SCIENCE 



own bodies were many times greater than it is, our 

 muscles, too, would be soft and flabby? We are 

 entirely unconscious of this pressure and our move- 

 ments are not at all hampered by it. But if we could 

 step into a room or an enclosure from which this 

 pressure were removed, we should probably come 

 very near exploding, as do the deep-sea fishes when 

 suddenly brought to the surface. Doubtless under 

 higher pressure our bodies would be much smaller 

 than they are, as all the deep-sea fishes are very- 

 small — only a few inches long. Toward the surface 

 they increase in size, and we find the whale, an air- 

 breathing animal, the largest of all. Does it follow 

 that under a lighter atmosphere our bodies would 

 be larger and firmer? A low barometer, a condition 

 of storm, means a light atmosphere, and if we are 

 conscious of its effect at all, it is a sense of weight; 

 while a high barometer gives us a sense of buoyancy 

 and elasticity. The men on Mars, then, other con- 

 ditions being the same, should be larger than those 

 upon the earth. But the forms of life on Jupiter, 

 Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune should be smaller, 

 because these planets all have very dense at- 

 mospheres. 



Nature in the deep sea is the same old equivocal 

 Nature that we know at the surface — hesitating, 

 fickle, contradictory. The effect of the darkness in 

 the abysmal depths upon some forms is to make 

 the eyes very small, or to obliterate them entirely, 



271 



