ses re نات ch arctic ice-barrier nowhere proved to be lower than the temperature of the surface stratum which was cooled by the melting of the berg ice; thus indicating the absence of any supply of yet colder water from a source nearer the pole. cap, Thus the Antarctic "ice-barrier" is to be regarded as the margin of a polar "ice," whose thickness at its edge is probably about two thousand feet, nine-tenths of it lying beneath the water-line. This margin is not permanent, but is continually wasting away like the terminal portion of a land glacier-not, however, by liquefaction, but by disruption, is as continually renewed by the spreading out of the piled-up ice of the area within. What may be the thickness of the "icecap " nearer its polar centre, we have at present no means of knowing; but it must doubtless be kept down by the facility of he downward flow in almost every direction towards its periphery of ten thousand it miles. -b. Dar ad ad every direction will prevent any change in their form, there is really nothing to interfere with the ordinary performance of their vital functions. The entire absence of solar light, which constitutes another most important peculiarity in the conditions of deep-sea life, would seem at first sight to be an absolute bar to its maintenance. Experimental evidence has not yet, I believe, been obtained of the direct penetration of the solar rays to more than one hundred fathoms; but as I dredged slow-growing red calcareous alge (true corallines) in the and Mediterranean at a depth of one hundred and fifty fathoms (at, or below, which Edward Forbes also would seem to have met with them), the actinic, if not the luminous, rays must probably penetrate to that range. Below what Edward Forbes termed the coralline zone, it would seem impossible that any other type of vegetable life can be sustained, than such as have the capacity of the fungi for growing in the dark; living, like them, upon material supplied by the decomposition of organic compounds. Such lowly plants have been found by Professor P. M. Duncan in corals dredged from more than one thousand fathoms depth. In regard to the animal life of the deep sea, the "Challenger" researches do not seem likely to yield any new general result of striking interest. Our previous work thehad shown that a depth of three miles, a pressure of three tons on the square inch, an entire absence of sunlight, and a temperature below 32°, might be sustained by a considerable number and variety of animal types; and this conclusion has been fully confirmed and widely extended. Many specimens have been brought up alive from depths exceeding four miles, les at which the pressure was four tons on the square inch, considerably exceeding that exerted by the hydraulic presses used for packing Manchester goods. Even the the "protected" thermometers specially constructed for deep-sea sounding were bfrequently crushed; and a sealed glass tube containing air, having been lowered (within a copper case) to a depth of two is thousand fathoms, was reduced to a fine te powder almost like snow, by what Sir Wyville Thomson ingeniously characterterized as an implosion; the pressure having stapparently been resisted until it could no longer be borne, and the whole having eter been then disintegrated at the same moment. The rationale of the resistance the afforded by soft-bodied animals to a presater sure which thus affects hard glass, is simply that they contain no air, but conthesist of solids and liquids only; and that since their constituent parts are not subject to more than a very trifling change of bulk, while the equality of the pressure in 1526 high Chal Ant LIVING AGE. VOL. XXX. Upon what, then, do deep-sea animals feed? In the early stage of this inquiry, it was ascertained by Dr. Frankland that the samples of water procured by the "Porcupine," not only at considerable distances from land, but also from bottoms exceeding five hundred fathoms' depth, contained so much organic matter not in a decomposing state, that animals having a large absorbent surface, and requiring but a small proportion of solids in their food, might be sustained by simple imbibition. And an adequate provision for the continual restoration of such material to the ocean water seemed to be made by the surface vegetation which fringes almost every sea-margin, and which occasionally extends itself over large tracts in the open ocean, as, notably, in the Sargasso Sea. But the "Challenger's" researches have thrown a new light on this question, by showing that the animals of the deep sea are largely dependent for their food upon the minute organisms and the débris of larger ones, which are continually falling to the bottom from the upper waters. This débris [says Mr. Moseley] is no doubt mainly derived from the surface pelagic flora and fauna, but is also to a large extent composed of refuse of various kinds washed down by rivers, or floated out to sea from shores, and sunken to the bottom when water-logged. The dead pelagic animals must fall as a constant rain of food upon the habitation of their deep-sea dependents. Maury, speaking of the surface foraminifera, wrote, "The sea, like the snow-cloud, with its flakes in a calm, is always letting fall upon its bed showers of microscopic shells." It might be supposed that these shells and other surface animals, would consume so long a time in dropping to the bottom in great depths, that their soft tissues would be decomposed, and that they would have ceased to be serviceable as food by the time they reached the ocean bed. Such, however, is not the case, partly because the salt water of the sea exercises a strongly preservative effect on animal tissues, partly be cause the time required for sinking is in reality not very great.* Of this Mr. Moseley assured himself by an experimental test, which indicated that the dead body of a floating salpa might sink to a depth of two thousand fathoms in little more than four days, whilst its body might remain for a month so far undecomposed as to be serviceable as food to deep-sea animals. As land was neared, moreover, many interesting proofs were obtained of the feeding of deep-sea animals on débris derived from the neighboring shores. Thus, off the coast of New South Wales we dredged from four hundred fathoms a large sea-urchin which had its stomach full of pieces of a sea-grass (zostera) derived from the coast above. Again, we dredged from between the New Hebrides and Australia, from fourteen hundred fathoms, a piece of wood and half-adozen examples of a large palm-fruit as large as an orange. In one of these fruits, which had hard woody external coats, the albumen of the fruit was still preserved, perfectly fresh in appearance, and white, like that of a ripe cocoanut. The hollows of the fruits were occupied by two molluscs; the husks and albumen were bored by a teredo-like mollusc; and the fibres of the husks had among them small nematoid worms.† Branches of trees, also, and leaves of shrubs, in a water-logged condition, were Occasionally brought up in the dredge from great depths; and their occurrence, as Mr. Moseley remarks, is of importance, not only to the naturalist, as showing that deep-sea animals may draw large supplies of food from such sources, but also to the geologist, as indicating the manner in which specimens of land vegetation may have been imbedded in deposits formed at great depths. *Notes by a Naturalist, p. 582. ↑ Ibid. p. 583. The entire absence of sunlight on the deep-sea bottom seems to have the same effect as the darkness of caves, in reducing to a rudimentary condition the eyes of such of their inhabitants as fish and crustacea, which ordinarily enjoy visua! power; and many of these are provided with enormously long and delicate feelers or hairs, in order that they may feel their way about with these, just as a blind man does with his stick. But other deep-sea animals have enormously large eyes, enabling them to make the best of the little light there is in the depths, which is probably derived (as suggested in the report of the "Porcupine" dredgings) from the phosphorescence emitted by many deepsea animals, especially a certain kind of zoophytes. "It seems certain," says Mr. Moseley, "that the deep sea must be lighted here and there by greater or smaller patches of luminous alcyonarians, with wide intervals, probably, of total darkness intervening; and very possibly the animals with eyes congregate round these sources of light." It is remarkable that with such poverty of light there should be such richness of color among deep-sea animals. Although most deepsea fish are of a dull black color, and some white as if bleached, deep-sea crustaceans, echinoderms, and zoophytes usually exhibit more color than the corresponding forms that inhabit shallow water. Thus the deep-sea shrimps, which were obtained in very great abundance, were commonly of an intensely