256 
Forbes ; and his observations led us to see how rash it was to judge hastily 
from a few specimens dredged up from the bottom of the sea. _ He contend 
that there were various zones of vegetable life, but at a certain depth of the 
sea all these zones ceased, and you had none at all mde ^ a «f 300 
fathoms Of course there was a reason given for this ; it was, that there was 
“h io nourish animal or vegetable matter. It was said that sheUs became 
more and more colourless the deeper you went down ; that beyond a certain 
denth they became white; and that at a little lower depth there were no such 
itl^whateTr tl be found ; and that in that way you came in the ocean 
to a perfectly azoic part. But since that time the progress of civilization and 
the necessary development of science have brought about the laymg of an 
Atlantic telegraph cable, and before that could be done it TOS 
nlumb the depths of the Atlantic, not at enormous depths certainly, but at 
both of money and time, we got up from the bottom of the Atotic a few 
snecks literally only a few quills full— of the ooze of the Atlantic. Those 
few quills of Atlantic mud gave the death-blow to the old theories i o geo togy^ 
(Cheers) They showed that a cretaceous formation was going on at the 
present time, Ld therefore, given a cretaceous formation you — teU 
how old or how young it is. It might be the wort of contrrn^ of a 
be the wort, so far as science could say anything to the contrary, 
HZ.. >**"■ *- "•» *-*» ZZiTS i 
bottom of the Atlantic, showing a. cretaceous format J ^ 
identical with that cretaceous formation which we a , 
evidence of the old geologists, must have existed fori do 
thousand years. Professor Huxley at Sion College, when lecturing the 
clergy on geology, told them how- many thousands of years 
musfhave existed ; but upon what data are you to make jour 
That was the first thing that took place m laying e ,- tll more 
there was an attempt to lay another cable and the ships went a Me mom 
to the north and, to the astonishment of all the naturalists, they pulled iR 
from deptti^ far below the azoic depths of Professor Forbes , hvmg elfish 
as red as boiled lobsters. (Laughter.) When these 
the first thing that the theorists had to say, was that these fish clian e 
***** rrS'55 
which has never vet come out in public to my knowledge, and which l» 
with mv own eyes. A small portion of the old Atlantic cable was dredged p, 
^d “had well-developed eggs attached to it ; we co^d not J— JJ 
eggs they were, but they were living eggs of fish, attached by p 
stalks to a portion of the cable not much thicker than my finger.^ 
uttrlyput an end to all Professor Forbes’s theories of the non-existence 
of animal life at certain depths, and unto a " J”; who went 
has been confirmed, and thoroughly confirmed, ^ Dn Cmpenter 
out with better dredging appliances, which enabled him \° f time 
quantities of these things from the bottom of the ocean. A 
these matters only show us the vast amount of our ignorance. Snppo 
