14 



The first major expedition for the purpose of general biological collecting 

 into the Gulf of California was carried out by the U.S. Fish Commission 

 steamer Albatross under Alexander Agassiz in 1891 and again in 

 1904-05. Many of the stations occupied by the Albatross were taken in 

 deep water, and most of the deep-water invertebrate species (especially 

 the moUusks) collected during this present study were originally collected 

 and described through the efforts of the "Albatross Expedition". A com- 

 plete list of stations and the early papers resulting from this expedition 

 can be found in Townsend (1901). A final expedition into the Gulf of 

 California by the Albatross was undertaken in 1911, these results being 

 again reported by Townsend (1916). The papers resulting from this series 

 of expeditions by the Albatross provide by far the greatest existing 

 accumulation of data on the animals living in the deeper portions of 

 the Gulf. 



Between 1929 and 1931, Herbert N. Lowe carried out a number of 

 moUusk collections in the Gulf of California, which were later described 

 by him and also by H. A. Pilsbry. A list of these papers may be found 

 under the respective authors in Keen (1958). Most of the moUusks de- 

 scribed by Lowe are in the San Diego Museum of Natural History, and 

 served as a basis for comparison in the identification of the present 

 collection. 



The 1921 expedition to the Gulf of California by the California Academy 

 of Sciences provided additional information on the biology of the flora and 

 fauna of the Gulf. These results were published by a number of investigators 

 including Baker (1926), Baker and Hanna (1927), Oldroyd (1918) and 

 Slevin (1923). The "Templeton Crocker Expedition" of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences in 1936, under William Beebe (1937), provided 

 new information on moUusks and decapods, as well as many other in- 

 vertebrate groups from intensive dredging and shallow-water collecting. 

 The moUusks were described in great detail, along with abundant eco- 

 logical information by Hertlein and Strong (1940-1951). Papers dealing 

 with the other invertebrate groups may be found in Zoologica, the publi- 

 cation of the New York Zoological Society, in the years from about 1940 

 to date. A rather large collection of intertidal invertebrates was obtained 

 by the "Steinbeck-Ricketts Expedition" of 1939. Some of the data re- 

 sulting from this trip was included in the narrative of the expedition by 

 Steinbeck and Ricketts (1941). 



The next major expedition into the Gulf of California, and the first one 

 to study the oceanography and geology of the Gulf was the 1939-1940 

 "E. W. Scripps Cruise to the Gulf of California", under the sponsorship 



