CHAPTERXVII.OVER THE OCEAN-BED

“The wrecks dissolve above us: their dust drops down from afar;—Down to the dark, the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,O’er the great grey level plains of ooze, where the shell-burred cables creep.”Rudyard Kipling.

“The wrecks dissolve above us: their dust drops down from afar;—

Down to the dark, the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.

There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,

O’er the great grey level plains of ooze, where the shell-burred cables creep.”

Rudyard Kipling.

BY way of variety, shall we take a little excursion together, you and I, into those under-sea regions of which so much has been said in past chapters? Regions which the foot of man has never trod; which the eye of man has never seen; which, except in death, the hand of man has never touched.

Shall we leave behind the fair Earth that we love, the sunshine, the bright sky, the fields and hedgerows, the blue sparkles of Ocean’s surface, and go down and down, through a waste of lonely waters, till our feet rest upon firm ground below?

“Eh, but it’s eerie!” we might say, were we of Scots descent. Sunlight is at once lost sight of, and twilight deepens fast.

A heavy cyclone may be raging above, but the troublous turmoil soon ceases to affect us. Stormy billows, with their showers of spray, cannot disturb the calm of these depths. As we sink lower, we find ourselves enwrapped in stillness. A creeping current is around us, yet with movement so gentle that we are not aware of it.

During the early part of our descent we come across innumerable sea-weeds; delicate floating red fronds, and long brown ribbons tangled together.

Presently we pass through a sticky slimy mass of Diatoms, reaching far to right and left, and of great depth. Untold millions of those tiny vegetables are living and growing together, in one enormous floating bank.

Now we have reached the “hundred-fathom limit,” and as we go beyond it, we find marked changes from the life we have known above.

No seasons here. No variations from summer to winter, from spring to autumn. Only one dead level of perpetual chill, becoming colder and colder.

No light here. No variations from night to day, from evening to morning. Nothing butcontinuous midnight blackness, unrelieved by the faintest gleam of sunshine.

No plant-life here. No ocean-weeds of any kind. Those things we have left behind us, far above.

Dead sea-weed fronds are indeed abundant, sinking slowly downward, in company with ourselves; and dead Diatoms, with dead microscopic creatures of many kinds, rain incessantly from the surface waters to the ocean’s bed. But they are far too minute for us to feel them, as they slip noiselessly past.Seeinganything, small or large, is out of the question.

No light; no waves; no colour; no beauty. Only unbroken stretches of silent water, with intense and penetrating cold.

A mile or more below we find ourselves on firm ground. This is the topmost peak of a sub-ocean mountain range, rising from the bottom of the sea. In the darkness we grope our way to the verge, then slowly walk down its sloping side, under a ponderous weight of water, while our feet are upon a sticky unpleasant ooze, which seems to be everywhere.

Only not quite everywhere. The nature of the ocean-floor varies.

Here, for instance, we come to a patch of hardground, reaching some little way. But the sticky ooze mainly prevails, varied by less sticky mud. And neither ooze nor mud is always of the same description, as we should discover if we walked far and examined specimens from each district. There are muds and muds—oozes and oozes.

Crabs in abundance scuttle over the ground, as we may know by feeling, if we have left our boots behind. And slimy creatures of various kinds flourish, none of them precisely the same as those which inhabit our sea-beaches in regions of light, yet their near relatives. Stooping down, we touch a rough-coated hedgehog; and then our fingers come into contact with a mass of slimy tentacles, which sting sharply.

One would like to be able to see, as well as to feel. But into these depths no gleam of sunlight may ever penetrate.

Yet, as we stroll onward, plodding through the thick plastic ooze, in the pitchy darkness we become aware of a light, a hazy light, drawing near.

One does not expect to find a lantern down here in the deep ocean-waters. It positively seems to be a lantern, moving as if it had a will of its own. And about the small living lantern,during its approach, we see many creatures congregated, swimming and whisking round, evidently making use of the glimmer to catch their prey.

When it has come close, we find the light to proceed from a soft-bodied jelly-like animal, which, as it travels, carries its own illumination with it. Had we in upper regions such power to shine for ourselves, we should be delightfully independent of artificial light after dark.

