32 ABYSMAL OCEAN 



unarmed attack upon a monster one hundred and sixty- 

 eight times his size ! 



IX 



Imagination is powerfully stirred when we reflect 

 Abysmal upon the vast abyss of the Atlantic teem- 

 ocean j n g w ith innumerable forms of life in its 



darkest recesses, and the adaptation to their environ- 

 ment of creatures having their abode under such an 

 enormous hydraulic pressure is among the most re- 

 markable phenomena in nature. Howbeit, deep water 

 does not always imply the presence of living creatures. 

 The Dead Sea may be written off as lifeless, so intensely 

 saline has evaporation rendered its waters, dissipating 

 them at a greater rate than the Jordan can pour them 

 in, so that the surface of this Lake of Sodom is actually 

 1308 feet below sea-level. But the Black Sea, com- 

 municating with the Mediterranean, and so with the 

 teeming Atlantic, might be expected to provide food 

 and lodging for numberless forms of deep-water life. 

 That is not the case, however. The greatest depth of 

 the Black Sea is 1227 fathoms, about equal to the 

 height of the Julier and Albula passes in the Rhsetian 

 Alps; but the whole volume, beneath the hundred 

 fathom level, is so densely impregnated with sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen and carbonate of ammonia as to 

 be practically lifeless, everything except a few bacteria 

 (which are low vegetable organisms) being poisoned by 

 the fumes. This state of matters has been explained, 

 whether hypothetical^ or otherwise readers must 



