Since I attempted in a former work, 'Ansichten der Natur' (Views of Nature),
to delineate the universal diffusion of life over the whole surface of the
Earth, in the distribution of organic forms, both with respect to elevation
and depth, our knowledge of this branch of science has been most remarkably
increased by Ehrenberg's brilliant discovery "on microscopic life in the
ocean, and in the ice of the polar regions" -- a discovery based, not on
deductive conclusions, but on direct observation. The sphere of vitality,
we might almost say, the horizon of life, has been expanded before our eyes.
"Not only in the polar regions is there an uninterrupted development of
active microscopic life, where larger animals can no longer exist, but we
find that the microscopic animals collected in the Antarctic expedition of
Captain James Ross exhibit a remarkable abundance of unknown and often most
beautiful forms. Even in the residuum obtained from the melted ice,
swimming about in round fragments in the latitude of 70 degrees 10', there
were found upward of fifty species of silicious-shelled Polygastria and
Coscinodiscae with their green ovaries, and therefore living and able to
resist the extreme severity of the cold. In the Gulf of Erebus, sixty-eight
silicious-shelled Polygastria and Phytolitharia, and only one
calcareous-shelled Polythalamia, were brought up by lead sunk to a depth of
from 1242 to 1620 feet.
Pages:
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714