Multitudinous Life 



In Life on terra firma, generally, the work of 

 plants is to make ready food for animals. Many 

 substances, which are needful for animal-structure, 

 cannot be taken in by them until broken up and 

 re-made by plants. And plants can only carry 

 out this task in sunlight. Where the light of 

 the sun fails, there plant-life fails also. 



But direct vegetable food is not always neces- 

 sary. Arctic animals — bears, seals, walruses, — ■ 

 cannot get it except at second or third hand, 

 through the bodies of other animals. Perhaps 

 this was forgotten by some who maintained that 

 no animals could, by any possibility, flourish in 

 ocean's greater depths. 



Numberless observations have now thrust that 

 theory on one side. By the dredgings and 

 trawlings of the Challenger, not to speak of later 

 explorations, it has been conclusively proved 

 that, even down to great depths, animal life is 

 marvellously plentiful. 



Two or three examples may be given. A 

 single haul, made in water more than a mile 

 deep, brought up animals of two hundred different 

 kinds. Another haul, in a depth of two miles, 

 had the same result. Another, in a depth of 

 three miles, brought up fifty different kinds. .Ml 

 these it was known, by tokens learnt from close 

 o 193 



