THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 



justly remarks, that our land forests do not harbour so many 

 animals as the low wooded regions of the ocean, where the sea- 

 weed rooted to shoals, or long branches of fuci detached by the 

 force of the waves or currents, and swimming free, upborne by 

 air-cells, unfold their* delicate foliage. The application of the 

 microscope still further increases our impression of the profusion 

 of organic life which pervades the recesses of the ocean, since 

 throughout its mass we find animal existence, and at depths 

 exceeding the height of our loftiest mountain chains, the strata 

 of water are alive with polygastric worms, eyelid LEO, and ophry- 

 dinse. Here swarm countless hosts of minute luminiferous animals, 

 mammalia, Crustacea, peridinea, and ciliated nereides, which, 

 when attracted to the surface by particular conditions of the 

 weather, convert every wave into a crest of light. The abundance 

 of these minute creatures, and of the animal matter supplied by 

 their rapid decomposition, is such, that the sea water itself becomes 

 a nutritious fluid to many of the larger inhabitants of. the ocean. 

 208. Moral impressions. If all this richness and variety of 

 animal life, containing some highly organised and beautiful forms, 

 is well fitted to afford not only an interesting study, but also a 

 pleasing excitement to the fancy ; the imagination is yet more 

 deeply moved, by the impressions of the boundless and immeasur- 

 able which every sea voyage affords. He who awakened^to the 

 inward exercise of thought, delights to build up an inner world 

 in his own spirit, fills the wide horizon of the open sea with the 

 sublime image of the Infinite ; his eye dwells especially on the 

 distant sea line, where air and water join, and where stars rise 

 and set in ever renewed alternations : in such contemplations 

 there mingles as with all human joy, "a breath of sadness and 

 of longing." * 



* Humbolt's Cosmos, pp. 299, 303. 



192 



