CURIOSITIES UNDER THE SEA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1380, 18 August 1885, Page 3

CURIOSITIES UNDER THE SEA.

Professor Terrill recently delivered a lecture on some of the strange facts about the sea, and some extracts from it may be of interest. As to the quantity of light at the bottom of the sea there has been much dispute. Animals dredged from below 700 fathoms either have no eyes, or faint indication of them, or else their eyes are very large and protruding. Another strange thing is that if the creatures m those lower depths have any color it is orange or red, or reddish orange. Sea anemones, corals, shrimps, and crabs all have this brilliant color. Sometimes it is pure red or scarlet, and in many specimens it inclines towards purple. Not a green or blue fish is found. The orange red is the fish’s protection ; for the blueish-green light at the bottom of the ocean makes the orange or red fish appear of a neutral tint and hides it from its enemies. Many animals are black, others are neutral in color. Some fish ore provided with boring tails, so that they can burrow in the mud. Finally, the surface of the submarine mountain is covered with shells like an ordinary sea-beach, showing that it is the eatinghouse of vast schools of carnivorous animals, A cod-fish takes a whole oyster into his mouth, cracks the shell, and takes the meat out. In that way come whole mounds of shells that are dredged up. A piece of wood may be dredged up once a year, but then it is always honeycombed" by the boring shell-fish, and falls to pieces at the touch of the hand. This shows what destruction is constantly going on in these depths. If a ship sinks at sea with all on board, it would eaten by fish with the exception of the metal, which would corrode and disappear. Not a bone of a human body would bs appear after a few days. It is a constant display of the law of the survival of the fittest. Nothing made by the hand of man was dredged up after cruising for months in the track of ocean vessels, excepting coal clinkers shovelled over-board from steamships. Here Professor Terrill corrected himself. Twenty five miles from land he dredged up an india-rubber doll. That, he said, was one thing the fish could not eat.