A WALK UNDER THE SEA. 57 



We go down like bathers in the sea. We pass the mar- 

 gin where 



" The dreary back seaweed lolls and wags." 



We traverse the borders where the brown, belted kelp sways 

 to and fro in graceful curves. We get beyond the slope of 

 stony bottom to the smooth sand. We come to the gardens 

 of the rosy-tinted sea-mosses the Dasya, the Grinnellia, the 

 Callithamnion ; and startle the blue-fish and halibut in their 

 safe seclusion. A moonlight gleam is here, and the water 

 also takes on the chill of evening. We pass on, and attain a 

 depth of half a mile. Our feet press into the finer sediments 

 derived from the land the dust of other ''continents to be.'' 

 The twilight has faded into a deep shade. The creatures of 

 the sea swarm curiously about us, then flee in terror from 

 our presence. We feel the gentle movement of "a river in 

 the ocean," but the surface disturbances do not reach even to 

 this depth. A change of climate impresses itself on our sen- 

 sations. The water where we started in had a temperature 

 of sixty degrees here it is forty. But we are panoplied 

 against harm ; we press on. We descend to the depth of a 

 mile under the sea. The curiously gazing species of the shal- 

 lower water appear no more. Their home is the zone which 

 now stretches above our heads. The green and rosy sea- 

 mosses never venture here. We are in total darkness ; no 

 chlorophyll tints the growths of th$ vegetable kingdom. Here 

 are only stony, white calcareous algse and silicious diatoms of 

 microscopic minuteness. 



We pause to contemplate the awful stillness of the subma- 

 rine realm, and feel our slimy path down to the deeper pro- 

 found. Above us now float two miles of black sea. Any 

 surface fish brought down here perishes from the effect of 

 enormous pressure, if possessing an air-bladder. If it have 

 none, the fish becomes torpid, and finally dies. We are here, 

 probably miles from the shore that varies with the steepness 

 of the slope. The sediments which the rivers have brought 

 to the ocean have mostly been deposited between our starting 



