134 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



faintest sign of plant life to diversify the dreary tones of 

 the modified Globigerina and Pteropod ooze — no patches 

 of green, or brown, or red, to give a hint of the presence 

 of sea-weed growth — ^no relief to the imperceptibly 

 merging monotones of these lifeless declivities. Standing 

 on the very edge of our plateau, we should shrink back 

 almost appalled as our gaze travelled downwards to these 

 silent, evil-smelling profundities. 



Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, is 15,782 

 feet above the sea-level. Chamounix, from which moun- 

 tain village most people content themselves with viewing 

 its towering mass, is itself 3,400 feet above the sea ; so 

 that the actual height of the mountain above this well- 

 known holiday- resort is only some twelve thousand feet. 

 Take this mountain block, as seen from Chamounix, and 

 place it on the bottom of the Swan Island Canyon ; and 

 your gaze as you stood upon the edge of our plateau 

 would travel do^^ n to alight upon its summit eight thousand 

 feet beneath you ! 



The Eiffel Tower is nine hundred and eighty-five feet 



high. You could stand twenty Eiffel Towers, one upon 



the top of the other, and the top of the last would only just 



reach to the level of your sight as you looked across to 



the Mysteriosa Bank. 



* * * * 



As you stood there, and thought of the gracious sunshine 

 bathing our two little islands, and of how it has brought 

 into being such a superabundant train of animal and 

 vegetable life, to charm the eye and allure the senses ; 

 you might well shudder at these hideous abysses, and at 

 the ghastly conditions under which their deep-sea inhabi- 

 tants live out their awful days of never ceasing darkness 

 and unthinkable monotony. 



For creatures live down there — weird fish-terrors, with 

 jaws like a man-trap and monstrous teeth, so large that 

 in the case of some species they prevent the mouth being 

 closed ; or again, with boaies ridiculously out of proportion 

 to their enormous heads ; creatures with rows of phos- 



