38 THE WORLD BENEATH THE WAVES 



pressure of the atmosphere amounts to 14.7 pounds 

 per square inch. At a depth of a Httle over 33 feet 

 below the surface the pressure is twice this amount, 

 a column of water of this height having the same 

 weight as a column of the atmosphere. At a depth 

 of about 67 feet the pressure is that of three atmo- 

 spheres, or about 44 pounds on the square inch. At 

 100 feet the pressure will have increased to something 

 near 60 pounds, and so on, until at a depth of 2000 

 fathoms it will, allowing for the increasing density 

 of the water at increasing depths, be more than 21 

 tons on every square inch. 



Marine animals of many kinds live under this 

 enormous pressure. They do not feel it any more 

 than we feel the weight of the atmosphere, but if they 

 happen to be dragged up to the surface by a dredge, 

 their condition then, as Dr Giinther has put it, 

 becomes, only in an extraordinarily intensified degree, 

 that of a man who has been carried too high in a 

 balloon ; the fluids of their body, becoming released 

 from their accustomed pressure, expand and burst 

 the flesh, and life is generally extinct before the 

 surface is reached. These disastrous effects are most 

 manifest in creatures like fishes, that have no firm 

 shell to hold them together. When a true deep- 

 sea fish is brought to the surface, its belly is blown 

 up until its intestines often protrude, and its eyes 

 start out of their sockets, these being sure signs 



