Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/145

Rh by all in the welfare of all, a wholesome public opinion, and an intelligent public spirit, that have now disappeared. Then Lincoln's ideal of government of the people, for the people, by the people, was realized in thousands of communities where the hope of it and even the imagination of it are not now entertained. We have gained that the value of which we can not calculate with railroads and telegraphs, and the changes which have come over our social life; but it is equally impossible to estimate what, in turn, we have lost.

Deep-Sea Fishes.—Remembering the darkness and the enormous pressure of the water in the depths of the ocean, no one will be surprised that the forms and the organs of deep-sea fishes differ greatly from those of species which live near the surface. Unless among microscopic creatures, no such curious and grotesque shapes can be found in the animal kingdom as among these fishes. Some resemble the ribbon-fishes of our own seas, being long and slender, like the scabbard of a sword. Others are fashioned after the type of our angler-fish, having organs about the mouth suggestive of a bait to attract its prey. Some terminate in a sharply pointed tail instead of the familiar form. One strange form is Bathypterois longicauda, of which one specimen only has been taken, from a depth of 2,550 fathoms in the middle of the South Pacific. This fish was three inches long, with a big head and tail and a very slender body. The uppermost pectoral fin was longer than the whole fish, and was forked from its middle. Some species have huge mouths with bodies like loose sacs, capable of prodigious distention when they seize upon a large victim. Macrurus crassiceps has a huge head with hardly any body. The hues of deep-sea fish are mostly simple. Their bodies are either black, pink, or silvery; though some which are black when preserved were blue on being brought to the surface. In only a few are some filaments or the fin rays of a scarlet color. Black spots on the fins or dark cross-bars on the body are of extremely rare occurrence. Few people are aware how difficult it is to procure the deep-sea fishes. Their tissues are extremely delicate, so that the dredge often mutilates them. Frequently, too, in coming up from the bottom, on the pressure gradually growing less, the gases which they contain, expanding, tear their way out. Especially is this the case with those which possess a swim-bladder. This is almost always ruptured as the fish comes to the surface. Indeed, some specimens have been found floating in a dying state on the waves, from having seized upon prey which was too powerful for them, and in struggling to escape dragged them into the upper waters, when some rupture took place and they floated helplessly to the surface. The most curious part of the organization of deep-sea fishes is undoubtedly the phosphorescent or luminous organs which distinguish several well-known species. In some of these the eyes seem entirely absent or only rudimentary. Thus, Ipnops Murrayi, taken from a depth of 1,600 to 2,150 fathoms, possesses no eyes. It has a depressed head, with a broad snout, and the upper surface of the head is covered with a pair of transparent membranes, carrying a luminous organ divided into two symmetrical halves. Scopelus is another phosphorescent species, with a line of "eyelike, pearl-colored organs" running on each side of the fish from head to tail. Dr. Günther, in his "Introduction to the Study of Fishes," has given the possible uses of these organs as, first, to enable the fish to see; second, if placed on barbels and the like, to allure prey; third, to terrify foes. Of course, the luminous appearance departs at death.

If there were no Friction.—Having shown that friction is an insuperable impediment to the realization of perpetual motion, Prof. Hele Shaw observes that "if we are inclined to regret this fact, a little reflection on what would occur if friction ceased to act may not be uninstructive, for the whole face of nature would be at once changed, and much of the dry land, and, even more rapidly, most of our buildings, would disappear beneath the sea. Such inhabitants as remained a short time alive would not only be unable to provide themselves with fire or warmth, but would find their very clothes falling back to the original fiber from which they were made; and if not destroyed in one of many possible ways—such as by falling meteors, no longer dissipated by friction through the air, or by falling masses