480 



Messrs. Carpenter, Jeffreys, and Thomson [Nov. 18, 



132. The varying proportions of Carbonic Acid and Oxygen in the 

 surface-waters are doubtless to be accounted for in part by the differences 

 in the amount and character of the Animal life existing beneath ; but a 

 comparison of the results of the analyses made during the agitation of the 

 surface by wind, with those made in calm weather, showed so decided a re- 

 duction in the proportion of Carbonic Acid, with an increase in that of 

 Oxygen, under the former condition, as almost unequivocally to indicate 

 that superficial disturbance of the sea by Atmospheric movement is abso- 

 lutely necessary for its purification from the noxious effects of Animal de- 

 composition. Of this view a most unexpected and remarkable confirmation 

 has been afforded by the following circumstance : — In one of the analyses 

 of Surface-water made during the Second cruise, the percentage of Carbonic 

 Acid fell as low as 3*3, while that of Oxygen rose as high as 37*1 ; and 

 in a like analysis made during the Third cruise, the percentage of Carbonic 

 Acid was 5*6, while that of Oxygen was 45 '3. As the results of every 

 other analysis of Surface-water were in marked contrast to these, it became 

 a question whether they should not be thrown out as erroneous ; until it 

 was recollected that whilst the samples of surface-water had been generally 

 taken up from the bow of the vessel, they had been drawn, in these two 

 instances, from abaft the paddles, and had thus been subjected to such a 

 violent agitation in contact with the Atmosphere as would preeminently 

 favour their thorough aeration. — Hence, then, it may be affirmed that 

 every disturbance of the Ocean-surface by Atmospheric movement, from 

 the gentlest ripple to the most tremendous storm-wave, contributes, in 

 proportion to its amount, to the maintenance of Animal life in its Abyssal 

 depths ; doing, in fact, for the aeration of the fluids of their inhabitants 

 just what is done by the heaving and falling of the walls of our own chest 

 for the aeration of the blood which courses through our lungs. A perpe- 

 tual calm would be as fatal to their continued existence as the forcible 

 stoppage of all Respiratory movement would be to our own ; and thus 

 universal stagnation would become universal death. 