bright scarlet; deep-sea holothurians are often of a deep purple; and many deep-sea corals have their soft structures tinged with a madder coloring matter resembling that which occurs in surface-swimming jelly-fish. As was to be expected from the results of the " and 66 Lightning" Porcupine dredgings, the more extended explorations of the " Challenger" have shown that there still live in the sea depths a number of animal forms which were supposed, until thus found, to be extinct, existing only as fossils. And large numbers of interesting new genera and species of known families of animals were obtained; whilst many forms which had been previously accounted of extreme rarity have proved to be really common, having a wide geographical range, and occurring in large numbers in particular spots. This is the case, for example, with the beautiful pentacrinus, a survivor from the old liassic times, of which the tinc QUC pecs e old 66 From Fraser's Magazine. THE "CROOKIT MEG:" A STORY OF THE YEAR ONE. living specimens preserved in all the mu- Most enthusiastic representations [says Mr. Moseley] were held by many naturalists, and such were especially put forward by the late Professor Agassiz, who had hopes of finding almost all important fossil forms existing in life and vigor at great depths. Such hopes were doomed to disappointment; but even to the last, every cuttle-fish which came up in our deep-sea net was squeezed to see if it had a belemnite's bone in its back, and trilobites were eagerly looked out for... We picked up no missing links to fill up the gaps of the great zoological family tree. The results of the "Challenger's" voyage have gone to prove that the missing links are to be sought out rather by more careful investigation of the structure of animals already partially known, than by hunting for entirely new ones in the deep sea.* The work which has been already done by Mr. Moseley himself in this direction, contained in the memoirs, he has presented to the Royal and Linnæan Societies, is of first-rate value. And if the house, not the arms more white than milk of which the poet sings, but good, honest, sturdy arms, tanned a little by the sun while milking, and reddened a little by the fire when cooking. The girdle was suspended over the peats, and there was a constant running to and fro between it and the baking-board. Cousin Kate was considered the prettiest of these unsophisticated Graces; but Kate was the housewife too; and indeed a sort of commander-in-chief, who looked after her father's accounts, and took charge of the dairy. Mrs. Mark's exertions in bringing these nice girls, and one or two rather violently-disposed schoolboys, into the world, associated as they had been with a growing tendency to plumpness, had inof preparing for the feast to her slimmer daughters; while she and Miss Sherry, who had been brought out from Peelboro' by Mark on the previous evening, sat in the ingleneuk with their spinningwheels, the constant companion of gentle and simple at the time of which I am writing. Altogether the kitchen was highly picturesque. The girls flitting to and fro, with their sparse petticoats and upturned sleeves, in the frisky mettlesomeness of earliest maidenhood; Miss Sherry, with her old-fashioned spinningwheel (which is being again introduced into our drawing-rooms in an inane and irrelevant way); the long array of shining pots and pans and willow-pattern plates suspended in a haik above the dresser; the gipsy-looking girdle; the wide, home duced her to hand over the active duties whole, or even any considerable part, of the vast "Challenger" collection shall be Sworked out by the various specialists among whom it has been distributed, with anything like the same completeness and ability, it cannot be questioned that the series of volumes in which the scientific results of this voyage will be embodied, will far surpass in interest and importance those reports of previous circumnavigation expeditions which are accounted models of their class. bad trem mor e, an ticul ample rvivo ch the WILLIAM B. CARPENTER. ly, hospitable fireplace; the ruddy glow | Sherry was saying, as she sat burrin' at of the peats; the gathering shadows of her wheel, "that he'd be here before dark the October night: it is one of those and bring John Skinner wi' him—(that "symphonies" in light and shade which harn's not what it used to be). The auld are not easily forgotten, especially by man's beginnin' to