176 ANNIVEESABX ADDEESS 



H. M.S. 'Valorous' between Bantry Bay and Hare Island in Davis 

 Strait. This ship accompanied the ' Alert ' and ' Discovery ' on their 

 way northwards. After a voyage of three months, which was 

 rendered more eventful by a cyclonic storm and a partial shipwreck 

 on the coast of Greenland, we succeeded in working 16 stations, with 

 depths of from 20 to 1785 fathoms. Here also, and even in the 

 midst of icebergs, submarine life showed no diminution in number 

 or extent. 



To this short recital of our later expeditions I must not omit to 

 add a notice of the valuable and suggestive researches which were 

 accomplished under considerable diificuldes by Dr. "Wallich in H.M.S. 

 ' Bulldog ' in 1860, while she was engaged in surveying the I^orth- 

 Atlantic sea-bed for the purpose of establishing telegraphic commu- 

 nication between this country and North America. The results of 

 these researches were published in Dr. Wallich's important work, 

 entitled ' The North- Atlantic Sea-bed ; comprising a Diary of the 

 Voyage on board H.M.S. "Bulldog" in 1860, and observations on the 

 presence of Animal Life, and the Formation and Nature of Organic 

 Deposits at great Depths in the Ocean.' On the return voyage, 

 about midway between Cape Farewell and Rockall, thirteen star- 

 fishes came up from a sounding-line of 1260 fathoms, "convulsively 

 embracing a portion of the sounding-line which had been payed out 

 in excess of the already ascertained depth, and rested for a sufficient 

 period at the bottom to permit of their attaching themselves to it." 



AshortvoyageinH.M.S. 'Shearwater' through the Mediterranean 

 in 1871 enabled Dr. Carpenter to have some dredging between Sicily 

 and the northern coast of Africa, on the Adventure and Skerki Banks. 

 This dredging was by no means unproductive ; but the depths did 

 not exceed 200 fathoms, which we are now inclined to call " shallow 

 water"; Dr. Carpenter's word was "shallows." Fifty years ago 

 such depths would have been regarded by naturalists as peculiarly 

 "abyssal"! 



The elaborate Report of my lamented friend Professor Edward 

 Forbes on the investigation of British Marine Zoology by means of 

 the dredge, which he submitted to the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in 1850, and to which I contributed as a 

 humble fellow worker, was preceded by his equally valuable "Beport 

 on the Mollusca and Badiata of the ^gean Sea, and on their Distri- 

 bution, considered as bearing on Geology." The last-mentioned 

 Report was published by the Association in 1844. Forbes's conclu- 

 sion that the sea-bottom at a depth of 300 fathoms is lifeless, because 

 he found that life diminished gradually, and almost ceased when he 

 dredged at 230 fathoms, has certainly been proved to be inaccurate 



