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All Magazines will be forwarded until an explicit order of a discontinuance is received; and whether taken by the subscriber or not from the place where they are deposited, he will be accountable for the pay un he orders a discontinuance and pays what is due. Address BENTON SMITH, Agent, TRAVELLING AGENT. "The Quarte MR. GEO. W. BROWN is agent to solicit subscriptions for the "Ladies' Repository," ly," "The Universalist," and "The Myrtle;" to take orders for books, and to make collections and he is commended to the favor and confidence of the people upon whom he may call. THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. SEPTEMBER, 1870. THE WONDERS OF THE DEEP. ON BY REV. R. C. WALTHAM. N the surface of the earth rest two oceans, one of air, another of water. Analogous to the character of the one is that of the other. Upon the surface of the earth, in immediate contact with the air, there are to be seen forms of vegetable and animal life innumerable, while through the ærial ocean move myriads of living creatures, and upon the surface of the earth, in immediate contact with the aqueous ocean, the forms of vegetable and animal life are not less numerous, while through this ocean swim an equally large number of creatures possessed of life. It is not the object of this article, however, to present even a classification of the multitude of plants and animals that live in the sea, so different necessarily in their character from those that live in the air as the circumambient fluids in which they have their abode. My object is rather, from a view of the physiological character of a few, to notice their wonderful adaptation to the situation or the element in which they are found, and to show that they are not without a place of importance in the economy of nature. Marine plants.-Away down in the depths of the ocean there are districts that may be called "marine forests." Here grow marine trees, taller by far than any that have ever lifted their heads high to heaven amid its air and sunshine. Being supported, however, by the denser element in which they VOL. XLIV.-11 grow, their stems do not require to be strong. They are therefore-though in length often. three hundred and four hundred feet-very slender in stem. In these submarine forests roam millions of living creatures, seeking food and shelter. Again, in other parts of the ocean, there are districts analogous to our prairies, covered with alga and fuci, where browse strange herds, like cattle in a. grazing field. But beside districts such as these, there are many others of great variety of character, differing as thoroughly in their vegetable productions as the many countries on the habitable globe in the various latitudes. With rich profusion the hand of the Creator has scattered over the bottom of the sea plants so beautifully adapted to the situation in which they are found, that there is. scarcely a spot where some form of vegetable life has not been discovered. In the coldest seas there is a vegetation, just as on the dryland surface of the globe, in regions of perpetual snow, that snow is reddened often as far as the eye can reach with the amazing abundance of a little plant called the "red snow," while beneath the snow itself of these polar regions grows the lichen, on which the reindeer feeds. And again, in the seas where the waters are comparatively warm, vegetation is much more abundant, just as even in the boiling springs of Iceland, where the water rises the thermometer to within a few degrees of boiling point, a species of plant is found, not known to flourish elsewhere; and in the Island of Amsterdam, where there is a hot spring, whose water is much above | requisite to animal life; while, on the other boiling point, there is found growing in its hand, the animal creation generates the carmud a species of liverwort. There seem to bon so essential to the nourishment of plants. be no extremes of cold and heat incompati- Thus plants and animals reciprocally benefit ble with vegetation. How infinite the re- one another, so that without the one the sources of that Wisdom which has adapted other could not exist. Soon would the water the organization of every plant to the condi- of the ocean, by the continual respiration of tions under which it is to exist! the hosts of living creatures that inhabit it, and thus become incapable any longer of supporting their life, were there not abundant provision made in the supply of plants for the renewal of this life-sustaining element. But it is not only to the inhabitants of the deep that marine plants are advantageous, though in supporting them they are useful to us; they are directly profitable to us in a number of ways. Many sea-plants are used for food, and are considered very nutritious. The water-leaf, the Celtic du'se, containing a large propertion of saccharine matter, was at one time used as food in Ireland and Scotland, and not unfrequently sold in great quantities in the markets. Then there are other plants like the crisped chrondus, considered to possess valuable medicinal properties. The crisped chrondus is said to be very useful in affections of the lungs and general debility; and another plant, technically called Fucus Vesiculosus, has produced excellent effects, when steeped in brandy, being often used as an external application in diseases of the throat. It is from marine plants, also, that we obtain that substance called iodine, now so extensively used in the practice of medicine. Perhaps there is no one substance to which the medical practitioner has more frequent recourse now than to iodine. It is used, in some form or other, in a whole multitude of diseases. The important function sea-plants possess of procuring this substance for us will be understood by the following statement of Liebig: One peculiarity in the physiological character of all marine plants, illustrative of their adaptation to the circumstances in which they exist, consists in the power of absorption being distributed over every part of the plant. In the majority of terrestrial plants this power is confined to the root, which, absorbing all the moisture by which the plant is nourished, transmits it