SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 135 



ing organisms secrete lime-rock within their own tissues. 



One point of great importance to geologists is the distribution 

 of deposits of phosphates and glauconite. We do not find any 

 of these noAv forming, except along the coasts in peculiar sit- 

 uations. They are invariably in localities where cold currents 

 may, at intervals, rush in to warmer zones of the sea, destroy- 

 ing much of its life. Thus, off the coast of Canada and the 

 northeastern portion of the United States, we have the report 

 from the Fish Conunissioners that untold millions of fish and 

 other denizens of the ocean w^ere killed in a stormy period. 

 Their remains formed a layer several feet in thickness in parts 

 of the tract. From their decaj^ and by processes well enough 

 understood beds of phosphate are built up, and in connection 

 therewith, glauconite is also formed. 



Thus is explained the location of such deposits in Florida, at 

 the Cape of Good Hope, in Algiers and elsewhere, always near 

 the coast border's, representing areas of former shallow sub- 

 mergence. Something of the same action is also taking place 

 along the North Pacific coast, in Canada and the United States, 

 and I presume that beds of glauconite and phosphate are there 

 to be found. 



The deposition of sand grains is now known to be confined 

 almost wholly to degradation of land surface. There is prac- 

 tically no accumulation of silica in the deep sea, except in re- 

 gions where melting icebergs drop the material which they 

 have transported from the land. Diatoms and other organisms 

 with siliceous parts thrive in inany parts of the ocean, even 

 away from the areas of detrital deposit. The explanation of 

 some of these facts is still obscure. 



Contrary to general belief heretofore, there is no evidence 

 of convection currents in the deeper layers of the water. Below 

 600 feet in depth, both light and heat are independent of atmo- 

 spheric infiuences. Not more than one degree of difference in 

 temperature, upon the average, is discernible in very deep water 

 over the whole area of the oceans. 



The old idea of geologists that the oscillations of the con- 

 tmental areas have had their counterpart in changes of the 

 great base-level plateau underneath the ocean, do not appear 

 to be warranted by the discoveries of oceanologists. They tend 

 rather to show that the continents have grown independently 

 and that they are now growing by a process of hydration. 

 This means the absorption of water from the ocean, producing 

 earth masses of less specific gravity than the covered portions 

 on the basal plateau. This view explains the known differ- 

 ence of action of the pendulum over the land and in mid-sea, 

 and gives me reason to conclude that the continents are grow- 



