Prof. Ehrenberg on Microscopic Life, fyc. 115 
posed expedition ; and it was at the express desire of the author 
that Alex. v. Humboldt undertook to suggest to that body the 
importance of attention being paid to the study of the relations 
under which minute organisms exist, as one likely to throw con¬ 
siderable light upon the principal questions now agitated, in¬ 
volved in the recent history of the earth’s crust, and also to 
recommend that the directions given by the author as to the 
methods of collecting them should be adopted throughout the 
whole voyage. Through the scientific ardour of Dr. J. Hooker, 
son of the well-known botanist, and a voyager on board the ship 
Erebus, a variety of valuable materials were collected during the 
expedition, and a short time back about forty packages and three 
glasses of water were transmitted to Germany from the neighbour¬ 
hood of Cape Horn and Victoria Land. About the same time also, 
Mr. Darwin, the profound observer upon the formation of coral 
reefs in the South Seas, contributed objects from other localities. 
The author set about examining carefully without delay, as 
such an opportunity might not again recur, water which had 
been taken from the South Polar Sea of from 75° to 78° 10' 
south latitude, and 162“ west longitude, with a view of determin¬ 
ing its relative amount of minute organic life. Of the dry 
materials some packets only have as yet been examined, those 
namely which from their localities appear to possess the greatest 
interest, and among these were specimens of the remains of 
melted polar ice and sea-bottom, taken under south latitudes 63° 
and 78°, from depths of 190 to 270 fathoms ( i . e. 1140— 
1620 feet), the greatest depths that have been hitherto sounded. 
The relations of minute organic life were found, as the author 
had anticipated, to be the same at the south as at the north pole, 
and generally of great extent and intensity at the greatest depths 
of the ocean. 
Previous observations upon those loftiest mountains whose 
pinnacles are capped with eternal ice, had determined that a 
gradual progressive disappearance of organic life takes place from 
the base to their summit, and that too in accordance with parti¬ 
cular laws ; to the tree succeeding the lowly shrub, next grass 
and lichens, till finally we arrive at the regions of perpetual snow, 
i 2 
