Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The provisions carried in those days were not very different from the provisions carried on deep-sea vessels at the present time except that canned meat, for which, with its horrors and conveniences, the world may hold Columbus responsible, had not then been invented.
Thomson's expectation has been, to some extent, already verified. Thus besides Globigerina, there are eighteen species of deep-sea Foraminifera identical with species found in the chalk.
The carnivorous spray and bloom of the deep-sea flowers amid which drowned men's "bones are coral made" seem of one temperament with the polyps as they slowly, slowly wave their tendrils and petals; but there is amusement if not pleasure in store for the traveller who turns from them to the company of shad softly and continuously circling in their tank, and regarding the spectators with a surly dignity becoming to people in better society than others.
I was inclined to the belief that this species was the orca, a whale-killing fish. Boatmen and deep-sea men report these blackfish to be dangerous and had better be left alone. They certainly looked ugly. We believed they were chasing tuna. The channel that day contained more whales than I ever saw before at one time. We counted six pairs in sight.
This has been ascertained from the fact that in many places the bottom of the sea, as shown by the specimens brought up by Brooke's apparatus, and more recently by Professor Thompson's deep-sea dredge, is composed of exceedingly minute shells of marine insects.
"Then they ought to have a heavier lead, I should think," said Rollo. "Yes," said the captain; "and for deep-sea soundings they do use very heavy sinkers. Sometimes they use cannon balls as heavy as a man can lift. Then they take great pains, too, to have a very light and small line.
We readjusted our mouthpieces. I turned automatically at the pump; and we silently awaited the last suffocating moment of our final doom. As before, attracted by the light, a strange assortment of deep-sea life wriggled and darted about us, swimming lazily among the looped coils and twists of our cable which had settled down around us.
And in two minutes the old navy salt filled the hut with deep-sea nasal noises, to the sleepy admiration of his little brown men who only snored in whistles.
Byles Gridley not only had more learning than the deep-sea line of the bucolic intelligence could fathom; he had more wisdom also than they gave him credit for, even those among them who thought most of his abilities.
These words have more than fulfilled themselves since they were written. Those Deep-Sea dredgings, of which a detailed account will be found in Dr. Wyville Thomson's new and most beautiful book, "The Depths of the Sea," have disclosed, of late years, wonders of the deep even more strange and more multitudinous than the wonders of the shore.
Word Of The Day