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Such was Bathybius, which once raised such a commotion in the world of science, but which is never heard of or even alluded to in scientific circles today. And now for the issue of this discovery of such mighty promise. In the year 1872, the "Challenger," commanded by John Murray, set out on a voyage of deep-sea exploration.
The atmosphere is full of their sacred emanations!" mysteriously explained Sham Rao, contemplating with reverence the natives, whom his beloved Haeckel might have easily mistaken for his "missing link," the brood of his " Bathybius Haeckelii." "They are simply under the influence of toddy and opium!" retorted the irreverent Babu.
Our biologists therefore stifled bathybius, perhaps with justice, certainly with prudence, and left protoplasm to its fate. Any one who reads Professor Allman's address above referred to with due care will see that he was uneasy about protoplasm, even at the time of its greatest popularity.
For after scientists like K. E. von Baer and others had already declared it probable that this bathybius is only a precipitate of organic relics, no less a person than the discoverer of the bathybius, in the "Annals of Natural History," 1875, and in the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science," 1875, has suggested that the whole discovery is but gypsum, which was precipitated in a gelatinous condition.
That which interested me in the matter was the apparent analogy of Bathybius with other well-known forms of lower life.... Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the matter, and if Bathybius were brought up alive from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow the fact would not have the slightest bearing that I can discern upon Mr.
Now men of science, or the majority of them, for there are some exceptions, know what is, and what is not possible. They know that germs of life may possibly come down on meteorites from somewhere else, and they produced an argument for the existence of a bathybius.
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