188 BULLETIN OF THE 



of surface Globigerinse and Orbuliuse. On one occasion the trawl came 

 up literally tilled with masses of a species of Rhabdamina closely allied 

 to E. lineata. Thus far no pelagic Alga; have been met with. 



It is interesting to note that at two localities we came across patches 

 of modern greensand similar in formation to the patches discovered off 

 the east coast of the United States by the earlier dredgings of the Coast 

 Survey, of Pourtales, and of the " Blake." Having always been more or 

 less interested in pelagic faume, and having paid considerable attention 

 to its vertical distribution during my earlier cruises in the " Blake," I 

 was naturally anxious to reconcile the conflicting statements and ex- 

 periences of the naturalists of the " Challenger" and " Gazelle " on one 

 side, and my own observations on the other. Both Murray and Studer 

 contended that, in addition to the deep sea and pelagic faunae, there was 

 what might be called an intermediate fauna with characteristic species, 

 having nothing in common with the other two; while I maintained, 

 on the other hand, from my experiments in the " Blake," that there 

 was no such intermediate fauna, but that the pelagic fauna might de- 

 scend to a considerable depth during the daytime to escape the effects 

 of light, heat, and the disturbing influence of surface winds, and that 

 this surface fauna on the Atlantic side — off shore in deep water — did 

 not descend much deeper than 150 to 200 fathoms. In order to test 

 this point, Dr. Chun, under the auspices of the Naples Station, made an 

 expedition to the Ponza Islands. Dr. Chun applied to a tow-net an 

 apparatus for closing it, similar to the propeller in use on our ther- 

 mometer and water cups. He towed to a depth of 1,400 meters, if I am 

 not mistaken, but never at any great distance from the mainland or 

 from the islands of the Gulf of Naples, and came to the conclusion that 

 the pelagic fauna existed all the way to the bottom. At the time, I 

 considered his experiments inconclusive, and was of course anxious to 

 repeat them in a strictly oceanic district, in great depths, and at a con- 

 siderable distance from shore. I had an apparatus constructed by 

 Ballauf of Washington, similar to that used by Dr. Chun. Unfortu- 

 nately, in testing it we found the pressure of the tow-net against the 

 propeller shaft so great as to make the machine useless, or at any rate, 

 most unreliable. Thanks to the ingenuity of Captain Tanner, we over- 

 came these obstacles. He devised a net which could be closed at any 

 depth by a messenger, and which worked to perfection at 200, 400, 300, 

 and 1,000 fathoms, and had the great advantage of bringing np anything 

 it might find on its way up above the level at which it was towed. The 

 lower part of the bag alone was closed by a double set of slings pulled 



