-6 



NATURE 



[Fc/k 



coast of Ireland in the first cruise, the proportion given by the 

 late Mr. David Forbes was only about one-half, while in another 

 sample from 2435 fathoms, dredged off the south coast of Ire- 

 laud in the second cruise, Mr. Hunter found a little over 60 per 

 cent. 



As to a mysterious deposit called Bathybiiis, Mr. Buchanan, 

 who had charge of the chemical work on board the ChalUngtr, 

 proved by careful and repeated analysis that this substance was 

 not organic ; and he "determined it to be sulphate of lime, 

 which had been eliminated from the sea-water, always present 

 in the mud, as an anorphous precipitate on the addition of spirit 

 of wine." Mr. Murray came to the same conclusion; and the 

 lifeless and inorganic nature of Bathybius may now be considered 

 settled. This gelatinous slime was once imagined to be primor- 

 dial, and to constitute the basis of life. But the sea-bed is the 

 tomb of past generations, not the womb of creation. 



10. Giological. — The late Sir Charles Lyell says, in the si.xth 

 edition of his "Elements of Geology" (1865), "that white 

 chalk is now forming in the depths of the ocean, may now be 

 regarded as an ascertained fact, because the Globigerind bulloidis 

 is specifically undistinguishable from a fossil which constitutes a 

 large part of the chalk of Europe." He asnmied that the 

 Globigeriiia inhabited the ocze on the sea-bed. Edw ard Forbes 

 and other geologists had initiated and adopted the same view that 

 Cha'k Mas a deep-sea depo.'it. In my Presidential Address to 

 the Biological Section of the British Association at the Plymouth 

 Meeting m 1877, I ventured to question the validity of this 

 theory, and especially that which my colleague and friend Sir 

 Wyville Thomson s'.arted as to the "continuity of the Chalk" 

 from the Cretaceous to the present period. I there endea- 

 voured to show that the Chalk differed in composition from the 

 Atlantic mud, and that the fauna of the Chalk formation repre- 

 sented shjllow and not deep water. My view has, I am glad to 

 say, been to some extent admitted by Sir Wyville Thomson in 

 his " Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. 

 CkaHeitgei;" when he speaks (pp. 49 and 50) of the belt of 

 "shallower water " during the Cretaceous period. At all events, 

 Mr. Wallace has lately accepted and confirmed my opinion.' It 

 is highly probable that the Gault, which underlies the Chalk and 

 is the lowest member of the Upper Cretaceous formation, was a 

 deep-water deposit, because it abounds in small shells of the 

 Area and Corbiila families, vihichare wanting in the Chalk ; as 

 well as in Ammonites and other free-swumming Cephalopods. 



Mr. SoUas, indeed, in his paper "On the Flint Nodules of 

 the Trimmingham Chalk " (Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History for December, iSSo) believes that some deep-sea mud 

 is analogous with the Chalk. He is aware that the former con- 

 tains siliceous organisms and the latter none ; and he supposes 

 that the flints had been in some way derived from these organ- 

 isms. But how flints originated and were formed is still a vexed 

 question. Mr. SoUas is perhaps our best authority (m Sponges ; 

 but he states (p. 444) that "the bottom-water of the sea is re- 

 markably free from organic matter." This statement does not 

 agree with the analyses of the bottom-water of the sea which 

 were made by Mr. Lant Carpenter, Dr. Frankland, and Mr. 

 Buchanan, the chemist of the Challenger, nor with the observa- 

 tions of Sir Wyville Thomson in his "Depths of the Sea," in 

 which he says (p. 46) "the bottom of the sea is a mass of 

 animal Ufe." 



Several species of Mollusca which were previously known as 

 fossil only, and were supposed to be extinct, have lately been 

 dredged by myself and others from the bottom of the Atlantic. 

 Some of these same species had been described and figured by 

 Prof. Seguenza of Messina from Pliocene beds in Sicily. I have 

 no doubt that many more, perhaps all, of such fossil species 

 will be hereafter discovered in a living state by means of deep- 

 sea explorations. 



Some geologists, and especially of late years, have advocated 

 the theory that oceans have continued for an enormously long 

 period to occupy the same areas that they still occupy. Mr. 

 Danvin was, I believe, the first to broach this idea. He says, 

 in the chapter " On the Imperfection of the Geological Record," 

 " We may infer that where our oceans now extend oceans have 

 extended from the remotest period of which we have any record ; 

 and, on the other hand, that where continents now exist large 

 tracts of land have existed, subjected, no doubt, to great oscilla- 

 tions of level, since the earliest Silurian period." There does 

 not seem to be any fact adduced or reason given for either of the 

 above inferences. 



