TOPOGRAPHY OF THE EASTERN COAST. 107 
variety and numbers according to the amount of food available. 
But no matter how varied or how abundant life may be, the 
general aspect of the slopes must be dreary in the extreme, and 
can only be compared in character to those higher mountain 
regions where we find occasional fields of wild-flowers and low 
shrubs, or to those zones lying beyond the limits of forests, 
where vegetation is seanty and poor, and forms but a slight 
covering to the earth's surface. 
It is true that along the continental slopes, where there is an 
ample supply of food, we find animal life in great abundance, 
and there are undoubtedly long stretches of bottom carpeted by 
the most brilliantly colored animals, packed quite as closely as 
they are on banks in shallower waters, or near low-water mark. 
But the scene is much less varied than on land; the absence 
of plants in deep water makes great diversity of scenery impos- 
sible. The place of luxuriant forests with the accompanying 
underbrush and their inhabitants is only indifferently supplied 
by large anthozoa and huge cuttle-fishes, or nearer in shore, 
within moderate depths, by sea-weed and the pelagic forests of 
giant kelp. : 
It requires but little imagination to notice the contr: sts, as we 
pass from the shallow littoral regions of the sea, — full of sun- 
light and movement, and teeming with animal and vegetable 
life, — into the dimly lighted, but richly populated continental 
zone; and further to imagine the gradual decrease of the conti- 
nental fauna, as it fades into the calm, cold, dark, and nearly 
deserted abyssal regions of the oceanic floors at a distance from 
the continents. It is like going from the luxuriant vegetation 
of the tropical shore line — the region of palms, bananas, and 
mango — into the cooler zone of oaks and pines, until we pass 
out into the higher levels, with their stunted vegetation and 
scanty fauna, and finally into the colder climate of the bleak 
regions of perpetual snow. 
The soundings thus far taken by the “ Bulldog” and other 
vessels to ascertain the general topography of the North Atlan- . 
tic (Fig. 61), the extensive lines of soundings across the North 
Pacific by the “Tuscarora,” the “ Challenger," and the “ Ga- 
zelle,” show that the topography of the ocean basins is far less 
