180 ANNITERSAEY ADDRESS 



nation in the world were every year, during the next century, 

 to send out similar expeditions, with improved appliances, for 

 exploring the sea-bed, the field would be far from being exhausted. 

 Every such expedition must be more or less tentative, and can only 

 form the basis for a more complete investigation of " the deep 

 bosom of the ocean." The area of investigation must be measured 

 by many millions of square leagues ; whereas all that has hitherto 

 been effected has beea to scrape in an imperfect manner the surface 

 of a few scores of acres. 



I here exhibit charts to show the tracks of the expeditions in 

 which I have been personally engaged, as well as those of the 

 ' Challenger ' and Norwegian expeditions. 



2. Apparatus. 



The sounding-line, ropes, dredge, trawl, tangles, towing-net, 

 sieves, accumulators, steam-engines, and other contrivances for 

 deep-sea exploration have been so fully described and illustrated in 

 the ' Depths of the Sea ' and Captain Sigsbee's ' Deep-sea Sounding 

 and Dredging,' that it is unnecessary for me to do more than 

 mention those books. The latest improvements consist in the 

 substitution of steel wire for line in sounding, and of galvanized 

 wire-rope for hempen rope in dredging and trawling. Captain 

 Sigsbee's new towing-net for ascertaining whether floating or 

 swimming animals are found in any zone or belt of water lying 

 between the surface and the bottom will be hereafter noticed. It 

 is still a desideratum to invent a dredge for deep sea- work which 

 shall scrape the surface instead of sinking into the ooze or mud. 



3. Faihs^a. 



This word is used by naturalists to denote animal life in contra- 

 distinction to " Flora," or vegetable life. All the recent exploring 

 expeditions have established the fact that animal life of various 

 kinds abounds everywhere in the deepest parts of the ocean. Nor 

 is such life microscopic or minute only. In the ' Challenger ' 

 voyage was procured by the trawl, at the depth of 1600 fathoms, 

 in the South Atlantic (S. lat. 46° 16', E. long. 48° 27'), a living 

 specimen of a magnificent shell belonging to Cymhium, or an allied 

 genus, which is 6|- inches long and 4 inches broad! I dredged 

 other Mollusca from an inch and a half to nearly double that length 

 in the ' Porcupine ' and ' Valorous ' expeditions. "VVillemoes Suhm 

 mentions among the •' Challenger ' discoveries a gigantic crustacean 

 or sea-spider from 1375 fathoms, which measured nearly two feet 

 across the legs. 



Sir Wyville Thomson gives an eloquent description of life in the 



