Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley
page 83 of 318 (26%)
page 83 of 318 (26%)
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even many of those which are swallowed by other animals, may retain much
of their protoplasmic matter when they reach the depths at which the temperature sinks to 34° or 32° Fahrenheit, where decomposition must become exceedingly slow. Another consideration appears to me to be in favour of the view that the _Globigerinoe_ and their allies are essentially surface animals. This is the fact brought out by the _Challenger's_ work, that they have a southern limit of distribution, which can hardly depend upon anything but the temperature of the surface water. And it is to be remarked that this southern limit occurs at a lower latitude in the Antarctic seas than it does in the North Atlantic. According to Dr. Wallich ("The North Atlantic Sea Bed," p. 157) _Globigerina_ is the prevailing form in the deposits between the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and between Iceland and East Greenland--or, in other words, in a region of the sea-bottom which lies altogether north of the parallel of 60° N.; while in the southern seas, the _Globigerinoe_ become dwarfed and almost disappear between 50° and 55° S. On the other hand, in the sea of Kamschatka, the _Globigerinoe_ have vanished in 56° N., so that the persistence of the _Globigerina_ ooze in high latitudes, in the North Atlantic, would seem to depend on the northward curve of the isothermals peculiar to this region; and it is difficult to understand how the formation of _Globigerina_ ooze can be affected by this climatal peculiarity unless it be effected by surface animals. Whatever may be the mode of life of the _Foraminifera_, to which the calcareous element of the deep-sea "chalk" owes its existence, the fact that it is the chief and most widely spread material of the sea-bottom in the intermediate zone, throughout both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Indian Ocean, at depths from a few hundred to over two thousand |
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