DEEP SEA EXPLORATIONS. The honour and fortune of first
drawing
attention
to
the
wonders of deep sea-life belongs to Dr. G. N. AVallich, a retired member of the Bengal Medical Service. Nine years ago he demonstrated, with certainty, that animal life of highly organised types existed at great depths in tho occan ; and he was able to
a detailed exposition of the several conditions which prevailed, and under which alone animal life could be sustained there. His discoveries, which were published under the tittle of " Tho
give
North Altantic Sea-bed," in 1863, were rewarded by the Fellowship of the Itoyal Society. Dr. "Wallich's knowledge was gained by matters brought up, attached to the lead of the deep-sea sounding line, when exploring the bottom of tho Atlantic for marine
telegraphy.
The discoveries were hardly, perhaps, at the time received with universal faith; but they have very recently received confirmation at the hands of Dr. Carpenter, who conducted experiments on a moro extended scale by the aid of a dredging
machine,
on
board II. M.'s
"
Porcupine."
pEBituAEY 1,1870.] These
new
facta are
PEOGffiESS OP CHOLERA. now
being published by
the
Royal
; we referred to them among the extracts in our last number. As the Lancet writes in its annual summary,?it is
Society
now
known with
certainty
that
"
a
large number
of animals
belonging to various orders and genera of the invertebrate division of the animal kingdom live on the surface of the bed of the ocean, at depths
so
profound,?over 2,000 fathoms,?that
the feeblest intensity and the any, must be of temperature, but little elevated above the freezing point. Notwithstanding this, the colours are in many instances of great the
light,
if
clearness and brilliancy. '-The results obtained by these inquirers, and Iluxley, show that that together with those of Haeckel is covered with water which has, so to portion of the earth of sarcode, protoplasm or animal jelly, the first a mantle speak, and simplest kind of organic being with which we are at present acquainted."
43
drawing
attention
to
the
wonders of deep sea-life belongs to Dr. G. N. AVallich, a retired member of the Bengal Medical Service. Nine years ago he demonstrated, with certainty, that animal life of highly organised types existed at great depths in tho occan ; and he was able to
a detailed exposition of the several conditions which prevailed, and under which alone animal life could be sustained there. His discoveries, which were published under the tittle of " Tho
give
North Altantic Sea-bed," in 1863, were rewarded by the Fellowship of the Itoyal Society. Dr. "Wallich's knowledge was gained by matters brought up, attached to the lead of the deep-sea sounding line, when exploring the bottom of tho Atlantic for marine
telegraphy.
The discoveries were hardly, perhaps, at the time received with universal faith; but they have very recently received confirmation at the hands of Dr. Carpenter, who conducted experiments on a moro extended scale by the aid of a dredging
machine,
on
board II. M.'s
"
Porcupine."
pEBituAEY 1,1870.] These
new
facta are
PEOGffiESS OP CHOLERA. now
being published by
the
Royal
; we referred to them among the extracts in our last number. As the Lancet writes in its annual summary,?it is
Society
now
known with
certainty
that
"
a
large number
of animals
belonging to various orders and genera of the invertebrate division of the animal kingdom live on the surface of the bed of the ocean, at depths
so
profound,?over 2,000 fathoms,?that
the feeblest intensity and the any, must be of temperature, but little elevated above the freezing point. Notwithstanding this, the colours are in many instances of great the
light,
if
clearness and brilliancy. '-The results obtained by these inquirers, and Iluxley, show that that together with those of Haeckel is covered with water which has, so to portion of the earth of sarcode, protoplasm or animal jelly, the first a mantle speak, and simplest kind of organic being with which we are at present acquainted."
43