At first our impression is that the sub-ocean lamp must be a very uncommon phenomenon. But as we go on we encounter another and another—different indeed in species, yet alike in the possession of natural light-giving organs.

It dawns upon our minds gradually that, even in ocean-depths, the law of compensation is not unrepresented. Even those dark regions, cut off though they are from all rays of sunlight, do not lie under total midnight blackness unrelieved. Even here, in these desolate nethermost parts of the ocean, creatures with eyes may live, and may find a good use for those eyes.

For glimmer after glimmer is seen; and jelly-like animals under our feet, when accidentally touched, give forth rays, sometimes rays of many colours; and fishes, as they flash past, lend occasional gleams; and larger uncouth monsters dothe same—all helping to light up a world beyond reach of the sun.

Talk of depths! We are in them at last, and no mistake. Down—down! Deeper and deeper! Above our heads are piled three or four miles of water, and the pressure upon our unfortunate bodies is terrific.

Here creatures of simplest form abound,—Protozoa, or First Animals, tiny jelly-like specks, mere living cells, too small by far for us to see, even with the help of animated deep-sea lanterns, unless we have carried with us a powerful microscope. But we know them to be there. The ooze and mud alone, when carefully examined, prove the fact.

Here are foraminifera, living and dead; and skeletons of reef-coral, all dead; and specimens of deep-sea coral, both living and dead; and remains of bigger creatures innumerable, which have disported themselves in the waters above. Yet not so many of these last as one might have expected, because of the destructive power of sea-water.

There are also plant-like zoophytes, and disc-shaped jelly-fishes. There are sea-urchins and starfishes. There are sponges in great numbers, wandering young ones and old ones settled downfor life, once looked upon as vegetables, now known to be animals. There are molluscs of various kinds. There are long slimy wriggling worms. There are the inevitable crabs, large and small. There are countless fishes swimming about, not in the least embarrassed by the astounding fact that they have something like three and a half miles of water between them and fresh air and sunlight.

DEEP-SEA FISHESFace page 182

DEEP-SEA FISHES

Face page 182

Unexpectedly we come upon a great ship, lying where it has lately sunk.

The busy sea, always busy even when most quiet, is hard at work demolishing the structure of the vessel; though still in the darkness we can feel the tall mast, the solid sides, of the noble craft, which once floated buoyantly far above, in light of day. Now it reposes on the ocean-bed, never again to be of service to man. Its race is run; its tale is told. Alas! good ship! which, but for one fatal storm, might still be actively engaged in its country’s service.

But we find no human remains. If they be there, our searching has failed to alight on them.

Small wonder, in the great space and the blackness. A medusa gleam of light has little power to aid us in this search.

Perhaps slow currents have carried elsewhere the bodies of men who went down with the ship. Or perhaps the bones have succumbed already to the destructive working of ocean-waters. Or perhaps all on board were saved, when the gallant vessel sank. Let us hope that it was so.

We are leaving the sticky ooze and getting into a region of stiff clay. If there were light enough, we should find it to be of a reddish tint. Here we do find bones—remains of creatures of a higher class, though not of man, the highest of all. Here are sharks’ teeth in great abundance, and many earbones of whales. Not much, after all, but something that tells of Life.

Another lofty mountain height under water, rising from the ocean-bed. Shall we climb it, and see whither it may lead us? Have we not had enough of these black mysterious depths?

Now up and up, cautiously feeling our way and using any such glimmers of living light as we come across. By-and-by we find ourselves getting into shallower water. Evidently this sub-ocean mountain approaches near to the surface. It will not end, like the last, a mile or more beneath.

Here is a region of solid limestone rocks, made of reef-coral, which has been ground and pounded by the waves, and afterwards cemented firmly together. We are getting into levels where the waves have power.

Presently the firm limestone is exchanged for coral mud, and later that gives place to reef-sand. By this time we have around us, not only living animals but living sea-weeds, which fact tells of our nearness to sunlight. It may still seem dark to us, but some light must be able to filter through, or plant-life could not exist.

A few more fathoms of ascent, and we too are aware of light—dim and faint at first, yet steadily increasing.

Shall we step out into the fresh air, the radiant sunshine, of a South-Sea coral island—into a world of light and life and beauty, all the fairer and the sweeter in its contrast with those gloomy under-ocean regions through which we have been wandering?

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