NO. H.] ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF THE SAMPLES. 49 



No. 14, about 10 per cent of the sand (0'57 per cent of the entire 

 sample) was made up of Foraminifera, almost exclusively Globigerinae. The 

 difference of their quantity in this and the preceding sample is not easy 

 to account for, as they were taken in the immediate vicinity of one another, 

 and are very similar in all other respects. 



No. 15, about 40 per cent of the sand (383 per cent of the entire sample) 

 was made up of Foraminifera, almost exclusively Globigerinse. This is the 

 largest amount that has been found in any of the samples. There was too 

 little of No. 16, which lay considerably farther to the NW, for examination; 

 but the chemical analysis shows that this sample can contain only very few 

 Formanifera. The reason of this is probably to be found in its situation in 

 rather close proximity to Franz Josef Land, of which the consequence is a 

 large deposit of terrigenous matter. If there is any part of the sea north of 

 Siberia where one might expect to find samples even richer in Foraminifera, 

 it must be the still unknown regions north-east of No. 15. It can hardly 

 be expected, however, that a percentage will be found anywhere so relatively 

 large, as to permit of the sample being designated Globigerina Ooze. 



Coccoliths were found only in No. 15, and then only after a very long 

 search, and in very small numbers. They are so unbroken, however, that 

 it is not probable that they originate from early deposits in Siberia. As they 

 occur in such small numbers, it is not certain that they come from cocco- 

 spheres that have lived in the Arctic Ocean itself; but they may possibly 

 have been brought all the way from the Atlantic Ocean by the previously 

 mentioned, warm undercurrent. In size and shape they exactly correspond with 

 the species found in the North Atlantic, described by Ostenfeld 1 under the 

 name Coccosphaera atlantlca. 



It will be sufficiently evident from the above, that the samples here 

 discussed contain, as has been already pointed out, exceedingly few organic 

 constituents, and therefore, in this way, occupy a somewhat unique position 

 among sea-bottom deposits. When the organisms are not found in larger 

 quantities in bottom-samples, the deeper of which at least must be assumed 



1 'Ueber Coccosphaera und einige neue Tintinniden im Plankton des nOrdlichen Atlant- 

 ischen Oceans.' Zool. Anzeiger, Vol. XXII, No. 601, 1899; and 'Ueber Coccosphaera.' 

 Ibid, Vol. XXIII, No. 612, 1900. 



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