Goggle-eyed Fish in a World of Darkness—A Thrilling Lecture for Children The poet and the professor, the dream and the reality, were in contrast at the Royal Institution recently, when Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in his lecture on "The Great Deeps," recited Walt Whitman's noble poem, "The World Below the Brine." Among the lines which he repeated were these:
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and-seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass es, and the aliment of the swimmers. "That is an exquisite picture," said the professor, but,' he added, with a sigh. "Walt Whitman went wrong by mixing up the shore and the deep sea. T say it without any irreverence, for it is so singularly beautiful a poem."
And the professor told how there are no plants in the great deeps of the sea, because there is no light. Below 500 fathoms there is utter and eternal darkness, shot with the fitful gleams of phosphorescent light from luminous creatures, It is a place of eternal winter, and at 2,500 fathoms there is a pressure of 2} tons to the square inch. It is a place of eternal silence, and monotony, unruffled by any storm, unmoved by any real current.
It was a picture that haunted the imagination. Professor Thomson's audience of children were enthralled by the vision of the unseen world, which he conjured up before their eyes, While there are no plants there," he explained, "there is no depth limit to the distribution of animals."
Bie anp Litttz Eves.
Professor Thomson sighs for a new Challenger expedition, for there are many puzzles of the deep sea which the savants have not solved. Take the big eyes and little eyes problem. It is easy to say that the fishes of the deeps which have big goggle-eyes use them to catch the phosphorescent gleams of light. But on the same plane, there are other fish which have hardly any eyes at all—mere pinpoints, in fact. Obviously they cannot both be fitted or adapted their environment.
What is the explanation? We must wait for the new expedition, but, said Professor Thomson, it may be that those fishes with the big eyes are newcomers to the great deeps, and are not yet fully adapted to their changed environment.
Another puzzle is that of the phosphorescent lights. No one knows why the creatures have them. One idea is that the phos-
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