THE STORY OF LIFE IN THE SEAS. 



CHAPTER I. 



OCEANOGRAPHY. 



ONE of the most important facts that has been 

 established by modern investigations of the Sea 

 is that there is no region in its vast extent that 

 is entirely devoid of animal life. The surface 

 waters in the Equatorial calms and the ice-cold 

 waters between the ice-bergs of the Arctic 

 regions are densely populated by animals, large 

 and small ; the heavy and heated waters of the 

 Mediterranean and Red Seas, and the cold and 

 comparatively fresh waters of the Norwegian 

 fjords, the shallow waters of the coasts and the 

 greatest depths of the ocean beds all present us 

 with their characteristic forms of living creatures. 

 There is no Azoic region known to us. Wherever 

 we use the trawl or dredge we may expect to 

 find some representatives of the various classes 

 of marine animals. But the seas exhibit so many 

 varying conditions that, as we might have ex- 

 pected, the animals that characterise one region 

 are absent from another ; and while, in some 

 places animal life is abundant, in others it is 

 very scarce; just as on land we find the grass- 





