of whom were accomplished
musicians, and he struck up quite a friendship with Paul. The
capitalist's son, though but a month or two younger than Colin, was
quite inclined to give the latter a little hero-worship. And it was
significant of Colin's make-up that he was equally ready to take it.
Little of note occurred on the voyage save that the yacht almost ran
over a sunfish in the water, which turned a sluggish somersault and
disappeared. What was of more interest to Colin and indeed to Paul also
was the opportunity to use a very powerful microscope belonging to the
museum curator and to find out about the almost invisible life of the
ocean.

"You must remember," the scientist told them, "that these tiny forms,
which look like the most wonderful figures in a fairyland of geometry,
exist in such billions that as they die, their light shells fall through
the sea like a perpetual rain. Some of them, too, are so very light that
it takes them a month to sink to the bottom."

"But what can such tiny bits of things live on, Mr. Collier?" asked
Paul; "other animals smaller still?"

"No, my boy," was the reply, "on plants called diatoms. There are over
four thousand species of these plants known, which are so small that the
microscopic animals readily engulf them. Where it is too cold for
surface animal life, as in the Antarctic Ocean, these dead diatoms form
the mud on the bottom of the ocean, and in the extremely deep parts, the
sea-bed is red clay, but most of it is an 'ooze'--'Globigerina,' as it
is called--made up of the shells of those very creatures you have now
been seeing on that microscope slide. You drop in and see me at New
York, boys," he added kindly, "and I'll show you some models I have made
of them."

On arrival at Key West one of the first things that impressed itself
upon Colin was the sponge wharf, where tens of thousands of sponges of
every sort were drying in the hot September sun. The conversation had
run upon sponges very frequently during the voyage, and Mr. Collier, who
knew the subject thoroughly from a theoretical point of view, had been
of great help to his host. But the economic and commercial side of the
question was another matter. From this aspect Colin found that the
remembrance of his conversation with Dr. Crafts in Washington stood him
in good stead.

"As I understand it, Mr. Murren," he said, as they stood on the wharf
together, waiting for an approaching boat, "the government looks on