PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 315 



planet, diaries Darwin, in the agreeable narrative of his 

 extensive voyages, justly remarks that our forests do not conceal 

 so many animals as the low woody regions of the ocean, where 

 the sea weed rooted to the bottom of the shoals, and the 

 severed branches of fuci loosened by the force of the waves 

 and currents, and swimming free, unfold their delicate foliage 

 upborne by air-cells.* The application of the microscope 

 increases, in the most striking manner, our impression of the 

 rich luxuriance of animal life in the ocean, and reveals to the 

 astonished senses a consciousness of the universality of life. 

 In the oceanic depths far exceeding the height of our loftiest 

 mountain chains, every stratum of water is animated with 

 polygastric sea worms, cyclidiaa, and ophrydinae. The waters 

 swarm with countless hosts of small luminiferous animalcules, 

 mammaria (of the order of acalephae), Crustacea, peridi- 

 nea, and circling nereides, which when attracted to the surface 

 by peculiar meteorological conditions, convert every wave into 

 a foaming band of flashing light. 



The abundance of these marine animalcules, and the animal 

 matter yielded by their rapid decomposition, are so vast that 

 the sea water itself becomes a nutrient fluid to many of the 

 larger animals. However much this richness in animated 

 forms, and this multitude of the most various and highly 

 developed microscopic organisms may agreeably excite the 

 fancy, the imagination is even more seriously and I might say 

 more solemnly moved by the impression of boundlessness and 

 immeasurability, which are presented to the mind by every 

 sea voyage. All who possess an ordinary degree of mental 

 activity, and delight to create to themselves an inner world 

 of thought, must be penetrated with the sublime image of the 

 infinite, when gazing around them on the vast and boundless sea, 

 when involuntarily the glance is attracted to the distant horizon 

 where air and water blend together, and the stars continually 

 rise and set before the eyes of the mariner. This contem- 

 plation of the eternal play of the elements is clouded, like 

 every human joy, by a touch of sadness and of longing. 



A peculiar predilection for the sea, and a grateful remem- 



* [See Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, by Charles Darwin, 

 London, 1842. Also, Narrative of the Surveying voyage of H.M.S. 

 "Fly" in the Eastern Archipelago, during the years 18421846, by 

 J. B. Jukes, Naturalist to the expedition, 1847-1 Tr. 



