LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 57 
spring time or summer season we would soon see it producing minute 
spots of a yellowish or greenish colour. These spots, examined 
through the microscope, reveal thousands of vegetable forms. 
Presently thousands of Rhizopods and Infusoria appear, which move 
and swim about the floating vegetable forms upon which they nourish 
themselves. Other Infusoria then appear, which, in their turn, pursue 
and devour the first. 
In short, life transforms unorganised into organised matter. 
Vegetables appear first, then come herbivorous animals, and then 
come the carnivorous. Life maintains life. The death of one 
provides food and development to others, for all are bound up 
together ; all assist at the metamorphoses continually occurring in 
the organic as in the inorganic world, the result being general and 
profound harmony—harmony always worthy of admiration. The 
Creator alone is unchangeable,.omnipotent, and permanent; all else 
1s transition. 
The inhabitants of the water are at least as numerous as those of 
the solid earth. ‘Upon a surface less varied than we find on conti- 
nents,” says Humboldt, “‘ the sea contains in its bosom an exuberance 
of life of which no other portion of the globe could give us any idea. 
It expands in the north as in the south; in the east as in the west. 
The seas, above all, abound with this life; in the bosom of the deep, 
creatures corresponding and harmonising with each other sport and 
play. Among these the naturalist finds instruction, and the philo- 
sopher subjects for meditation. The changes they undergo only 
impress upon our minds more and more a sentiment of thankfulness 
to the Author of the universe.” 
Yes, the ocean in its profoundest depths—its plains and its 
mountains, its valleys, its precipices—is animated and beautified by 
the presence of innumerable organised beings. Among these we find 
the Algz, solitary or social, erect or drooping, spreading into prairies, 
grouped in patches, or forming vast forests in the ocean valleys. 
These submarine forests protect and nourish millions of animals 
which creep, which run, which swim among them ; others again sink 
into the sands, attach themselves to rocks, or lodge themselves in 
their crevices ; these construct dwellings for themselves ; they seek or 
fly from each other ; they pursue or fight, caress each other lovingly, 
or devour each other without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks 
somewhere that our terrestrial forests do not maintain nearly so many 
living beings as those which swarm in the bosom of the sea. The 
ocean, which for man is the region of asphyxia and death, is for millions 