' "Island Life." 



If the present oceans and continents have remained unchanged 

 since the Silurian period, how can we account for the wide- 

 spread distribution of fossiliferous formations. Paleozoic, Meso- 

 zoic, Cainozoic or Tertiary, and Quaternary or Recent, miles in 

 thickness, all over Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and New 

 Zealand ? All oceanic islands are of volcanic origin ; but some 

 of them contain Miocene fossils. These formations are chiefly 

 marine, both deep w ater and shallow ; and they necessarily 

 imply the presence of oceans in tho-e parts of the globe whidi 

 are now continents and dry land. All the "secrets of the deep" 

 will probably never be revealed to man, nor is he likely to know 

 what terrestrial formations underlie the floor of the mid ocean. 



In my paper " On the Occurrence of Marine Shells of Existing 

 Species at different Heights above the Present Level of the 

 Sea," which was published in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society for August 1880, I stated that many existing 

 species of Mollusca which inhabit great depths only are found in 

 a fossil state at considerable heights aliove the present level of 

 the sea, so as to show an elevation equal to nearly I2,coo feet, 

 and that such elevation must have taken place at a very late and 

 comparatively recent stage of the Tertiary or Post-Tertiary 

 epoch. In the face of facts like this, can we rightly assign to 

 the present oceans that geologically remote antiquity which is 

 claimed for them ? 



II. Incidental. — Clarence's dream of wrecks, corpses, wonder- 

 ful treasures, and 



" reflected gems 

 That woo'd the sUmy bottom of the deep. 

 And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by," 



has not yet, I believe, been realised by any dredger. I have in 

 this way explored for between forty and fifty years all our own 

 seas, besides a considerable part of those on the coasts of North 

 America, Greenkmd, Norway, France, .Spain, Portugal, Morocco, 

 and Italy ; but I have never found anything of value except to a 

 naturalist, nor any human bone, although many thousand human 

 beings must have perished in those seas. 



12 Concluding Remark's. — To give a better idea of the ocean 

 and of its life in the depths as well as on the surface, let me 

 strongly recommend my hearers to read Mr. Moseley's admirable 

 volume entitled " Notes of a Naturalist on the Challenger." 

 His graphic account of this marvellous voyage far surpasses in 

 interest (to say nothing of accuracy) every work of fiction or 

 imagination, and it has not the melancholy dulness of most 

 books on history and travels. 



The subject of this lecture is inexhaustible ; and, as our 

 knowledge of it becomes more extended, we mast continually 

 say w-ith Seneca, " Our predecessors have done much, but have 

 not finished. Much work yet remains, and much wdl remain; 

 nor to any one, born after a thousand ages, will be wanting the 

 opportunity of still adding something." Such increase of 

 knowledge must tend to confirm our acknowledgment, with a 

 reverential awe, of that Great Creator whose wondrous works 

 are dimly seen in every form of life, marine and terrestrial, and 

 especially in 



"all that glides 

 Eenea'.h the wave, yea, in the wave itself, 

 And m.ishty waste of waters." 



GAS AND ELECTRICITY AS HEATING 

 AGENTS^ 

 I. 

 (~\N March 14, 1S78, I had the honour of addressing you 

 "On the Utilisation of Heat and other Natural Forces." 

 I then showed that the different forms of energy which Nature 

 has provided for our uses had their origin, with the single excep- 

 tion of the tidal wave, in solar radiation ; that the forces of 

 wind and water, of heat and electricity, were attributable to this 

 source, and that coal formed only a seeming and not a real ex- 

 ception to the rule, — being the embodiment of a fractional por- 

 tion of the solar energy of former geological ages. 



On the present occasion I w ish to confine myself to one 

 branch only of the general subject, namely, the production of 

 heat energy. I shall endeavour to prove that for all ordinary 

 purposes of heating and melting, gaseous fuel should be resorted 

 to for the double reason of producing the utmost economy and of 

 doing away with the bugbear of the present day, the smoke 

 nuisance ; but that for the attainment of extreme degrees of heat 



' Alecture by C. William Siemens, D C.L., LL.D.. F.R.S., on January 

 27. in St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow, under the auspices of the Glasgow 

 Science Lecture Association. 



