The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 55, May, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Philosophy
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 55, May, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
the Arctic borders, till, passing out of these, nothing but a dwarf
vegetation, a carpet of Moss and Lichen, fit food for the Reindeer and
the Esquimaux, greets us, and beyond that lies the region of the snow
and ice fields, impenetrable to all but the daring Arctic voyager?
I have thus far spoken of the changes in the vegetable growth alone as
influenced by altitude and latitude, but the same is equally true of
animals. Every zone of the earth's surface has its own animals, suited
to the conditions under which they are meant to live; and with the
exception of those that accompany man in all his pilgrimages, and are
subject to the same modifying influences by which he adapts his home and
himself to all climates, animals are absolutely bound by the laws of
their nature within the range assigned to them. Nor is this the case
only on land, where river-banks, lake-shores, and mountain-ranges might
be supposed to form the impassable boundaries that keep animals within
certain limits; but the ocean as well as the land has its faunae and
florae bound within their respective zoölogical and botanical provinces;
and a wall of granite is not more impassable to a marine animal than
that ocean-line, fluid and flowing and ever-changing though it be, on
which is written for him, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther."
One word as to the effect of pressure on animals will explain this.
We all live under the pressure of the atmosphere. Now thirty-two feet
under the sea doubles that pressure, since a column of water of that
height is equal in weight to the pressure of one atmosphere. At the
depth of thirty-two feet, then, any marine animal is under the pressure
of two atmospheres,--that of the air which surrounds our globe, and of a
weight of water equal to it; at sixty-four feet he is under the pressure
of three atmospheres, and so on,--the weight of one atmosphere being
always added for every thirty-two feet of depth. There is a great
difference in the sensitiveness of animals to this pressure. Some fishes
live at a great depth and find the weight of water genial to them, while
others would be killed at once by the same pressure, and the latter
naturally seek the shallow waters. Every fisherman knows that he must
throw a long line for a Halibut, while with a common fishing-rod he will
catch plenty of Perch from the rocks near the shore; and the differently
colored bands of sea-weed revealed by low tide, from the green line of
the Ulvas through the brown zone of the common Fucas to the rosy and
purple hued sea-weeds of the deeper water show that the florae as well
as the faunae of the ocean have their precise boundaries. This wider
or narrower range of marine animals is in direct relation to their
structure, which enables them to bear a greater or less pressure of
water. All fishes, and, indeed, all animals having a wide range of
distribution in ocean-depths, have a special apparatus of water-pores,
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