150 THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
great sea and in its shallow waters similar relics 
of a past life are found; but in the profounder 
chambers of the great waters, and amid the 
dash of its mid-ocean waves, no such treasures 
of creative skill were once supposed to exist. 
Indeed, it was argued, with great show of logic, 
that such was the pressure of the water, when 
of great depth, that all life would be crushed out, 
and even the hardest shell broken into frag¬ 
ments. The dropping of Brooke’s deep-sea lead 
through seven miles of water, until it touched 
the bottom of mid-ocean, dispelled all of these 
learned arguments, just as did the landing of a 
steamer from Liverpool at New York the posi¬ 
tive assertion which Dr. Lardner had just before 
made, that the thing could never be done. 
“ It is now well known that if the beds de¬ 
posited in the deepest ocean should become 
indurated, they would present much the same 
conditions as the fossiliferous formations already 
mentioned, which are, without question, the re¬ 
sult of deposition in deep waters. 
“ But beautiful as are these untenanted pearl 
habitations, and marvellous as they are in num¬ 
ber, they are wholly surpassed by their living 
posterity, which have come down to us with all 
