THE GREAT DEEPS 115 



mals on the lime-ooze than on the " red-clay" 

 mud-ooze; and we do not know much about 

 the thinly peopled miles of water between the 

 limit of the light, say half a mile at the most, 

 and the floor itself. But the big fact is that 

 wherever the long arm of the dredge has 

 reached down it has brought up living crea- 

 tures. It is astounding to read that on the 

 "Michael Sars" exploration, the late Sir 

 John Murray and Dr. Johan Hjort worked an 

 otter-trawl with a spread of 50 feet at a depth 

 of 2820 fathoms, which is over 3 miles! 



NO PLANTS IN THE DEEP SEA 



There are, of course, no plants in the great 

 depths, except the resting-stages of a few Algae 

 that have sunk down from the surface. We say, 

 " of course," because all ordinary plants, pos- 

 sessing chlorophyll (disguised by other colours 

 in many seaweeds), require light if they are 

 to live. This raises an interesting question, for 

 if there are no plants it seems at first sight as 

 if all the abyssal animals must be eating one 

 another, which is absurd, as Euclid used to 

 say. No doubt the deep-sea fish eats the deep- 

 sea crustacean, and the deep-sea crustacean 



