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If I am right, the ancient glaciers and also
the present Arctic and Antarctic glaciers that float
out to sea must have a structure that may he
described as an inversion of the ordinary Alpine
glacier. These latter are crevassed on their upper
surfaces in consequence of their downward flow
and their bending over at certain places in such a
manner as to produce an upward convexity ; but
the glaciers which I suppose to have spread
themselves out upon the ancient sea must have been
crevassed underneath, and their crevasses must
the reach of river sediment. Besides this I roughly tested the sea
bottom at the North Cape, and all the stations where we stopped for
fishing, by bumping down the heavy lead plummet, and feeling thereby
the hardness of the bottom, then drawing it up and examining the lead
that had thus struck the bottom, and which I also dragged whenever
practicable. This showed the absence of bare rock in every case, and
in some cases I brought up a sufficient film of dark blue clay to show
that the bottom was a pavement of something very like the Scotch till,
and derived from the grinding down of the slaty rocks of the district.
Further and more effective sounding is necessary to properly establish
this. Fishermen tell me that all the cod-fisheries are on “ banks ” of
this kind; not upon rocky bottoms. The reason of this is obvious.
Codfish are very voracious. I have examined the contents of the
stomachs of a great many. Whelks with shells and their contents in
various stages of digestion, are the most abundant. Other mollusca, the
Crustacea, and fishes also common. I blush to add that they devour
their near relations, whitings and haddocks, and even young codfish.
All these live on or near the sea bottom and all must feed on
something else. The pasturage supplied by fertile submarine meadows of
moderate depth, such as great flats of till levelling up the deep
submarine valleys must form, is likely to afford the primary food of the
multitude of creatures which these vast shoals of voracious
bottomswimming fish must consume.
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