fail-he's no sae soochildren, artists, and lovers. ple as he was when I mind him first; but he has a gran' voice for a man o' his years dean begin wi' ae letter; when the deil gets the dean the kirk 'll be the better; and then he makes me the yeligant bow which he learned at the court o' Louise Quinze - so he says-and marches aff wi'oot waitin' for an answer. But he's a steady hand at a rubber that I maun alloo and after a' the body's kind in his way-though pecooliar." Miss Sherry was an institution of Peelboro', where she and her sister Grace he's auchty if he's a day - and he lived in one of the nicest houses of the sings his ain sangs verra sweetly. We town. Each of those old patrician man- maun hae the 'Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn,' sions had its motto (had-for they are or 'Tullochgorum.' It's fearsome, Marall gone) carved in good broad Scots over ion, to think how auld we are gettin'; it's the doorway. "Feir the Lord." "Flie saxty years last June since he was clapt from syn." "Mak for lyf everlastin'." into the Tolbooth by the sodgers, and his "No this lyf is bot vanity." "Svear wife puir thing at the doun-lying. note." The house occupied by Miss Weel-a-wat, the doctor may flyte as he Sherry and her sister had belonged to the likes at the like o' us"-all these old Earls Marischal, and their defiant distich Buchan ladies were stout for Episcopacy 'They haif sayd: Qhat sayd they? "but he'd best let that flee stick to the Lat them say” -was nearly as charac- wa'. He's a snell body the doctor; he teristic of its present occupants as of the wunna argue wi' an auld wife like me, old fighting Keiths. These elderly Scotch and if I drive him into a corner he jist ladies of the year one had indeed small taks his pinch o' snuff, and tells me that regard for what would now be termed I maun hae heard that the deil and the public opinion and the proprieties. Miss Sherry was one of this race of old Scottish gentlewomen; for though by no means rich, and mixing rather with the middle than with the upper classes, she had a strain of gentle blood in her veins which made her fifteenth or sixteenth cousin to all the great people in the county. The old admiral loved Miss Sherry and her caustic speech; he called her "cousin," and always sent the sisters fat goose on New Year's Day. He made a point of calling upon them whenever he visited the burgh (which he represented in Parliament- the provost and two other freeholders forming the constituency; and a very good constituency it washolding remarkably sound and constitutional opinions), and drank a glass of their elderberry wine without wincing, 'I maun speak to the doctor about our and indeed in the cheeriest possible spirit. Kirsty, she'll hae to stan' the session. Her niece, Mrs. Mark, was naturally Kirsty considers a lad jist perfec' salvaproud of the connection; and Miss Sherry tion; and I've aften tellt her how it wud was always a welcome visitor at the farm. end. Yet when she cam' to me wi' her She was a neat, natty, daintily-dressed head in her apron, I cudna believe my old lady; and her sharp face and keen ears, for she's a dounricht fright. Kirsty eyes (which had seen seventy summers) Meerison,' says I, 'it's not possible an were nearly as fresh as her grand-nieces', ill-fa'ured limmer like you! Wha in the and disclosed a fund of shrewd intelli- name o' mercy's the feyther o' the wean?' gence and sarcastic life. She had wit-Indeed, Miss Sherry,' says the impudent nessed in her time a good deal of hard hizzy in a bleeze at the notion, 'I could living, and hard drinking, and hard swear- hae got plenty o' feythers.' ing, without being prudishly scandalized. "Dear me," says Mrs. Mark, Yet her directness of speech and some- sorry for Kirsty." what easy morals belonged to the outside, and there was a sound heart and high principle behind. a "And the doctor bid me tell you," Miss "What's become o' your feyther, lasses?" Mrs. Mark observes to her daughters. "The barn must be ready by this time; and the folk 'll be arrivin' shortly. Sae run and dress yoursels, my dears, and auntie and I'll see that the cakes dinna singe." So the Three Graces rush up the wooden stairs to don their finery; and Miss Sherry resumes. 