IN THE DEPTHS OF THE DEEP.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1054, 18 February 1911, Page 7

IN THE DEPTHS OF THE DEEP.

■ 7 WONDERS OF. THE UNIVERSE ' CLEARING-HOUSE. FINE ARTICLE BY PROFESSOR J. A. THOMSON; " Thero is a very brilliant Article by Professor J; Arthur Thomson in the January issue of tho "London Quarterly lieview." Ho calls it "Tho Dryad.in tho Tree." This, he explains, is "the Principle of Life, (ho something Hint mado an animal different from an engine, the innermost secret of activity." But tho Dryad does not appear only in tho tree. Wo find him in the sea, and somo of Professor Thomson's most interesting pages deal with tho wonders beneath tho sea. The Sea's Abundance of Life. "Many of us on an ocean voyage may liavo watched the sun set in the water, lingering for a minute or two like', a' ball of fire balanced on the tight string of tho horizon. We may havo : waited till it was.quito dark except for the stars and the steamer lights, .and then enjoyed the 'phosphorescence.' There is a cascade of sparks at tho prow, a stream of sparks nil, along the water level,' a welter of sparks in the wake, and even where tho waves break thero is fire. So it goes on for miles and hours—the luminescence of the rapid vital combustion of pinhead-like creatures, eo numerous that a bucketful contains more of them than there aro people in London. This is just ono of a thousand ways of feeling tho abundance of life. This is 050 of tho impressions unified in the vilion of tho Dryad. , \ Six Miles Deep of Sea. . "Everyone knows that although our knowledgo of tho deep-sea fauna began oilly half a century ago (in 1860), it lias grown in extent and intensity in a manner which is truly striking when wo consider the relative inaccessibility of this haunt of life. The reports on deep-sea exploration form a large library by themselves. The area of abyssal depths occupies moro than .half of tho earth's surface. The average depth is two and a half miles, and there are many places which would.engulf, reversed Himalayas; the 'Challenger Depth' in tho'North Pacific reaches 5269 fathoms,- approaching sis miles, and if . Mount Everest were thrown' in thero would bo 2600 feet of water above it. "At the common depth of 2500 fathoms tiio pressure is 21 tons on tho squaro inch, somo twenty-five times greater than the pressure in tho boiler of a good locomotive. A down-sinking of cold polar water, especially a northward movement from tho far south, keeps the abyssal temperature very low—about tho freezing point of *fresh water and often lower, and brings down nbimdnnt oxygen. The lieat rays do not penetrate below 15(1 fathoms or so. ' This, world of eternal winter is also very dark, for there is vory little light below 250 fathoms, and in the truo deep sea there is nothing to relieve tho darkness snvo tho fitful gleams of phosphorescent,light.. . •(•<.. . , Calm Darkness of tho Deep. '

"Among tho, results of Sir Joli'n" ray's 1910 deop-scn exploration in, tho North Atlantic,' we noticb that with a very delicato ITellnnd-llansim photometric apparatus, tho influence of light was detected clcaily nt 3QO fntboms. .f.linlly at 500 fnthoms, !\ivl not,at,nil at.900 fathoms. AVUilo • this /cxtcpdsi ".hitherto been regarded ns tho' light .limit.'it <l°es riot afreet onr picture.of the grd'atribysses, where there is not only eternal winter, but eternal night. With the numerous luminescent animals in certain regions, it may sometimes perhaps resemble the ill-lighted suburbs of n, town on a verydark night. It is absolutely' l calnv for ..the greatest storms are relatively sin 1 low in theif 'YencK. *•)iTherc isi luteigonnd.- -at all to break tho'.eternal silence. There is not even sconefy, but. a dreary expnnso ,of undulating ' sweeps, • 'like flat sarid jdnltps or (le.sert country, interrupted nt wide distances by n ridge' orcone ris-i ijig to the surface. What, n picturo tho explorers "have givon' of the tiark, cold, calm, ."silent, dreary and. , monotonous world of tho Deep 82a!

A Richly-peopled Marino World. • "But tho picture grows in impressiveness ivhcn we recogniso that, this deepsea world is richly peopled. There- nro more animals'at moderate depths, nnd most wliero the bottom is covered with calcareous oozo. which extends to, about 201)0, fathoms, Jjijt;'shfirdvei' tlm I6ilg arm of* the dredge lias mcliwU'aowiij there it has fbftiid life. > Sir:tfohn' Murray has been,recently working,a largo otter trawl with great success at the'extraordinary depth of 2820 fathoms.{oyer three'miles), and even in the devest depths there is a fauna. ' ■' i' "But as thero are no-'plants, since there is no light, the general habit of life -is carnivorous and the struggle for existence is keen. • Aud'sitico,jliey cannot oil,bo eating one another.'the fundamental ' food supply of tlio" fauna is to be looked for in that ceaseless rain of atomies, killed at the surface of vicissitudes of temperature and the like, and sinking, as they die, slowly through it may bo miles of water like snow-flakes on n quiet winter day. To this we have also to add that .thero seem to be no bacteria in the deep sea, and therefore no rottenness. Every thin,'; that sinks down is eaten or .dissolved in this universe clearing-house.

Value of Sea Research. ■ "In one of his last writings Herbert .Spencer complained of the unreflectivo ipood among' cultured and • uncultured alike, 'which not porceivo with AVhut mysteries'we aro surrounded.' 'By those who know much, more than by thoso who know'little, is there 'felt the need for explanation.' .'What,' for instance, 'must one say of the life, minute, multitudinous, degraded, .which', covering the ocean floor, occupies by far tho larger part of tho earth's area; and which yet, growing and decaying in utter darkness, presents hundreds of species of a single type.' What is the deeper significance of the abyssal fauna? , "In the first place, it seems useful to remind ourselves that a knowledge of the deep 6ea has cut into human life; it has been of vnluo to mankind—practically, in connection with laying cables (and that hasimeant much); intellectually, for it has been a rare exercise-ground for thescientific' investigator; emotionally, for there is perhaps no more striking modern gift to the imagination than the picture which we. have roughly sketched of tho eerie, cold, dark, calm, silent, less, monotonous, but thickly-peopled world of tho Deep Sea. , ' . • '•( The Meaning of the Sea. ''Yet this cannot be its full meaning. So perhaps Wo get-nearer the heart-of the problem when wo recogniso that tho deen sea is an integral part of the whole. It is tho overflow basis of the great fountain of life, the arch of which is sunlit. • It is necessary to the economy of the ocean. It is tho universe clearing-house. And perhaps we may go a little deeper still, for when we recogniso that insurgent life has conquered this desert, that this byway is full of beauty, and especially that there is hero the same order aiid rationality nnd nervasivo purposiveness that wo find elsewhere, then wo know that the life of the deep sea is part of a great idea, a great thought—part of that wholo which is greater than the sum of its parts. It is to this that tho Dryad leads us."