Nature of the so-called u Bathybius." 335 



the essential phenomena of life, nutrition and irritability, 

 existing apparently simply as the properties of a homogeneous 

 chemical compound and independent of organization"*. . . . 

 " In this dredging " [Prof. Thomson here alludes to the 650- 

 fathom sounding taken off the Faroes to which Dr. Carpenter, 

 as already shown at p. 332, has referred], " as in most others in 

 the bed of the Atlantic, there was evidence of a considerable 

 quantity of soft gelatinous matter, enough to give a slight 

 viscosity to the mud of the sitrface-lajer. If the mud be 

 shaken with weak spirit of wine, white flakes separate, like 

 coagulated mucus ; and if a little of the mud in which this 

 viscid condition is most marked be placed in a drop of sea- 

 water under the microscope, we can usually see, after a time, 

 an irregular network of matter, resembling white of egg, dis- 

 tinguishable by its maintaining its outline and not mixing with 

 the water. This network may be seen gradually altering its 

 form, and entangled granules and foreign bodies change their 

 relative positions. The gelatinous matter therefore is capable 

 of a certain amount of movement ; and there can be no doubt 

 that it manifests the phenomena of a very simple form of life" ~\. 

 .... " The circumstance which gives its special interest to 

 Bathybius is its enormous extent ; whether it is continuous in 

 a vast sheet, or broken up into circumscribed individual 

 patches, it appears to extend over a large part of the bed of 

 the ocean "|. 



Referring to the " coccoliths " found imbedded in the sub- 

 stance of Bathybius, Prof. Thomson says, " they are very pro- 

 bably taken into it with a purpose, for the sake of the vegetable 

 matter they may contain, and which may afford food for the 

 animal jelly. . . . Living upon and among the Bathybius 

 we find a multitude of other Protozoa ; and we as yet know 

 very little of the life-history of these groups. There can be 

 no doubt that, when their development has been fully traced, 

 many of them will be found to be di- or poly-morphic, and 

 that, when we are acquainted with their mode of multiplication, 

 we shall meet with many cases of pleo-morphism and wide 

 differences between the organs and products involved in propa- 

 gation and in reproduction" §. 



Prof. Thomson sums up his singularly infelicitous and, so 

 far as what has gone before is concerned, singularly inconsis- 

 tent statement, as follows : — " I feel by no means satisfied 

 that Bathybius is the permanent form of any distinct living 



* The Depths of the Sea. Bv Prof. W. Thomson, LL.D., F.R.S., 



&c. Loudon : 1873, pp. 408, 409." 



t Depths of the Sea, p. 410. \ Ibid. pp. 411, 412. 



§ Ibid. pp. 414, 415. 



