Curiosities of Science. 177 



are especially produced in the intertropical seas, and they ap- 

 pear to be chiefly abundant in the Gulf of Guinea and in the 

 Arabian Gulf. In the latter, the phenomenon was known to 

 the ancients more than a century before the Christian era, as 

 maybe seen from a curious passage from the geography of Aga- 

 tharcides : " Along this country (the coast of Arabia) the sea 

 has a white aspect like a river : the cause of this phenomenon 

 is a subject of astonishment to us." M. Quatrefages has dis- 

 covered that the Noctilucce which produce this phenomenon do 

 not always give out clear and brilliant sparks, but that under 

 certain circumstances this light is replaced by a steady clear- 

 ness, which gives in these animalcules a white colour. The 

 waters in which they have been observed do not change their 

 place to any sensible degree. 



THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA A BUKIAL-PLACE. 



Among the minute shells which have been fished up from 

 the great telegraphic plateau at the bottom of the sea between 

 Newfoundland and Ireland, the microscope has failed to detect 

 a single particle of sand or gravel ; and the inference is, that 

 there, if any where, the waters of the sea are at rest. There 

 is not motion enough there to abrade these very delicate or- 

 ganisms, nor current enough to sweep them about and mix 

 them up with a grain of the finest sand, nor the smallest par- 

 ticle of gravel from the loose beds of debris that here and there 

 strew the bottom of the sea. The animalcule probably do not 

 live or die there. They would have had no light there ; and, 

 if they lived there, their frail textures would be subjected in 

 their growth to a pressure upon them of a column of water 

 12,000 feet high, equal to the weight of 400 atmospheres. 

 They probably live and sport near the surface, where they 

 can feel the genial influence of both light and heat, and are 

 buried in the lichen caves below after death. 



It is now suggested, that henceforward we should view the 

 surface of the sea as a nursery teeming with nascent organisms, 

 and its depths as the cemetery for families of living creatures 

 that outnumber the sands on the sea-shore for multitude. 



Where there is a nursery, hard by there will be found also a 

 graveyard, such is the condition of the animal world. But it 

 never occurred to us before to consider the surface of the sea 

 as one wide nursery, its every ripple as a cradle, and its bottom 

 one vast burial-place. Lieut. Maury. 



WHY IS THE SEA SALT ? 



It has been replied, In order to preserve it in a state of 

 purity ; which is, however, untenable, mainly from the fact that 



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