66 "" "I'm "But it's the same wi' them a' a lad's jist perfect salvation. And there's Mark's sister, Eppie Holdfast—she'll be comin' to the ploy, nae doobt?" "She wudna say when Kate gaed up to see. The auld mither has been but poorly this month back "It's little Eppie cares for her mither," Miss Sherry retorted, "and she'll come if she chooses, you may depend on that. I dinna like the clash I hear aboot Eppie in the Broch. There's that nice lad frae Moray at least they say that baith he and Uncle Ned belang to Fochabers Alister Ross, is clean daft aboot her; but Eppie, they tell me, hauds up her nose at him. And they do say-but ye'll ken best, Marion, though there's aye water whar the stirkie drowns that she's ower thick wi' young Hacket "Harry is laird noo," Mrs. Mark interposed. "To be sure, we a' ken that the laird's dead," says Miss Sherry. "He was an acquaintance o' mine in auld days, afore he gaed gyte-never a freen'. There were some bad stories aboot him lang syne, and if puir Rob Cheeves hadna been a fule we micht hae gotten some verra enterteenin' information noo that Jack Hacket's safe awa'. And young Hairy's a bad boy, or I'm mistaen. Bourd not wi' bawtie; and if Eppie comes, I maun gie her a word o' advice. Mark should look after her a bit." "Eppie 'll gang her ain gait, auntie we munna mell. But I shouldna wonner if baith Alister and Harry Hacket were at the ploy to-night "Harry Hacket!" exclaimed Miss Sherry. "It's no a week sin' the auld man was buried. It wudna be decent, but it's little for decency he cares." "Weel, auntie, I dinna ken; but Mark met him on the road yestreen, and he thocht it was neeborlike to ask him to come across. Mark's very simple-honest man! -but Hairy was as ceevil as could be, and Mark thinks he'll come." Then the guests began to arrive. XIV. THE farm lads and lasses were sent to eat their cakes and sup their "sowens" in the barn; whereas Dr. Caldcail, Mr. Skinner, Captain Knock, and one or two more of the better sort, were ushered into the parlor. Mark gave his friends a cordial greeting and a tremendous "grip;" and they forthwith gathered round the hospitable board, where the savory messes prepared by the Graces were steaming invitingly. A cold turkey, a red-hot haggis, crappit-heads, mealy puddings, a roly-poly-these old Scotch dishes were worthy of the worthy people who were bred upon them. So long as the "Noctes Ambrosianæ "survive - and the "Noctes" will live when the radicals and republicans who sneer at the ambrosial nights and their ideal gluttony are eaten of worms (the poor worms!)-the memory at least of this national and historical fare will be kept fresh and savory - embalmed in immortal prose. "Mr. Skinner. will ask a blessing on these mercies," says Mark; and then they set to, and eat as they could eat in the year one. A sweet and venerable old man was John Skinner, genial and easy-tempered as a singer of songs should be, yet with a quiet tenacity of character and conviction that could have nerved him to die had it been required of him for what he deemed to be the truth of God. The evil persecuting days, when he had been dragged from his bed to jail for venturing to minister to the scattered remnant, had passed away like a bad dream; and now, loved and honored by gentle and simple, he saw his children's children at his knee, and peace in Israel. He had been a poet of the people before Robert Burns was born; and now "puir Robbie was dead, and the old man mourned for him as for a brother. Captain Knock, who was seated beside the comely hostess, was in great force. "A remarkable turkey, Mrs. Holdfast, a verra fine turkey indeed, and you maun favor me wi' the receipt for the stuffin', which is maist excellent. But if you had seen the breed we had at Tillymaud! they were simply stu-pen-dious! I mind the admiral dining wi' me ae day. Captain,' says he, 'that turkey weighs fifteen punds good.' Fifteen punds!' says I. 'I'll wager a dozen of Bordeaux that it's thirty if it's an ounce.' 'Done!' says he- and we had it oot o' the dish and weighed upon the spot. It was five-and-thirty punds, as I'm a leein' sinner! The admiral wudna believe his eyes; but he sent the hogshead a' the same, and gude claret it was, and weel liket for mony a day. We ca'ed it the thirty-five." Miss Sherry for her share had a minister on either hand, -the kindly representatives of the rival creeds. "The doctor tells me, John Skinner, that ye are leavin' us for gude and a'. That maunna be; the bishop's a worthy man and a gude son; but it wud be a sin to tak' you from your auld freens." "Indeed, Miss Sherry, I'm beginnin' to break, and the lasses are a' forisfamiliate, and in spite of the Gude Book and a |