If we expose a certain quantity of pure water to the light and air in the spring, we should soon see it producing shades of a yellowish or greenish colour. These spots, examined through the microscope, reveal thousands of vegetable agglomerates. Presently thousands of animalcules appear, which swim about among the floating masses, nourishing themselves with its substance. Other animalcules then appear, which, in their turn, pursue and devour the first.
In short, life transforms inanimate into organized matter. Vegetables appear first, then come herbivorous animals, and then come the carnivorous. Life maintains life. The death of one gives food and development to others, for all are bound up together—all assist at the metamorphoses continually occurring in the organic as in the mineral world, the result being general and profound harmony—harmony always worthy of admiration. The Creator alone is unchangeable, omnipotent, and permanent; all else is transition.
The inhabitants of the water are much more numerous than those of the solid earth. "Upon a surface less varied than we find on continents," says Humboldt, "the sea contains in its bosom an exuberance of life of which no other portion of the globe could give us any idea. It expands in the north as in the south; in the east as in the west. The seas, above all, abound with it; in the bosom of the deep, creatures corresponding and harmonizing with each other sport and play. Among these especially the naturalist finds instruction, and the philosopher subjects for meditation. The changes they undergo only impress upon our minds more and more a sentiment of thankfulness to the Author of the universe."
Yes, the ocean in its profoundest depths—its plains and its mountains, its valleys, its precipices, even in its ruins—is animated and embellished by innumerable organized beings. These are at first plants, solitary or social, erect or drooping, spreading into prairies, grouped in patches, or forming vast forests in the oceanic valleys. These submarine forests protect and nourish millions of animals which creep, which run, which swim, which sink into the sands, attach themselves to rocks, lodge themselves in crevices, which construct dwellings for themselves, which seek for or fly from each other, which pursue or fight, caress each other lovingly, or devour each other without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks somewhere that our terrestrial forests do not maintain nearly so many living beings as those which swarm in the bosom of the sea. The ocean, which for man is the region of asphyxia and death, is for millions of animals the region of life and health: there is enjoyment for myriads in its waves; there is happiness on its banks; there is the blue above all.
The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, animal or vegetable, by its temperature, by its density, by its saltness, by its bitterness, by the never-ceasing agitation of its waves, and by the rapidity of its currents.
We have seen in preceding chapters that the sea only freezes under intense cold, and then only at the surface, and that at the depth of five hundred fathoms the same permanent temperature exists in all latitudes. On the other hand, it is agreed that the agitations produced by the most violent storms are never felt beyond the depth of twelve or thirteen fathoms. From this it follows that animals and vegetables, by descending more or less, according to the cold or disturbing movements, can always reach a medium which agrees with their constitutions.
The hosts of the sea are distinguished by a peculiar softness. Certain pelagic plants present only a very weak, feeble consistence; a great number are transformed by ebullition into a sort of jelly. The flesh of marine animals is more or less flaccid; many seem to consist of a diaphanous mucilage. The skeleton of the more perfect species is more or less flexible and cartilaginous; and it rarely attains, as to weight and consistency, the strength of bone exhibited by terrestrial vertebrate animals. Nevertheless, both the shells and coral produced in the bosom of the ocean are remarkable for their stony solidity. Among marine bodies, in short, we find at once the softest and hardest of organized substances.
The separation of organized beings, nourished by the ocean, is subjected to certain fixed laws. We never find on the coast, except by evident accident, the same species that we meet with far from the shore; nor on the surface, creatures whose habits lead them to hide in the depths of ocean. What immense varieties of size, shape, form, and colour, from the nearly invisible vegetation which serves to nourish the small zoophytes and mollusks, to the long, slender algæ of fifty—and even five hundred—yards in length! How vast the disparity between the microscopic infusoria and the gigantic whale!
"We find in the sea," says Lacepede, "unity and diversity, which constitute its beauty; grandeur and simplicity, which give it sublimity; puissance and immensity, which command our wonder."
In the following pages we shall figure and describe many inhabitants of the sea; but how many remain still to figure and describe! During more than two thousand years research has been multiplied, and succeeded by research without interruption. "But how vast the field," as Lamarck observes, "which Science has still to cultivate, in order to carry the knowledge already acquired to the degree of perfection of which it is susceptible!"