98 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



mood among cultured and uncultured alike, ' which does 

 not perceive with what mysteries we are surrounded'. 

 * By those who know much', he said, ' more than by those 

 who know little, is there felt the need for explanation'. 

 ' What ', for instance, ' must one say of the life, minute, 

 multitudinous, degraded, which, covering the ocean floor, 

 occupies by far the larger part of the earth's area ; and 

 which yet, growing and decaying in utter darkness, pre- 

 sents hundreds of species of a single type ' ? This raises 

 the question of the deeper significance of the abyssal fauna. 



In the first place, it seems useful to remind ourselves 

 that a knowledge of the Deep Sea has cut into human life ; 

 it has been of value to mankind, practically, in connexion 

 with laying cables (and that has meant much) ; intellectu- 

 ally, for it has been an exercise-ground for the scientific 

 investigator ; emotionally, for there is perhaps no more 

 striking modern gift to the imagination than the picture 

 which explorers have given of the eerie, cold, dark, calm, 

 silent, plantless, monotonous, but thickly peopled world of 

 the Deep Sea. 



Yet this cannot be its full meaning. So perhaps we get 

 nearer the heart of the problem when we recognize the 

 simple fact that the Deep Sea is an integral part of the 

 whole. Just as the making of the great ' deeps ' was corre- 

 lated with the raising of great mountains, so the abyssal 

 fauna is wrapped up with the whole vital economy of the 

 Earth. For it is the overflow basin of the great fountain of 

 lif e whose arch is sunlit. It is necessary to the wholesome- 

 ness of the ocean. It is the universal clearing-house. 



And perhaps we may go a little deeper still, for when we 

 recognize that insurgent life which will not be gainsaid has 

 conquered the abyssal desert, that this by-way is full of 



