American explorers have sounded the depths of the ocean and discovered mountains and valleys beneath the waves. They have found the great plateaus on which the cables rest that bring us into instantaneous communication with the rest of the world. They have shown the probable existence of a vast submarine range of mountains, extending nearly the whole length of the Pacific Ocean--mountains so high that their summits rise above the surface to form islands and archipelagoes in the Pacific. And all this vast region of the earth, which, a few years ago, was considered uninhabitable on account of the great pressure, they have discovered to be teeming with life. From the depths of the ocean they have brought living things, whose lives were spent under conditions of such pressure that the elastic force of their own bodies burst them open before they could be brought to the surface; living creatures whose self-luminous spots supplied them with the light denied them in the deep abyss from which they sprang--abysses so deep that the powerful rays of the sun could only feebly penetrate to illuminate or warm.
The exploring vessels of our Fish Commission have discovered in the deep sea, in one single season, more forms of life than were found by the Challenger Expedition in a three years' cruise. Through their agency, we have studied the geographical distribution of marine life; and in our marine laboratories, explorers have studied the life history of the most useful forms.
The knowledge gained has enabled us to breed and multiply at will; to protect the young fish during the period of their infancy--when alone they are liable to wholesale destruction--finally to release them in the ocean, in those waters that are most suitable to their growth. The fecundity of fish is so great, and the protection afforded them during the critical period of their life so ample, that it may now be possible to feed the world from the ocean and set the laws of Matthews at defiance. Our geographers of the sea have shown that an acre of water may be made to produce more food for the support of man than ten acres of arable land. They have thrown open to cultivation a territory of the earth constituting three-quarters of the entire surface of the globe.