bottles of water. They were the same sealed bottles in which they were
collected in the year 1842. In the iu’st bottle, in which the sediment was
considerable, almost every atom being a distinct siliceous organism, Ileiniaulus
antarcticus predominated. The larger bottle of the second mass had allowed
the greater part to leak through the sealed cork, so that only about a quarter
remained. The mass of sediment arrived in Berlin in 1844, almost all in such a
condition that the author had no hesitation on considering them still alive,
although they all belonged to the almost or perfectly motionless forms. The
Fragillarias ” (Diatoms) “ predominated; these, though rarely adherent in
chains, had their green ovaries mostly preserved in a distinct natural disposition:
Cosdnodisci and Hemiaulus also often exhibited groups of green granules in
their interior. No movement.”
I t will be noticed that a great portion of the organisms grouped together
under the designation of “ Siliceous Polygastrica” are referred by other writers
to the vegetable kingdom; these, although not strictly falling -within the scope
of the present observations, nevertheless illustrate the point under notice,
namely, what ought and what ought not to be accepted as proof of vitality in the
Protozoa as weU as the Protophyta.
The annexed extract from a letter of Professor Ehrenberg’s to Captain
Maury, dated “ Berlin, October 1857” *, shows that the same views continue
to be upheld by that indefatigable observer. Addressing Captain Maury, he
says, “ In your memoir, published by the Geographical and Statistical Society of
New York, I see that you have followed the judgment of the old observers,
who deny the existence of stationary life at great depths, and who sustain themselves
of late by the observations of Mr. Forbes. Also Mr. Bailey has of late
published similar opinions. I cannot agree with this antibiotic judgment, after
having put it beyond doubt that the greater part of the small calcareous carapaces
is filled with small soft bodies; Mr. Bailey also speaks of his observation
of these soft bodies in the Siliceous Badllaria, which strengthens my own
remark. That the great compression prevents putrefaction is a hypothesis;
but the existence of the soft bodies is a certain observation.
“ The other argument for life in the deep, which I have established, is the surprising
quantity of new forms which are wanting in other parts of the sea. If
* Maury’s ‘ Sailing Directions,’ 8th edition. Washington, 1857 : p. 175.
the bottom were nothing but the sediment of the troubled sea, like the fall of
snow in the air, and if the biolithic curves of the bottom were nothing else than
the product of the currents of the sea which heap up the flakes similarly to the
glaciers, there would necessarily be much less of unknown and peculiar forms in
the depths. The surface and the borders of the sea are much more productive
and much more extended than the depths; hence the forms peculiar to the
depths should not be perceived. The great quantity of peculiar forms and of
soft bodies existing in the innumerable carapaces, accompanied by the observation
of the number of unknowns, increasing with the depth,—these are the arguments
which seem to me to hold firmly to the opinion of stationary life at the bottom
of the deep sea.”
I t is at all times a difficult and an ungracious task to endeavour to demonstrate
the fallacy of the views of others, but it becomes tenfold more so when
the author of those views holds such an eminent position as Professor Ehrenberg.
In the present instance no middle course is left open to me, inasmuch as,
disagreeing in almost every fundamental particular regarding the nature, the
structure, and the functions of the lower tribes of organisms met with in the
oceanic deposits, I am compelled not only to adduce the data on which my own
opinions are founded, but to show why I decline to subscribe to opinions that ai’e
diametrically opposed to them.
One of our foremost naturalists and comparative anatomists has characterized
the researches of Professor Ehrenberg as “ wonderful monuments of intense and
unremitting labour, but at least as wonderful illustrations of what zoological
and physiological reasoning should not b e ;” and has declared it to be “ a
matter of duty, on the part of those interested in the progress of zoology,
to pronounce decidedly against the statements contained in the ‘ Infusions-
thierchen,’ so far as regards anatomical or physiological facts”*. I can
only appeal to the opinions I have quoted, and the data on which they have been
based, in support of the course it has thus been rendered imperative on me to
pursue.
Before closing this portion of my subject, it remains for me to draw attention
to the very singular fact that whilst Professor Ehrenberg, in common
* ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ 2nd series, vol. viii. p. 436: Professor Huxley on
the genus Thalassicolla.