MINUTE BEINGS IN SEA-WATER. 495 



in various ways the almost total sum of these 

 ingredients, separated by sea-weeds from sea- 

 water, are finally removed from it in such a 

 manner as that they cannot be restored to it 

 again. 



The ocean is more prolific in animal even 

 than in vegetable life. From the minute infu- 

 sorial animalcule, imperceptible to the unaided 

 eye, up to the great animal the whale, all 

 varieties of size and form exist. Of the vast 

 numbers of the more minute creatures lan- 

 guage can convey no idea. Just as the peculiar 

 vegetation, noticed by Dr. Hooker, by its num- 

 bers coloured the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, 

 so, minute animated creatures abound in the 

 arctic seas, turning the ultramarine blue of 

 the waters to a turbid green. The bodies of 

 these animalcules are exceedingly small, yet 

 they are found discolouring patches many miles 

 square, and of great depth. To afford some 

 conception of their numbers, Scoresby has made 

 the statement that in the space of two square 

 miles, supposing the animalcules to exist as low 

 down as 1,500 feet, there would be congregated 

 a mass of individual beings, which eighty 

 thousand persons would not have been able to 

 enumerate, though they commenced the task 

 at the Creation and continued it incessantly to 

 the present tune. Yet this would prove but 



