No. 4. — Three Letters from Alexander Agassiz to the Hon. 

 Marshall McDonald, United States Commissioner of Fish and 

 Fisheries, on the Dredging Operations off the West Coast of Cen- 

 tral America to the Galapagos, to the West Coast of Mexico, and 

 in the Gulf of California, in charge of Alexander Agassiz, 

 carried on by the IT. S. Fish Commission Steamer "Albatross," 

 Lieut. Commander Z. L. Tanner, U. S. N., Commanding. 



Steamer Albatross, Panama, U. S. of Colombia, 

 March 14, 1891 



My dear Colonel McDonald : — 



We returned yesterday from our first trip. The route extended from 

 Panama to Point Mala, and next to Cocos Island ; from there we ran in 

 a southerly direction, then northwesterly to Malpelo Island, and back to 

 the hundred-fathom line off the Bay of Panama. We spent several days 

 trawling off the continental plateau of the Bay. This trip being rather 

 in the nature of a feeler, I cannot tell you just what I think it means. 

 But I believe I can to some extent conjecture probabilities from what 

 has been accomplished. 



I have found, in the first place, a great many of my old West Indian 

 friends. In nearly all the groups of marine forms among the Fishes, 

 Crustacea, Worms, Mollusks, Echinoderms, and Polyps, we have found 

 familiar West Indian types or east coast forms, and have also found 

 epiite a number of forms whose wide geographical distribution was 

 already known, and is now extended to the Eastern Pacific. This was 

 naturally to be expected from the fact that the district we are exploring 

 is practically a new field, nothing having been done except what the 

 " Albatross " herself has accomplished along the west coast of North 

 and South America. The " Challenger," as you will remember, came 

 fvom Japan to the Sandwich Islands, and from there south across to 

 Juan Fernandez, leaving, as it were, a huge field of which we are 

 attacking the middle wedge. As far as we have gone, it seems verv 



VOL. XXI — NO 4. 



