CHAPTER III 
THE GREAT DEEPS 
The Challenger Expedition—The Deep Deep Sea—Great 
Pressure—Very Cold—Very Dark—Very Calm and Silent 
—Monotony—No Depth Limit to Life—No Plants in the 
Deep Sea—No Rottenness—A_ Representative Fauna— 
Fitnesses of Deep-sea Animals—Puzzle of Phosphorescence 
—Big Eyes and Little Eyes—Origin of Deep-sea Animals 
—Hunger and Love in the Deep Sea—Retrospect. 
O our forefathers the depths of the sea 
were as unknown and as mysterious as 
fairyland. Very early, indeed, fishermen had 
begun to explore the surface-waters, and had 
forced them increasingly to contribute of their 
abundance to their support, but the life of the 
great depths was absolutely unknown, though 
imagination peopled them with strange forms. 
As late as the sixteenth century a famous book 
by Conrad Gesner contained, mixed up with 
illustrations of real animals, pictures of mer- 
men and mermaidens, tritons, dragons, sea- 
devils, sea-bishops, and other fabled monsters. 
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