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 

 reo'ions where we find occasional fields of wild-flowers and low 

 shrubs, or to those zones lying beyond the hmits of forests, 

 where vegetation is scanty 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 brilHantly 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 luxui-iant 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 contrasts, as we 

 pass from the shallow httoral 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 imaofine the g;radual 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 chmate 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 topogi-aphy of the ocean basins is far less 



