STORMS BELOW THE SEA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3722, 30 October 1906, Page 4

STORMS BELOW THE SEA.

Scientists tell us that at the bottoifa of the sea it is always raining —or, rather, “hailing,” for the downpour is not a liquid ohe, of course, but an incessant and steady drizzle of the dead bodies of countless myriads of tiny animalculae. These microscopic creatures are called “diatoms,” and are more beautifully fashioned and coloured than their ugly scientific surnames —globigarina, foramenifera, etc. —would denote. They exist in incredible numbers, but have a short existence of a day or two only ; then their skeletons sink rapidly to the bottom in a steady sleet, to form the mud that covers the ocean-bed in every part of the world. It has been calculated that a single square foot of sea bottom, situated, say, three miles from the surface, receives a constant downpour of ten millions of these tiny creatures every hour. But so light is each tiny corpse that the fragile seaanemones (that die at a rude touch) feel no inconvenience from their bombardment.—" Good Words.”