iOSSILISED CABLES. 399 



thousands of yards, the operation for its recovery is 

 extremely delicate and laborious. Any agitation of 

 the ship might injure it; its weight, added to that 

 of the animals and plants which have made it their 

 home, would often be sufficient to make it break, and 

 in such a case the broken end falls back into the ocean. 



ig. 07. — Telegraphic Cable at the Bottom of the Ocean. 



Oiue more settled at the bottom, it serves, as before, 

 for the support of the living beings who clothed it 

 with their strange forms after having for an instant, 

 by its fall, disturbed the calm repose of the sub- 

 marine solitudes. At some remote period, when the 



