LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 63 



grouped in patches, or forming vast forests in the oceanic valleys. 

 These submarine forests protect and nourish millions of animals which 

 creep, which run, which swim, which sink into the sands, attach 

 themselves to rocks, lodge themselves in crevices, which construct 

 dwellings for themselves, which seek for or fly from each other, which 

 pursue or fight, caress each other lovingly, or devour each other 

 without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks somewhere that our 

 terrestrial forests do not maintain nearly so many living beings as 

 those which swarm in the bosom of the sea. The ocean, which for 

 man is the region of asphyxia and death, is for millions of animals the 

 region of life and health : there is enjoyment for myriads in its waves ; 

 there is happiness on its banks ; there is the blue above all. 



The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, animal or vegetable, 

 by its temperature, by its density, by its saltness, by its bitterness, by 

 the never-ceasing agitation of its waves, and by the rapidity of its 

 currents. 



We have seen in preceding chapters that the sea only freezes under 

 intense cold, and then only at the surface, and that at the depth of five 

 hundred fathoms the same permanent temperature exists in all 

 latitudes. On the other hand, it is agreed that the agitations produced 

 by the most violent storms are never felt beyond the depth of twelve 

 or thirteen fathoms. From this it follows that animals and vege- 

 tables, by descending more or less, according to the cold or disturbing 

 movements, can always reach a medium which agrees with their 

 constitutions. 



The hosts of the sea are distinguished by a peculiar softness. 

 Certain pelagic plants present only a very weak, feeble consistence ; 

 a great number are transformed by ebullition into a sort of jelly. 

 The flesh of marine animals is more or less flaccid ; many seem to 

 consist of a diaphanous mucilage. The skeleton of the more perfect 

 species is more or less flexible and cartilaginous ; and it rarely attains, 

 as to weight and consistency, the strength of bone exhibited by 

 terrestrial vertebrate animals. Nevertheless, both the shells and coral 

 produced in the bosom of the ocean are remarkable for their stony 

 solidity. Among marine bodies, in short, we find at once the softest 

 and hardest of organized substances. 



The separation of organized beings, nourished by the ocean, is 



