HUMAN REMAINS ON SEA-FLOORS 1 1 i 



is about three miles, a quarter of an hour or more before an 

 ordinarily laden wooden ship finds its long resting- place. 

 The blow with which it strikes the sea-lloor is not likely 

 to dismast the vessel or to wreck its hull ; the shock usually 

 comes upon mud-like materials, sufficiently yielding to give 

 a little to the blow, so that the violence of the contact is 

 diminished, and the upright position and integrity of the hulk 

 may be maintained. 



As soon as the sunken wreck is at rest we may imagine 

 that it becomes the subject of careful inc^uiry on the part of a 

 host of hungry creatures who await such ivindjalls from above. 

 Penetrating the spaces of the hold they make avail of all that 

 can serve them as food. More slowly certain forms, which 

 bore in wood, will honeycomb all the timber until the beams 

 and planks are reduced to mere shells. At the same time a 

 host of species which have the habit of attaching their living 

 ■skeletons to any firm support, crust over and festoon with 

 their bodies all the external parts of the wreck, and serve to 

 bind the frail structure together. In the course of time the 

 fabric becomes a mere ghost of a ship ; it holds together only 

 because the ocean is perfectly motionless, and its parts are 

 buoyed up by the water about them. In the course of ages 

 the weight of the incrustation increases, so that at last some 

 part is borne down, and through the shock which this causes 

 the shadowy relict may at once melt into dust. 



We must conceive a somewhat different fate for the 

 modern iron ships which find their last haven in the quiet 

 waters of the ocean-floor. Because of their greater weight 

 they will fall more swiftly and strike with greater violence on 

 the bottom. They are, on this account, more likely to be 

 ruined by the last blow they are to receive. Moreover their 



