I08 SEA AND LAND 



from active craters is very great. It seems certain tliat in a 

 little over a century the volcanoes of the Javanese district 

 alone have cast into the sea not less than one hundred and 

 llfty cubic miles of dust and pumice. As this matter con- 

 tains a good deal of gas in the forni of small vesicles, it may 

 float to a great distance and undergo much chemical change 

 before it finally comes to rest on the ocean-floor. Each bit 

 of this pumice or ash may indeed journey all the world about 

 before it is decayed and falls to pieces or is weighted down by 

 the small animals and plants which adhere to its surface. The 

 (juaiUitN- of this igneous matter which is cast into the sea is 

 probably far greater than that brought down to the deep by 

 all the rivers, and in volume the contribution is probably only 

 exceeded bv that which is worn from the shores of the sea 

 itself by the action of the waves and tides. 



In the endless procession of fragments which are brought 

 to the ocean-floor by the very varied actions which lead, in 

 time, all things down to its depths, there perhaps to await 

 their far-off resurrection into continents which are yet to be, 

 we must reckon the remains of man himself ; the debris of his 

 body and his arts which strew that portion of the earth hidden 

 from our eyes by the sea. There is a rather common, but 

 erroneous notion, to the effect that a human body, or even a 

 ship, will not sink to the bottom of the profounder abysses of 

 the oceans, but will, on account of the density of the waters 

 at a great depth, remain suspended at some distance above 

 the surface of the earth. This is an error. No other fate 

 awaits the drowned sailor or his ship than that which comes 

 to the marine creatures who die on the bottom of the sea ; in 

 time their dust all passes into the great storehouse of the earth 

 even as the ashes of those who receive burial on the land. 



