Of Ocean-weeds 



except through friction with other rocks and 

 stones, or with running water. But where Life 

 reigns, though it be of the simplest kind, there 

 growth and development must follow. 



Life, from its very nature, cannot mean stag- 

 nation, or standing still. It must always be 

 assimilating. It must always be expanding. 

 It must always be doing. When these things 

 cease, death has begun. 



So much alike are the lower forms of life in 

 the two classes, that many an animal has been 

 for a time mistakenly called a vegetable, and 

 many a vegetable has been for a while supposed 

 to be an animal. The foraminifera were once 

 ranked as vegetables, and the diatoms were 

 ranked as animals. 



In deep-sea regions, dark and cold, no vege- 

 table life can possibly exist, not even the almost 

 ubiquitous diatoms. But their remains are 

 present in vast multitudes. As the tiny plant- 

 life dies out, the little hard vegetable-cases sink 

 to the ocean-bed, there to mingle with gathering 

 muds and oozes there, too, in the course of ages, 

 to be transformed into Flint. 



Diatoms flourish on land as well as in the 

 ocean ; in cold climates as well as in warm. On 

 the whole they prefer the colder regions, therein 



153 



