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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



such depths ! Hence the careful treatment it receives when brought 

 on deck. Fig. 1 1 shows the sieves used. The whole nest of four is 

 used at once. Some of the mud is put into the top one, which has 

 large meshes, these meshes decreasing in size, so that the smallest are 

 in the sieve at the bottom. The whole are set in a deep tub of sea- 

 water. There is to be no turning round of the sieves, as that would 

 break or bruise some of the frail organisms. Taking hold of the han- 

 dles of the bottom sieve, the whole nest is lifted up and down with a 

 gentle churning motion ; and, when the mud is all passed through, the 

 objects are tenderly removed to jars of sea-water. A bone forceps is 

 used for this purpose. 



Fig. 11. 



The Sieves used in separating the Contents of the Dredge in Deep-sea Dredging. 



What a wonderful, yea, fascinating thing, then, is this lovely glass- 

 sponge ! It is amazing that a creature so simple, that it has been called 

 structureless, should surpass all other organisms in its capacity of rear- 

 ing exquisite fabrics. And, now that we have had time to sober down a 

 little in our raptures over its structural beauty, and, so to speak like 

 one that has passed from the pleasant contemplations of art to the 

 graver meditations of philosophy to listen with composure to its 

 deeper teaching, we find it casting new light upon the inquiries of 

 Science even lifting a corner of the veil of the covered past. So 

 little, until lately, did we know about the glass-sponge, that we were 

 like the purblind prehistoric man working patiently at his flint nodule 

 to fashion it into an implement for use, little dreaming that some glass- 

 sponge had been the ancient eliminator and conservator of the solvent 

 silex of the sea, and had, through subsequent geologic action, pre- 

 served its skeleton for the service of that ruder artisan. What a 

 freight of precious knowledge will that be, when the good ship Chal- 

 lenger shall have returned from her four years' dredging around the 

 world, among that newly-opened " Abyssal Fauna," whose province 

 covers 140,000,000 square miles beneath the blue mantle of "the 

 myriad smiling sea ! " 



