THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



opposes itself to us. The deeper we sink the 

 more terribly it presses down upon us. The idea 

 of Gaurisankar is made clear to us in a wholly 

 different form. We have gradually taken a 

 Gaurisankar of water upon our backs. Water 

 is lighter than the rocks of the Himalayas, but 

 it has its weight. The globe is only five times 

 heavier than an equally large globe of water, 

 and this is due to the metallic masses of the 

 interior. A mountain of water twenty-seven 

 thousand feet high presses down with a weight 

 of nearly nine hundred atmospheres. This pres- 

 sure compresses at the same time the carbonic 

 acid in the sea water in such a way that at last 

 it is as though we had descended into a gigan- 

 tic bottle of seltzer water. If we come from 

 above where the hottest tropical sun lies on the 

 water, it will grow colder and colder beneath un- 

 til we find almost the freezing point on the deep- 

 est ocean bottom. A dark cold planet appears 

 here in the depths like a shuddering picture of 

 the future. We recall the delicate forms of 

 life as we encountered it above in the soft gelat- 

 inous lump of a cell. Even man, supported 

 with inner bones, bears this inheritance of bub- 

 bliiig foam, in all the really sensitive parts 

 of his body, — soft as the soft oyster in its shell 

 his brain lies In the enveloping skull capsule — 

 the brain from which all his power proceeds. A 

 pressure of a finger and his wonderful machine 

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