UNEXPLAINED ORIGINS. 37 
links ; but it would be better to find the primordial sub- 
stance out of which all living things had come. The 
ultra-Darwinian enthusiasts were enchanted. Haeckel 
clapped his hands and shouted Eurcka! loudly. Even the 
cautious and discriminating mind of Professor Huxley 
was caught by this new and grand generalization of the 
‘physical basis of life;’ It was announced by him to the 
British Association in 1868. Dr. Will Carpenter took up 
the chorus. He spoke of ‘a living expanse of proto- 
plasmic substance, penetrating with its living substance 
the ‘whole mass’ of the oceanic mud. A fine new Greek 
name was devised for this mother slime, and it was 
christened ‘Bathybius,’”’ (from two Greek words meaning 
“depth” and “‘life,’), “from the consecrated deeps in 
which it lay. The conception ran like wildfire through 
the popular literature of science. Expectant imagina- 
tion soon played its part. Wonderful movements were 
soon seen in this mysterious slime. It became an ‘irregu- 
lar network,’ and it could be seen gradually ‘altering its 
form,’ so that ‘entangled granules’ changed their relative 
positions.” 
Such was Bathybius, which once raised such a com- 
motion in the world of science, but which is never heard 
of or even alluded to in scientific circles today. And 
now for the issue of this discovery of such mighty prom- 
ise. In the year 1872, the “Challenger,’ commanded 
by John Murray, set out on a voyage of deep-sea explora- 
tion. “The naturalists of the ‘Challenger’ began their 
voyage in full Bathybian faith. But the sturdy mind of 
Mr. John Murray kept its balance—all the more easily 
since he never could himself find or see any trace of this 
protoplasm when the dredges of the ‘Challenger’ came 
fresh from the ocean bottom. Again and again he looked 
for it, but never could he discover it. It always hailed 
from England. The bottles sent there were reported to 
