268 LIFE IN THE OCEAN AT GREAT DEPTHS. CHAP. xiv. 



But it is also possible that they were originally scarce, for we 

 read of the waters of the sea being so freshened and chilled 

 by the melting of ice-bergs in some Norwegian and Icelandic 

 fiords, that the fish are driven away, and all the mollusca 

 killed. The moraines of glaciers are always from the first 

 devoid of shells, and if transported by ice-bergs to a distance, 

 and deposited where the ice melts, may continue as barren of 

 every indication of life, as they were when they originated. 



Nevertheless, it may be said, on the other hand, that herds 

 of seals and walruses crowd the floating ice of Spitzbergen in 

 lat. 80 north, of which Mr. Lamont has recently given us a 

 lively picture,* and huge whales fatten on myriads of 

 pteropods in polar regions. It had been suggested that the 

 bottom of the sea, at the era of extreme submergence in 

 Scotland and Wales, was so deep as to reach the zero of 

 animal life, which, in part of the Mediterranean (the Egean, 

 for example), the late Edward Forbes fixed, after a long series 

 of dredgings, at 300 fathoms. But the shells of the glacial 

 drift of Scotland and Wales, when they do occur, are not 

 those of deep seas ; and, moreover, our faith in the unin 

 habitable state of the ocean at great depths has been rudely 

 shaken, by the recent discovery by Captain M'Clintock and 

 Dr. Wallich, of starfish in water more than a thousand fathoms 

 deep (7,560 feet !), midway between Greenland and Iceland. 

 That these radiata were really dredged up from the bottom, 

 and that they had been living and feeding there, appeared 

 from the fact that their stomachs were full of globigerina, of 

 which foraminiferous creatures, both living and dead, the oozy 

 bed of the ocean at that vast depth was found to be exclusively 

 composed. 



Whatever may be the cause, the fact is certain, that over 

 large areas in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, I might add 



* Seasons with the Sea-Horses, 1861. 



