THE OCEAN 



187 



This statement is far from fanciful. Not 

 only do the body fluids of the lower forms of 

 marine life correspond exactly with sea water 

 in their composition, but there are at least 

 strong indications that the fluids of the highest 

 animals are really descended from sea water, 

 from the sea water of an earlier epoch, to be 

 sure, and they are not changed beyond recog- 

 nition by the transformations of evolution. 1 

 A comparison of the relative amounts of 

 various saline constituents in sea water and 

 in mammalian blood (roughly averaged from 

 a variety of measurements in different species) 

 will demonstrate this relationship. 



Composition of the Salts in Per Cent 



1 See the interesting paper by Macallum, Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Canada, 1908, II, p. 145. 



