On the relations between the depth of water and the nature of the bottom, see Martin White on "Soundings in the Channel" pages 4, 6, 175; also Captain Beechey's "Voyage to the Pacific" chapter 18.) A series of this kind irresistibly leads to the conclusion, that the sea has the power of sifting and distributing the loose matter on its bottom. According to Martin White, the bed of the British Channel is disturbed during gales at depths of sixty-three and sixty-seven fathoms, and at thirty fathoms, shingle and fragments of shells are often deposited, afterwards to be carried away again. ("Soundings in the Channel" pages 4, 166. M. Siau states ("Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal" volume 31 page 246), that he found the sediment, at a depth of 188 metres, arranged in ripples of different degrees of fineness. There are some excellent discussions on this and allied subjects in Sir H. De la Beche's "Theoretical Researches.") Groundswells, which are believed to be caused by distant gales, seem especially to affect the bottom: at such times, according to Sir R. Schomburgk, the sea to a great distance round the West Indian Islands, at depths from five to fifteen fathoms, becomes discoloured, and even the anchors of vessels have been moved. ("Journal of Royal Geographical Society" volume 5 page 25. It appears from Mr. Scott Russell's investigations (see Mr. Murchison's "Anniversary Address Geological Society" 1843 page 40), that in waves of translation the motion of the particles of water is nearly as great at the bottom as at the top.) There are, however, some difficulties in understanding how the sea can transport pebbles lying at the bottom, for, from experiments instituted on the power of running water, it would appear that the currents of the sea have not sufficient velocity to move stones of even moderate size: moreover, I have repeatedly found in the most exposed situations that the pebbles which lie at the bottom are encrusted with full-grown living corallines, furnished with the most delicate, yet unbroken spines: for instance, in ten fathoms water off the mouth of the Santa Cruz, many pebbles, under half an inch in diameter, were thus coated with Flustracean zoophytes. (A pebble, one and a half inch square and half an inch thick, was given me, dredged up from twenty-seven fathoms depth off the western end of the Falkland Islands, where the sea is remarkably stormy, and subject to violent tides. This pebble was encrusted on all sides by a delicate living coralline. I have seen many pebbles from depths between forty and seventy fathoms thus encrusted; one from the latter depth off Cape Horn.) Hence we must conclude that these pebbles are not often violently disturbed: it should, however, be borne in mind that the growth of corallines is rapid. The view, propounded by Professor Playfair, will, I believe, explain this apparent difficulty,--namely, that from the undulations of the sea TENDING to lift up and down pebbles or other loose bodies at the bottom, such are liable, when thus quite or partially raised, to be moved even by a very small force, a little onwards. We can thus understand how oceanic or tidal currents of no great strength, or that recoil movement of the bottom-water near the land, called by sailors the "undertow" (which I presume must extend out seaward as far as the BREAKING waves impel the surface-water towards the beach), may gain the power during storms of sifting and distributing pebbles even of considerable size, and yet without so violently disturbing them as to injure the encrusting corallines. (I may take this opportunity of remarking on a singular, but very common character in the form of the bottom, in the creeks which deeply penetrate the western shores of Tierra del Fuego; namely, that they are almost invariably much shallower close to the open sea at their mouths than inland. Thus, Cook, in entering Christmas Sound, first had soundings in thirty-seven fathoms, then in fifty, then in sixty, and a little farther in no bottom with 170 fathoms. The sealers are so familiar with this fact, that they always look out for anchorage near the entrances of the creeks. See, also, on this subject, the "Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle'" volume 1 page 375 and "Appendix" page 313.