UNIVERSALITY OF ANIMAL LIFE. 343 



water taken ap by Schayer on his return from Van Diemen's 

 Land (south of the Cape of Good Hope, in 57° latitude, and 

 under the tropics in the Atlantic) show that the ocean in its 

 ordinary condition, without any apparent discoloration, con- 

 tains numerous microscopic moving organisms, which bear no 

 resemblance to the swimming fragmentary silicious filaments 

 of the genus ChsBtoceros, similar to the Oscillatoriae so common 

 in our fresh waters. Some few Polygastria, which have been 

 found mixed with sand and excrements of penguins in Cock- 

 burn Island, appear to be spread over the whole earth, while 

 others seem to be peculiar to the polar regions. =^ 



We thus find from the most recent observations that ani- 

 mal life predominates amid the eternal night of the depths of 

 ocean, while vegetable life, which is so dependent on the pe- 

 riodic action of the solar rays, is most prevalent on continents. 

 The mass of vegetation on the Earth very far exceeds that 

 of animal organisms ; for what is the volume of all the large 

 living Cetacea and Pachydermata when compared with the 

 thickly-crowded colossal trunks of trees, of from eight to twelve 

 feet in diameter, which fill the vast forests covering the trop- 

 ical region of South America, between the Orinoco, the Ama- 

 zon, and the Rio da Madeira ? And although the character 

 of different portions of the earth depends on the combination 

 of external phenomena, as the outlines of mountains — the 

 physiognomy of plants and animals — the azure of the sky — . 

 the forms of the clouds — and the transparency of the atmos- 

 phere^ — it must still be admitted that the vegetable mantle 

 with which the earth is decked constitutes the main feature 

 of the picture. Animal forms are inferior in mass, and their 

 powers of motion often withdraw them from our sight. The 



* See Ehrenberg's treatise Ueber das kleinste Leben im Ocean, read 

 before the Academy of Science at Berlin on the 9th of May, ]844. 



[Dr. J. Hooker found Diatomace.e in countless numbers between the 

 parallels of 60"^ and 80° south, where they gave a color to the sea, and 

 also to the icebergs floating in it. The death of these bodies in the 

 South Arctic Ocean is producing a submarine deposit, consisting en- 

 tirely of the silicious particles of which the skeletons of these vegeta- 

 bles are composed. This deposit exists on the shores of Victoria Land 

 and at the base of the volcanic mountain Erebus. Dr. Hooker account- 

 ed for the fact that the skeletons of Diatoraacese had been found in the 

 lava of volcanic mountains, by referring to these deposits at Mount 

 Erebus, which lie in such a position as to render it quite possible that 

 the skeletons of these vegetables should pass into the lower fissures of 

 the mountain, and then passing into the stream of lava, be thrown out, 

 Unacted upon by the heat to which they have been exposed. See Dr. 

 Hooker's Paper, read before the British Association at Oxford, July, 

 l8i7.-\—Tr. 



