LIFE IN THE OCEAN. • 5/ 



spring time or summer season we would soon see it producing minute 

 spots of a yellowish or greenish colour. These spots, examined 

 through the microscope, reveal thousands of vegetable forms. 

 Presently thousands of Rhizopods and Infusoria appear, which move 

 and swim about the floating vegetable forms upon which they nourish 

 themselves. Other Infusoria then appear, which, in their turn, pursue 

 and devour the first. 



In short, life transforms unorganised into organised matter. 

 Vegetables appear first, then come herbivorous animals, and then 

 come the carnivorous. Life maintains life. The death of one 

 provides food and development to others, for all are bound up 

 together ; all assist at the metamorphoses continually occurring in 

 the organic as in the inorganic world, the result being general and 

 profound harmony — harmony always worthy of admiration. The 

 Creator alone is unchangeable, omnipotent, and permanent ; all else 

 is transition. 



The inhabitants of the water are at least as numerous as those of 

 the solid earth. " Upon a surface less varied than we find on conti- 

 nents," says Humboldt, " the sea contains in its bosom an exuberance 

 of life of which no other portion of the globe could give us any idea. 

 It expands in the north as in the south ; in the east as in the west. 

 The seas, above all, abound with this life ; in the bosom of the deep, 

 creatures corresponding and harmonising with each other sport and 

 play. Among these the naturalist finds instruction, and the philo- 

 sopher subjects for meditation. The changes they undergo only 

 impress upon our minds more and more a sentiment of thankfulness 

 to the Author of the universe." 



Yes, the ocean in its profoundest depths — its plains and its 

 mountains, its valleys, its precipices — is animated and beautified by 

 the presence of innumerable organised beings. Among these we find 

 the Alg?e, solitary or social, erect or drooping, spreading into prairies, 

 grouped in patches, or forming vast forests in the ocean valleys. 

 These submarine forests protect and nourish millions of animals 

 which creep, which run, which swim among them ; others again sink 

 into the sands, attach themselves to rocks, or lodge themselves in 

 their crevices ; these construct dwellings for themselves ; they seek or 

 fly from each other ; they pursue or fight, caress each other lovingly, 

 or devour each other without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks 

 somewhere that our terrestrial forests do not maintain nearly so many 

 living beings as those v/hich swarm in the bosom of the sea. The 

 ocean, which for man is the region of asphyxia and death, is for millions 



