ROBERTS — HIGH AND LOW LIFE. 
5 
which Dr. WalHch introduces to science the recent deposit. Light 
from discoveries of to-day is thus thrown backward, and thus finds 
reflection in analogous conditions of deep-sea deposits and buried 
animal-hfe at a remote geological period, which in turn aids us in 
investigating present life, and proves that conditions favourable to 
Foraminifera-life could support Radiata, Echinodermata, and Mol- 
lusca, which, could we dredge as well as sound in the deep Atlantic, 
w^ould doubtless reward our search. 
As yet, no companions to the OpliiocomcB and Glohigerince have been 
taken from the enormous depth at which these forms of life exist, 
but a living Serjmla was obtained from a sounding of six hundred 
and eighty fathoms, in conjunction with a Hving S^irorhis, Other 
free Annehds, and two amphipod Crustaceans, were also taken alive 
at four hundred and forty-five fathoms ; depths, be it remembered, 
far beyond any previously-known habitat. 
Some remarkable phenomena connected with atmospheric in- 
fluences are noticed by Dr. Wallich during his cruise, such as the 
almost entire absence of those varied forms of animal life w^hich 
usually present themselves upon the surface, such as Pteropods. 
This he attributes to the severity of the past season, which appeared 
to have exercised such an influence upon sui'face-water life, that even 
Diatomaceas were scantily represented. And another matter worthy 
of note was the scarcity of drift-timber, in ordinary years borne 
along by the deflection of the Gulf-stream, and cast upon the coast 
of Greenland. This our learned author advisedly regards as a proof 
of a variation in the course of the Gulf-stream proper, before it was 
caught up and deflected by the Arctic current ; or, w^hat is still more 
probable, that this year has been marked by an extension of the 
Arctic current, sufficiently great to overpower and deflect the Gulf- 
stream, bear down its floating burden to other lands, and materially 
lower the temperature of Northern Europe. 
Some sensible hints as to the surveying of the sea-bottom beneath 
deep water are given by our author ; and he suggests, with a kindly 
feeling towards further investigators, a sensible method of procuring 
Diatomaceas, Polycystineae, &c., from sea-water, which being quite 
new, and hkely to turn many good things into the hands of those 
who study these tiny but most important organisms, I am glad to in- 
