*
[footnote] *[See 'Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs', by Charles
Darwin, London, 1842. Also, 'Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S.
"Fly" in the Eastern Archipelago, during the Years ' 1842-1846, by J. B.
Jukes, Naturalist to the expedition, 1847.] -- Tr.
The application of the microscope increases, in the most striking manner,
our impression of the rich luxuriance of animal life in the ocean, and
reveals to the astonished senses a consciousness of the universality of
life. In the oceanic depths, far exceeding the height of our loftiest
mountain chains, every stratum of water is animated with polygastric
sea-worms, Cyclidiae and Ophrydinae. The waters swarm with countless hosts
of small luminiferous animalcules, Mammaria (of the order of Acalephae),
Crustacea, Peridinea, and circling Nereides, which when attracted to the
surface by peculiar meteorological conditions, convert every wave into a
foaming band of flashing light.
p 310
The abundance of those marine animalcules, and the animal matter yielded by
their rapid decomposition are so vast that the sea water itself becomes a
nutrient fluid to many of the larger animals. However much this richness in
animated forms, and this multitude of the most various and highly-developed
microscopic organisms may agreeably excite the fancy, the imagination is
even more seriously, and, I might say, more solemnly moved by the impression
of boundlessness and immeasureability, which are presented to the mind by
every sea voyage.
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