall fully understand 

 the laws of marine life. But we already have ample evidence 

 that the same beneficent order controls the distribution of ani- 

 mals in the ocean as on land, appointing to all its inhabitants 

 their fitting home in the dim waste of waters. 



