124 



THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



Struck with the sticky, viscid character of the mud from 

 great depths, and thus speaks of it in his Report^: 

 'Between the 15th and 45th degrees of west longitude 

 lies the deepest part of the ocean, the bottom of which 

 is almost wholly composed of the same kind of soft 

 mealy substance, which, for want of a better name, 

 I' have called ooze. This substance is remarkably 

 sticky, having been found to adhere to the sounding-rod 

 and line (as has been stated above), through its passage 



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from the bottom to the surface, in some instances from 

 a depth of more than 3000 fathom^/ This is the 

 character of the mud in the warm ' area of the oceaiij 

 though the more recent expeditions of Dr. Carpenter 

 and Professor Wyville Tliompson have shown that the 

 character of the bottom is totally different in the cold 

 portion of the strait between the Faroe and the Shet- 

 land Islands— in that part over which flows the down- 

 current from the Arctic basin. Referring to Captain 

 Dayman's description. Professor Fluxley says ^:—^ This 

 stickiness of the deep sea mud arises, I suppose, from 

 the circumstance that, in addition to the Globigerm 

 of all sizes which are its chief constituents, it contains 

 innumerable lumps of a transparent, gelatinous sub- 

 stance. These lumps are of all sizes, from patches 



a good many minor differences/ For further information on this most 

 interesting subject we must refer the reader to the Lecture itself. 



^ ' Deep-Sea Soundings in the North Atlantic Ocean/ 1858. 



^ On some Organisms living at great Depths in the North Atlantic 

 Ocean, 'Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,' October, 180^' 

 p. 105. 



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