THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE 189 



shrubs, or to those zones lying beyond the limits of for- 

 ests, 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 brilliantly col- 

 ored 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 

 impossible. 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 con- 

 trasts, as we pass from the shallow littoral regions of the 

 sea, — full of sunlight and movement, and teeming with 

 animal and vegetable life, — into the dimly lighted, but 

 richly populated continental zone ; and further to imag- 

 ine the gradual decrease of the continental 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 vege- 

 tation 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." 



Any one who has read that passage will scarcely 

 doubt Agassiz's ability to write with imaginative force. 



