ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 1 69 



doubtedly long stretches of bottom carpeted by 

 the most brilliantly colored animals, packed quite 

 as closely as they are on banks in shallower waters, 

 or near low-water mark. But the scene is much 

 less varied than on land ; the absence of plants in 

 deep water makes great diversity of scenery im- 

 possible. The place of luxuriant forests with the 

 accompanying underbrush and their inhabitants 

 is only indifferently supplied by large anthozoa 

 and huge cuttlefishes, or nearer in shore, within 

 moderate depths, by sea-weed and the pelagic 

 forests of giant kelp. 



It requires but little imagination to notice the 

 contrasts, as we pass from the shallow littoral 

 regions of the sea, — full of sunlight and move- 

 ment, and teeming with animal and vegetable life, 

 — into the dimly lighted, but richly populated con- 

 tinental zone ; and further to imagine the gradual 

 decrease of the continental fauna, as it fades into 

 the calm, cold, dark, and nearly deserted abyssal 

 regions of the oceanic floors at a distance from the 

 continents. It is like going from the luxuriant 

 vegetation of the tropical shore line — the region 

 of palms, bananas, and mango — into the cooler 

 zone of oaks and pines, until we pass out into the 

 higher levels, with their stunted vegetation and 

 scanty fauna, and finally into the colder climate of 

 the bleak regions of perpetual snow. 



Alexander A^assiz. 



