418 Scientific Intelligence. 
food by animals,—being, in fact, protoplasm in a state of extreme 
dilution. And the careful analyse s of larger quantities collected 
during the third cruise, which have been since made by Dr. Frank- 
land, mays full confirmed these results, pe! Sk cee the 
d. 
Cut, therefore, any other a probable hie taiees shall have 
een proposed, the sustenance of animal life on the ocean-bottom 
nourished b 7 the direct ‘absorption from the dilute protoplasm dif- 
ai This diffused wnidion tity yr ananey must be pens 
undergoing decomposition, and must be as continually renewed; 
and the source of that renewal must lie on the sz weed ol of plants 
and animals, by which (as tet out by Pr bg Thomson) 
fresh supplies of organic matter must be contin y imparted to 
e oceanic waters, being c Saeed down n to their greatest 
2 OY that liquid diffusion which was so 4s adilirably in investi- 
gated by the late Professor Graha 
penter. pais average > thirty erat. of ae 
gives the following as the percentage proportions :—25"1 oxygen, 
54-2 nitrogen, 20-7 carbonic acid. is Born, to oe however, was 
eral rule to en piatical, as will prese gt 
that of cd ee to increase, with the depth: the results of 
_ analyses of lesinediaks waters giving a percentage of 22°0 oxy 
