130 
Note on some Marine Animals, fyc. 
The most remarkable circumstance connected with this subject 
of deep-sea dredging is, that the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean, 
near the lands visited by Sir James Ross, was found to be covered 
with a mud consisting in great part of the remains of Infusoria, 
very similar to those forming the “ fossil powder” detected in the 
neighbourhood of New York, and in other parts of the globe. 
Prof. Ehrenberg has described from our collections as many as 
140 species, or thereabouts, all brought from the vicinity of 
Palmer’s and Victoria Land. In a living state they inhabit the 
surface of the ocean and the newly-forming ice, and afford food 
for SalpcB and animals of a higher organization; which, in their 
turn, nourish the most fully-developed beings inhabiting those 
regions where the animal kingdom lives and abounds indepen¬ 
dently it would seem of the vegetable. Well may we agree with 
Professor Owen in regarding these “ minute Infusory animalcules 
as “ the wakeful members of nature’s invisible police, everywhere 
ready to arrest the fugitive organised particles which are sus¬ 
pended in water, and to turn them back into the ascending stream 
of animal life.” 
It is probable that animal life exists at a very great depth, sus¬ 
pended in the ocean. On one occasion a sounding-line that had 
been lowered to 1000 fathoms, brought up at the 550-fathom 
mark long strings of animal matter, about the diameter of a 
crow-quill, of indefinite length, great elasticity, and as viscid as 
bird-lime. It is certainly possible that in descending or ascend¬ 
ing the line may have become entangled with this substance 
nearer the surface; but I am not inclined to suppose so for the 
following reasons : because the tow-net was constantly used, 
both during and before and after the soundings, without procur¬ 
ing any of the substance; because its viscidity was so great, that 
no other part of the line could well have passed through without 
a portion adhering to it; and because, upon two future occasions, 
the same substance came up on the sounding-line from unques¬ 
tionably very deep water. 
IKest Park, Ketv, August 31,1845. 
