Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871. Excerpt: ... THE DEEP SEA. PART II.--ITS BIOLOGICAL CONDITION. BY WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, M.D., F.R.S. With Two Plates.) It was shown in the preceding paper that the results of the inquiries made in the "Lightning" expedition of 1868, and the "Porcupine" expedition of 1869, have completely disproved a doctrine promulgated by high authority, and generally accepted by physical geographers, as to the prevalence of an uniform temperature of 39 in the Deep Seas of all regions. For it has been demonstrated that streams of Polar water in which the thermometer sinks below 30 may penetrate far into the Temperate zone, underlying, even at the moderate depth of 300 fathoms, a stratum derived from warmer regions in which the thermometer stands 20 higher; whilst it has been rendered probable that by the continual discharge of such Polar streams into the Great Oceanic basins, the temperature of the great mass of water occupying their deepest abysses is reduced to within a very few degrees of the freezing point of fresh water. Not less complete has been the disproof afforded by recent researches of another doctrine, the general acceptance of which was partly due to the high authority of Professor Edward Forbes, its original promulgator, and partly to the ready explanation it seemed to afford of certain Geological difficulties;--that, namely, of the limitation of Animal life to a depth of about 300 fathoms. It is not a little singular that this doctrine should havo originated with the distinguished Naturalist who was the first to urge the systematic use of the dredge as an instrument of scientific investigation. Up to the time of Edward Forbes it was mainly employed for the purpose of obtaining specimens of Marine animals that inhabit depths below the range otherwise accessible to coll...
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