Wonders of the Deep

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 17, 26 April 1906, Page 20

Wonders of the Deep

One of the most interesting 1 discoveries recently made in the Indian Ocean was that floating life was exceedingly abundant at all depths down to about one thousand two hundred fathoms in seas ''two thousand ttve hundred fathoms deep. By floating life, we mean animals which form the fcod of whales and deep ocean fish, and which, up to the present, have been believed to live on or very close to the surface A variety of enormous squids were fished out, as well as jelly fish and gigantic prawns fully six ,> Cnes , on£ ,. Some of -these latter were bhrd, white others had huge eyes, but nearly all of them had - nhosnhorescrnt, organs which would natur»ilv be d.;e to the fact that they live at a depth where almost total darkness prevails. The Mind varieties had enormous feelers or antennae, some af tfoem extending to twi>e t*e 1-nsrth of their bodies. Some forms, such /as the water-flea, which is {only about the sire of a mVs h^d in surface wnter.'werp discovered mx or ten times that size in 600 or 700 fathoms.