PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF THE DEEP SEA. 461 



accompaniment of organic growth and development. But it will 

 at least teach us not to aggravate social ills by quack nostrums 

 interfering with Nature's laws. 



Finally, evolution will rescue political economy from the mist 

 of words and disputation which now surrounds it by reason of 

 the narrow basis on which it has rested. It will bring us back 

 from the uncertainties of analysis and inference from insufficient 

 data to the clear light of universal history to the experience of 

 great Nature's self, and will for the first time raise political econ- 

 omy from empiricism to science. 



PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF THE DEEP SEA.* 



Br SIDNEY J. HICKSON, M. A., D. Be. 



IT is not surprising that the naturalists of the early part of the 

 present century could not believe in the existence of a fauna 

 at the bottom of the deep seas. The extraordinary conditions of 

 such a region the enormous pressure, the absolute darkness, the 

 probable absence of any vegetable life from want of direct sun- 

 light might very well have been considered sufficient to form an 

 impassable barrier to the animals migrating from the shallow 

 waters and to prevent the development of a fauna peculiarly its 

 own. 



The fragmentary accounts of animals brought up by sounding 

 lines from great depths might, it is true, have thrown doubts on 

 the current views ; but they were not of sufficient importance in 

 themselves, nor were the observations made with such regard to 

 the possibility of error, as to withstand the critical remarks that 

 were made to explain them away. 



The absence of any evidence obtained by accurate systematic 

 research, together with the consideration of the physical character 

 of the ocean bed, were quite sufficient to lead scientific men of that 

 period to doubt the existence of any animal life in water deeper 

 than a few hundred fathoms. We now know, however, that there 

 is a very considerable fauna at enormous depths in all the great 

 oceans, and we have acquired, moreover, considerable information 

 concerning some of those peculiar physical conditions of the abyss 

 that fifty years ago were merely matters of speculation among 

 scientific men. 



The relation between animals and their environment is now a 

 question of such great interest and importance that it is necessary 



* Abridged from The Fauna of the Deep Sea. By Sidney J. Hickson, M. A., D. Sc. 

 Modern Science Series. In press of D. Appleton & Co. 