to the other parts of the plant, just as the blood in the body, by a system of vessels, circulates through every part of the frame, carrying with it all the fresh nourishment received from the food. The quantity of moisture thus absorbed by the roots of terrestrial plants is very great. A plant of spearmint, grown in water for two months in the spring, was found on experiment to have absorbed as moisture about twenty-eight ounces weight of water, though the plant itself weighed little more than the quarter of an ounce. The root, however, of marine plants has not this power of absorption, and there is no system of vessels to transmit nourishment from one part of the plant to the other, the little cells into which the moisture is taken being separated from each other as the cells in a honeycomb. It is at once evident that such an organization is adapted to the condition in which it is placed, as not merely the root, but the whole plant is immersed in the fluid from which the nourishment is derived. The only use, so far as I know, of the roots of sea-plants, seems to be to fix them in a particular place, which they do most securely. There are many such adaptations in the organization of sea-plants. Marine plants sustain the same relation to the denizens of the deep that terrestrial plants bear to the inhabitants of the dry land. Not only do they supply them with food, but they render life-supporting the element in which they live. Every one knows that the vegetable creation is the great generator of the oxygen "When it is considered that sea-water contains less than the one-millionth of its own weight of iodine, and that all combinations of iodine with the metallic bases of alkalies are highly soluble in water. Some provision must necessarily be supposed to exist in the organization of sea-weeds, and the different kinds of fuci, by which they are enabled during their life to extract iodine in the form of a soluble salt from sea-water, and to assimi late it in such a manner that it is not again, that have soft bodies; and the fourth and resorted to the surrounding medium. These highest division contains the Vertebrata—all plants are collections of iodine, just as land animals having back bones. This is, perhaps, plants are of alkalies; and they yield us this reversing the order, to begin with the lowest element in quantities, such as we could order instead of the highest; but it is, pernot otherwise obtain it without the evapora- haps, the most natural order when speaking tion of the whole seas." only of the marine animal kingdom. The produce of the sea is also of much value in enriching the land adjacent to the sea-side. Here the crops are in many places very luxuriant, and afford a rich return to the husbandman who has spread over his fields the sea-weed often found in great quantities on the shore. Sea-plants are also of much value to mankind in the amount of kelp that can be obtained from them. This substance, which is an impure carbonate of soda, is much used in soap-making. There is nothing that God has formed but has a place of usefulness in the economy of nature. What grows upon the fields of the mighty deep is no less calculated to incite us to adore the great Creator, than what, to supply the wants of terrestrial creatures, in sights of loveliness, and in a very profusion of liberality, springs forth from the dry land. Marine animals.-Terrestrial animals are numberless beyond expression. The microscope shows us thousands of living creatures on the back of a leaf, and a similar sight is presented to us in the dew-drop. Owing to the inexplorable character of the depths of the sea, marine zoology is but very imperfectly known; yet it is abundantly manifest that the aqueous ocean is no less thickly and variously inhabited than the ærial ocean, justifying the comparison so quaintly put by Spencer : "Oh, what an endiesse worke have I in hand, Than to recount the sea's posterity; So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation." The animal kingdom has been divided by Cuvier and others into the following classifications:-The lowest division in the scale of organized beings contains the Radiata-all that are rayed; the second division contains the Articulata-all that are jointed; the third division comprehends the Mollusca-all I purpose now to refer to the wonderful phenomena exhibited by a few creatures under each class, as evidences of the wisdom and beneficence of God. Under the class denominated Radiata, are the zoophytes and also other creatures, called by naturalists Acalephæ, well worthy of admiration. Every visitor to the sea must have noticed them either floating through the water or lying in a little mass of jelly on the shore. They are very various in size, color, formation, mode of motion, and the like, and nothing is more amazing than the great simplicity of their organization. If you take up one of them, even six inches in circumference, and place it on a piece of glass till all the moisture evaporates, you will be surprised that the vestiges which remain. would scarcely weigh more than a few grains. Many of them have the power of stinging. This is, as it were, their weapon of defence. And if, perchance, you come in contact with the long tentacula of some of them, you will feel a sensation similar to that experienced by the sting of a nettle. One of the strangest characteristics of the Acalephæ is their power of emitting light, especially when the sea is ruffled by the breeze, agitated by the oar, or stirred up by a large vessel. This phenomena is not so striking in our own seas, but is very wonderful and beautiful in waters near the tropics. Here the sea, when tossed or moved, seems in the night as if there had fallen on its surface a very shower of gold. I can imagine how the other inhabitants of the deep, when its surface is excited, looking up during the dark night, see, as it were, stars and planets in their sky, the waters overhead presenting an appearance something like our own heavens, when, amid the darkness, the stars shine down. One who had the privilege of witnessing, in the Mediterranean, this strange power of the Acalephæ of emitting light, thus describes it: "The light is not constant, but only emit |